Lauryn Hill Pays Tribute to ‘Beauty and Brilliance’ of Roberta Flack

Lauryn Hill paid loving tribute to the “beauty and brilliance” of late quiet storm singer Robert Flack on Tuesday (Feb. 25) in a lengthy post in which the Fugees frontwoman and solo star described the world-changing, enduring impact the “Killing Me Softly With His Song” singer had on her life and career.

“Whitney Houston once said to me that Roberta Flack’s voice was one of the purest voices she’d ever heard. I grew up scouring the records my Parents collected. Mrs. Flack was one of their favorites and quite instantly became one of mine as soon as I was exposed to her,” Hill, 49, said of Grammy-winning singer Flack, who died on Monday at 88 of undisclosed causes.

“She looked cool and intelligent, gentle and yet militant. The songs she recorded from ‘Compared To What’ to ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ to her version of ‘Ballad Of The Sad Young Men’ fascinated me with their beauty and sophistication,” Hill continued in an Instagram post that featured a gallery of Flack in her 1970s prime, as well as a shot of the two women together as part of one of the many emotional tributes to the singer, pianist and lifelong educator.

“Mrs. Flack was an artist, a singer-songwriter, a pianist and composer who moved me and showed me through her own creative choices and standards what else was possible within the idiom of Soul,” wrote Hill, who noted that though Flack did not write her Grammy-winning, career-defining 1973 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Killing Me Softly With His Song” — it was penned by Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel and Lori Lieberman — she made it “hugely popular.”

In fact, not only did Flack score a No. 1 with the track and win record of the year and best pop vocal performance, female Grammys for “Killing” in 1974, she also gave Hill and her group the song that “catapulted myself and the Fugees into household phenomena.”

The hip-hop group recorded their own version of the song in 1996 and also hit No. 1 around the world — though not in the U.S. because it wasn’t officially released as a commercial single — topping the Pop Airplay and R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay charts on its way to winning the group a Grammy for best R&B vocal performance by a duo/group and an MTV Video Music Award for best R&B video. Flack and the Fugees performed the song together at the 1996 VMAS.

“We wanted to honor the beauty and brilliance of this song and her performance of it to our generation,” Hill wrote. “I will forever be grateful for the sensitivity and delicate power of her Love and Artistry. Rest in Grace Beloved One.”

Check out Hill’s tribute here.