The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Lauryn  Hill was born in South Orange, New Jersey and was the child of a teacher and computer consultant. When growing up, Hill was always enamored by the arts and would compete in singing competitions. After the age of 13, she met Pras Michel and Wyclef Jean , and the three formed the band called the Fugees. The band would later go on to sell millions of album copies for the album The Score. However, conflicts between the bandmates eventually led to the dissolution of the band. During a hiatus, Hill took time off to focus on her pregnancy with her first child. During the pregnancy, Hill felt inspired and began to write over thirty songs ranging from love experiences to conflicts in the Fugees.  From her experiences writing R&B, gospel, and hip-hop she drew from prior experiences to write the album the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. With creating the album, Hill wanted it to reflect her emotions and refused to have others contribute to the making of the album. Hill did not want the album to be perfect, she wanted the album to reflect her and only wanted to make “honest music”. The dedication to her craft, led to her publish the album in 1998, two years after giving birth to her first child. The album gained critical acclaim and is still considered one the best R&B albums to ever be produced.

In the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, she uses multiple instruments on the album and in each track conveys a different meaning. For the track Doo-Wop ( That Thing), Hill comments on self-respect and how the issue of sex dominates society. For instance with the lyrics, Don't think I haven't been through the same predicament Let it sit inside your head like a million women in Philly, Penn It's silly when girls sell their souls because it's in Look at where you be in, hair weaves like Europeans Fake nails done by Koreans.Come again. Hill uses this line to show that women do not need to conform to Eurocentric standards in order to be deemed beautiful by societal standards. With the line ‘come again’ Hill is trying to challenge women to be more than sexual objects and that women should remove the inorganic  beauty products. In Doo-Wop, Hill tells men and women to avoid societal pressures and become independent.  For the track Doo-Wop, the song starts with a piano, a deep bass, and a simple hip-hop beat. This sound sets the tone for the rest of the song because it intertwines classical, soul, and R&B music together. The intertwining of the different beats meshes well with the acapella style of singing Hill uses in the song causing an earthy feel to the song. The vocals in the song are loud and powerful which helps communicates the theme of self-respect and self-love. 

I find the album beautiful because every track on the album had a different message and Hill used the album to reflect her own pain, however,  the listener is capable of relating to the messages in the album. Furthermore, I am impressed by how the instruments were incorporated into each song because it made the album versatile since the beats in the songs could be upbeat or be full of emotion.  I find the album to be a masterpiece because I am able to relate to her message and felt like Hill was an older wiser sister with sound advice. Prior to listening to Doo-Wop, I felt the need to give in to Western standards of beauty and reject my culture, however, after much internal searching and being introduced to the song Doo-Wop, I realized that Hill wanted women to see that self-respect mattered and viewing one’s self as beautiful is more important than society's views. The dedication that went into the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill even with many obstacles in her way amazed me because she was confident in her craft even though many criticized her for becoming a female rapper in a male-dominated career. Her confidence reflected into the album and made the album a classic masterpiece.