It just occured to me that the picture of Lauryn Hill on the cover of Essence that I keep seeing in the supermarket checkout line might mean that her long-awaited new album is upon us. As it turns out, a Fugee reunion album is due early this year. And while I'm no Fugee fan, I'm a huge Lauryn Hill fan and will tolerate Wyclef's rapping/whooping noises to hear anything out of the mouth of the divine Ms. Hill that even approaches the genius of The Miseducation.

That said, her insistence on actually being called "Ms. Hill" and other strange behavior (see link above) raises questions of whether she is any happier or more grounded now than she was during those ugly MTV Unplugged days. And if that album is any indication, an unhappy Lauryn makes bad music (see, for example "Mystery of Iniquity"). I'm hoping for the best, but I fear that this might be a disaster.

UPDATE: The first single of the new album, "Take It Easy", is up on iTunes. From the thirty second preview, it's, um, not very good.