📍South Orange, NJ 07079, USA
1975 – 1993“Lauryn Noelle Hill was born in East Orange, New Jersey, in May 1975, and grew up in South Orange, a leafy, diverse suburb west of Newark, with her parents, Mal, a computer consultant, and Valerie, an English teacher, and her older brother, Malaney. Music filled the house: her father sang at weddings and in local clubs, and the family had a huge collection of soul and Motown records, so she grew up on Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight. She was a high achiever. Her first public performance was The Star-Spangled Banner before a middle school basketball game, and at Columbia High School in Maplewood she ran track, was a cheerleader, took violin lessons, took advanced placement classes and started the school's gospel choir. In 1988, at thirteen, she went on Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and sang Smokey Robinson's Who's Lovin' You; she was nervous and was booed at first, but she kept going and finished to cheers. At school she met Prakazrel Pras Michel, a friend of her brother, and with his cousin Wyclef Jean they formed a group that became the Fugees, short for refugees. She also acted, appearing in the soap opera As the World Turns and later in Sister Act 2. She went to Columbia University briefly, but the Fugees' album The Score, in 1996, became one of the best-selling hip-hop albums ever. Her solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, won five Grammy Awards, including album of the year, the first hip-hop album to do so. South Orange remains proud of her.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today