Rewind: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is one of those albums that will always be tethered to the late-90s, and for me, the last few whiffs of being a twenty-something. As Bonita Applebum succinctly lays it out:

Lauryn was unapologetically woman and a strong and well-spoken one at that. It is such an intensely personal album that speaks to the struggles we all face. I listen to this album on a regular basis. It is inspiring and uplifting, and it never fails to make me sing along or wop it out.

I think it's also important to note how absolutely huge this record was in an era of grungy rockers and teenage pop stars. Lauryn Hill's music seemed to be everywhere the last few years of the nineties, and a year later, she completely dropped out of the public eye. She later said in Essence magazine:

People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at that time… I had to step away when I realized that for the sake of the machine, I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable about having to smile in someone's face when I really didn't like them or even know them well enough to like them. (source)

Out of the dozen or so songs on the record, there's hardly a weak track, but one of my favorites has always been "Ex-Factor." Yeah, it was one her biggest hits, but more than a decade later still sounds fresh.



One of the things that strikes me most about this album is that she's at the center of every song. It doesn't seem that revolutionary on the surface -- aren't songwriters supposed to be at the center of their songs, even when they are highly fictionalized? I think it's the expectation that women aren't supposed to claim that much for themselves. She inserts her own experiences, her own name, into her songs instead of sticking to general themes of love and loss and growing up -- though all those things are there.