Beyonce Comments on Lauryn Hill's "Tragic" Story

KB was viewing the Black Voices website and showed me the following quote, which was made by Beyonce: "'Her story is the most tragic. Her album was genius. I know I'm more than a singer and I have so many other things in my life to keep me focused. I hope and pray that I stay as comfortable in my own skin as I am right now.' -- Beyonce Knowles Explaining Why She'll Never "Lose Herself" Like Lauryn Hill"

After reading the quote, I had to find the article where she made this comment so that I could put it in the right context. I mean, Beyonce has been slowly but surely losing my respect, and now it appeared that she was talking junk about Lauryn Hill, my favorite Hip Hop artist. So I found the article on the internet and read it:

Beyonce Deals With Fame

by Daniel Zugna

August 21 2006

Beyonce Knowles has claimed that she will never "lose herself" like Lauryn Hill.

Beyonce described the former Fugees star's story as "tragic", claiming that Hill has been unable to cope with the demands of fame and success.

Whilst Beyonce describes Hill's story to be tragic, others view her self-imposed exile as inspiring. After the phenomenal commercial and critical success of 1998's 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill', she returned head-shaved and glam-free with the 'MTV Unplugged' album of 2002, and has since performed at underprivileged schools across New York, channelling her humanitarian ethos. Hill also made an appearance at Dave Chapelle's Block Party in 2004, documented in the Michel Gondry film of this year.

Still, Beyonce said, "[Lauryn Hill's] story is the most tragic. I mean, her record was genius. But drama and demands and the pressure and all of the people giving you so much access to so many things can be too much.

"I don't know what's going to happen to me but I know I'm more than a singer and I have so many other things in my life to keep me focused. I hope and pray that I stay as comfortable in my own skin as I am right now."

Beyonce's new album, 'B'Day' is released worldwide on September 4, and in the US on September 5, to coincide with the star's 25th birthday.

I don't look at Lauryn Hill's story as tragic; I view it as triumphant. Many people called and are still calling her crazy. I beg to differ. She found a knowledge, the same knowledge that Gnarls Barkley describes in "Crazy," which sounds contradictory but its not a real crazy.

Its the kind of crazy in which a person discovers truth and is viewed as "crazy," weird, or different by outsiders who don't understand and who don't have the same truth. I equate her leave of absence from the limelight with Dave Chapelle's exodus. Both realized that there were people in their lives who were controlling them, exploiting them, and who were restricting them by putting them in boxes they didn't subscribe to. They realized they were becoming persons whom they didn't like anymore and they needed, to quote Hill, " to get out". They needed to get free to be who they were supposed to be. And thus they became conscious people.

So maybe Beyonce is comfortable with her commercial self and maybe she has no problem being her own video ho to Jay-Z in her Deja Vu video in which he pimped her and maybe she's ok with her own definition of deja vu being that in her song she experiences a day dream and not the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time. Be happy with yourself B, but don't refer to Lauryn's awakening, coming of age, as "the most tragic." Guess I'll be celebrating my 'B'Day' in March.