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The music industry is in trouble. With the current
saturation of boy bands like The Backstreet Boys and N’Sync, the demise of rap, the death of rock ‘n’ roll, and the lack of performers who are truly interesting, America is in serious need of a new musical muse.
Enter Lauryn Hill, a life long performer who rose to minimal fame with movies like Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and hit it big in 1996 with the release of her first album, the Fugees’ The Score. Winning critical acclaim and financial success, the album catapulted Lauryn into R&B superstardom. All of that, however, wasn’t enough for Lauryn. She still had something to say.
Fast forward to Tuesday, Aug. 25 1998. The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill is released and sells more than 450,000 copies in it’s first week. In the 10 weeks since, the album has sold more than 2 million copies. The lead-off single, “Doo Wop (That Thing),” went number one in America. Lauryn Hill has made her statement, and she is here to stay.
The album is amazing, with introspective lyrics combining with smooth R&B to create sheer poetry in motion. The themes she covers on the album are simple: learning to love herself, her love for her son, learning from the past, and learning from the pain of trying to find herself. But her presentation of such personal messages is what makes this collection of music so extraordinary. Many people may not be able to relate to her struggle to reach fame, and the lessons learned on the way, but what Hill wants us to understand is that the struggle is universal. We are all trying to be heard, just in different ways and under different circumstances.
At first, the album is almost so personal it’s intimidating. Hill starts us off in a classroom, with attendance being taken. The teacher calls out for Lauryn Hill, but she is nowhere to be found. Innocent as this beginning seems, it has stark implications. This album is about love, after all, and she has minimized love to a classroom discussion in which she never got to take part. She shows us that love isn’t about being adult, but about looking into the child within that loves unconditionally. The teens presented on this CD may be learning what love is all about, but in reality, they are teaching everyone to feel love, not to think through love.
The rap, hip-hop, and R&B nature of the music may initially scare anti-rap listeners away, but Hill has taken these somewhat culture-specific musical genres and turned them into music that will make even the most anti-rap listener stop and truly listen.
The tracks that make the most impact on the CD are those that have the most personal yet universal themes. The themes may be blanketed in harsh, urban sounding surroundings, but the music always fits with the lyrics and message of the songs. With this album, Hill creates a complete musical vision.
Perhaps the most impressive feat about this album is that it is entirely produced and written by Hill, an accomplishment even the most successful superstar musicians can’t claim. Hill is a self-made musical genius, and this album is all from her heart, not from the mind of a producer hired to write numberone songs.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill marks the beginning of a new era in music. The music-buying public is beginning to want more from their favorite artists, and they’re reaching out for some light in the musical darkness that surrounds them. Hill has arrived, and she is the brightly shining light at the end of the tunnel.
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