Earlier this week, Roberta Flack, best known for “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” passed away at 88. Today, Lauryn Hill, who famously covered that 1973 hit with the Fugees in 1996, shared a eulogy for the R&B icon.
"Whitney Houston once said to me that Roberta Flack’s voice was one of the purest voices she’d ever heard," Hill wrote on X. She continued:
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. 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. 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. Killing Me Softly, a song Mrs. Flack didn’t write, but made hugely popular became the song that catapulted myself and the Fugees into household phenomena. We wanted to honor the beauty and brilliance of this song and her performance of it to our generation. I will forever be grateful for the sensitivity and delicate power of her Love and Artistry. Rest in Grace Beloved One.
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. She looked… pic.twitter.com/XkZksokeTm
— Ms. Lauryn Hill (@MsLaurynHill) February 27, 2025
