Earlier this week, Roberta Flack, finest identified for “Killing Me Softly With His Track,” handed away at 88. As we speak, Lauryn Hill, who famously coated that 1973 hit with the Fugees in 1996, shared a eulogy for the R&B icon.
“Whitney Houston as soon as stated to me that Roberta Flack’s voice was one of many purest voices she’d ever heard,” Hill wrote on X. She continued:
I grew up scouring the data my Dad and mom collected. Mrs. Flack was one in every of their favorites and fairly immediately grew to become one in every of mine as quickly as I used to be uncovered to her. She appeared cool and clever, light and but militant. The songs she recorded from ‘In contrast To What’ to ‘The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face’ to her model of ‘Ballad Of The Unhappy Younger Males’ fascinated me with their magnificence and class. Mrs. Flack was an artist, a singer-songwriter, a pianist and composer who moved me and confirmed me by her personal artistic selections and requirements what else was attainable inside the idiom of Soul. Killing Me Softly, a track Mrs. Flack didn’t write, however made massively widespread grew to become the track that catapulted myself and the Fugees into family phenomena. We wished to honor the sweetness and brilliance of this track and her efficiency of it to our technology. I’ll without end be pleased about the sensitivity and delicate energy of her Love and Artistry. Relaxation in Grace Beloved One.
Whitney Houston as soon as stated to me that Roberta Flack’s voice was one of many purest voices she’d ever heard. I grew up scouring the data my Dad and mom collected. Mrs. Flack was one in every of their favorites and fairly immediately grew to become one in every of mine as quickly as I used to be uncovered to her. She appeared… pic.twitter.com/XkZksokeTm
— Ms. Lauryn Hill (@MsLaurynHill) February 27, 2025