Lauryn Hill was feeling jovial on Saturday at Governo’s Island in New York City. One of the main attractions on the lineup, Hill was making her second stop on the Rock the Bells Tour, where we grabbed the opportunity to ask her when she might release her first studio album since 1998.

“We’re getting closer,” she said with a chuckle. “We’re getting closer. That’s all I can say.”

One thing seems certain when she does drop the follow-up LP: There won’t be many, if any, collaborations. She has too much to express after being mostly gone for more than a decade.

“I have respect for what people do,” Hill said. “I also like to hear the eclectics, I like to hear the mixture. There’s a lot of different creative energies out there right now. I respect the different sounds that I’m hearing. It’s been such a long time since I’ve gotten my voice and my ideas [out]. In terms of collaborations, that’s not even something I’ve been thinking about per se. I’m happy that people are still making music. That we still have a platform with which to make music. It’s gonna be interesting to see what the future holds.”

When Hill thinks about the current musical landscape, the iconic MC/songstress said she realizes it’s very different from the ’90s, but that there is nothing wrong with that.

“It’s a lot going on,” Hill said. “It’s interesting energy. It’s not what it was, it’s different. That doesn’t necessarily means it’s a bad thing — it’s a different thing. Just like any new opportunity, it’s ripe for a lot of different things. You got a lot of young talent out there. Because we don’t necessarily have the same sort of industry complex that used to exist, people don’t always give, I want to say, proper respect to. But they’re doing it in a really kind of unusual, unique and hard-core way. Because the system is not necessarily in place like it used to be.”

Lauryn Hill Says New Album Is Getting “Closer”