Lauryn Hill is a well-known singer, songwriter, producer, rapper, and multi-hyphenate for a reason. When she was 22 and expecting her first child, the eight-time Grammy winner expertly penned and produced one of the most important hip-hop albums in the genre’s history. It is important to reflect on why “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” continues to be a landmark in people’s life as the genre that Hill revolutionized reaches 50 and the album turns 25.
By fusing reggae, hip-hop, and soul to create her own sound distinct from that of the Biggie and Tupac-dominated, NWA-fueled hip-hop scene, Hill revolutionized the genre in her own unique way. She literally reinvented what mainstream music looked like after decades of Black musicians being shut out of the bigger debate in popular music with her distinctive, ground-breaking sound, which even made the transition to pop. “Miseducation” was the first hip-hop album to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. Then-23-year-old Hill declared in her winning speech, “This is crazy because this is hip-hop music.” She is still the most recent Black woman to get the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
The cross-gendered misunderstandings spurred rivalry between Black men and women and their viewpoints on money, sex, and power while being surrounded by a male-dominated hip-hop environment in the 1990s. Female hip-hop singers like Salt-N-Pepa, Lil’Kim, Queen Latifah, and Missy Elliott questioned who controlled power and how it was used, sometimes through money, other times through vulnerability or sexual prowess.
Furthermore, Hill addressed each of these issues in her sole solo album. She wittily responded to them in her wordsmith-like rhythms and reggae and neo-soul-tinged sounds, taking pride in her Black womanhood. The lead track off her album “Miseducation” was “Doo Wop (That Thing).” It ended up becoming Hill’s lone Billboard No. 1 hit. The song discussed the same power struggle that runs across the album’s overall subject. The song “Doo Wop (That Thing)” served as a critique of shallow relationships and love, as well as women finding their independence, self-worth, and strength outside of men and their outward appearance.
Other songs on the Miseducation album
With the song “To Zion,” which featured the great guitarist Carlos Santana, Hill not only masterfully captured the real-life experience of Black girlhood and the passage into womanhood. She also sang about genuine, unrelenting sadness. Her former bandmate Wyclef Jean, with whom she had a love involvement for several years in the 1990s until it caused the Grammy-winning group the Fugees to break up, is the subject of several of the album’s best tracks, including “I Used to Love Him” with R&B superstar Mary J. Blige.
On June 23, 2002, American vocalist Lauryn Hill gave a solo acoustic performance at Carnegie Hall as part of the JVC Jazz Festival. (Jack Vartoogian/Getty Pictures))It’s believed that “Ex-Factor,” a mellow, timeless R&B song about ending a relationship, also refers to Hill’s connection with Jean. Hill begs her boyfriend to leave her in agony, confused that they aren’t living up to their verbal promises.
Love is the solution, as demonstrated by Hill and legendary ’90s R&B performer D’Angelo in their song “Nothing Even Matters,” which features buttery falsettos and a magnificent vocal performance. The soul-filled, seductive duet glides like an effortless love, free of anguish, in contrast to the remainder of the album’s pulsating heartache.
The variety of Hill’s artistic output will live on in hip-hop and pop culture history forever. This explains why her music appeals to a brand-new generation of hip-hop and R&B fans who found Hill on TikTok because to the platform’s widespread use of viral samples from her songs in videos. Not only is the singer well-liked on TikTok, but many new-age hip-hop musicians who are promoting the revival of hip-hop and R&B in the present music industry look to her for creative inspiration. Both Cardi B’s song “Be Careful” and Drake’s 2018 hit “Nice for What” sampled “Ex-Factor.” Numerous other musicians, including Omarion, Kehlani, and Kanye West, have also used samples from Hill.
The musician, who has largely avoided the spotlight since her rocky encounters with stardom after the release of “Miseducation,” is returning to tour the cherished record across the United States for its 25th anniversary, with opening acts the Fugees. The societal ramifications and effects “Miseducation” has had on music are probably not something that Hill herself could have ever foreseen or completely comprehended when she was writing the song. But this is what gives the album its ageless and invincible quality. Hill embodied what it meant to be an independent, young Black woman in America, and for that, she will always be deserving of her flowers.
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