Lauryn Hill Visits Harvard To Talk Building Community Within Songwriting “Purpose. Love. Passion. Connecting.”

Fresh off her making her Met Gala debut, Lauryn Hill stuck around the East Coast to kick it with the youth.

The singer made her way to Harvard, where she spoke on a panel. With two rare public-facing events back to back, she expressed that she hadn’t done an interview in a while and hopes her contribution to the conversation isn’t “underwhelming.”

Also rare is Hill releasing music, and she hasn’t dropped an album since the highly regarded The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998. Still, so many years later, she offered the audience advice on her writing method and finding joy and inspiration in her surroundings.

“I find what I love, I find what I care about, and then I write about that. I have mind and motion and need. Combined. That’s what I do, which I’m sure all of you are doing,” she said.

She even boils it down to a few core principles of “Purpose. Love. Passion. Connecting.”

Beyond that, Hill says that before putting pen to paper, it is also essential to build a community around you that can help fuel your creative process and theirs.

“Curate a community, find a community. People who understand you. Who get you. Who can appreciate, who can reflect you. Who can resonate, so you’re not in a vacuum. You can bounce ideas off of someone. They can also articulate appreciation. You can articulate appreciation back. I think these are very healthy and important things in the world.”

This isn’t the first time Hill has visited the revered campus; she reportedly went there in 2023 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

At Monday night’s Met Gala, Hill blurred gender formalwear norms with a Jude Dontoh-designed yellow suit with a train attached. She also worked with Ghanaian jewelry designer Emefa Cole to ensure she wore accessories that paid homage to Ghanaian royalty, staying true to the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” theme.

Still, with all the flashing lights, she avoided interviews, only responding ”Everything” to one journalist who asked what Black style meant to her.