Hot 97 Summer Jam Drama: Lauryn Hill Denies That She Was To Perform With Nicki Minaj In Statement

Monday, June 4th, 2012 at 5:41 PM

Jen Diaz/Hot 97

Singer Lauryn Hill had to straighten up some rumors earlier today on Twitter when she caught wind that she was slated to have been the surprise guest performance at the Hot 97 Summer Jam – along with Nas – on stage with pop rapper Nicki Minaj. Lauryn & Nas did indeed do a rendition of “If I ruled the World” but Nicki never performed there because she pulled out of her own set at the last minute. It seems that Young Money and Lil Wayne did not appreciate the sly comments that Peter Rosenburg said about NM during the concert, basically dissing her song “Starships.” And, Nicki, who instead of sucking it up and supporting fans who bought tickets to see her opted to go partying the night away with fellow rapper Foxy Brown, which also seemed to ruffle some feathers of Lil Kim as both of them are not the best of friends with her at all. Yup, this is alot for one day, lol.

The drama doesn’t end there though. Afterwards Funk Master Flex called out Nicki Minaj for dropping out of the show and we still haven’t heard the last of that since she is supposed to be explaining herself tonight on his radio program.

Anyways, when all this came to Lauryn’s attention, she quickly said it’s actually not so, and I really don’t blame her! In her own words she said:

No disrespect to Nicki, but I need to clear up an inaccuracy. I was not scheduled to be a special guest on her set at Summer Jam, I was invited by Nas to perform with him. I don’t have details on exactly what transpired between the station and the artists, but I do support artists standing by their beliefs, and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music, while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted, or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics. We can do better than this, there is a better way, or else ‘we’ (the proverbial we) find ourselves in danger of being hypocrites!!!

Ms. Lauryn Hill

At the end of the day, the show still was successful and things pretty much still ran smoothly despite some bumps in the road. Below, check out Lauryn as she did her thing at the Summer Jam: