‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ turns 25
Its profound impact, J’can touchpoints
Published:Sunday | August 27, 2023 | 12:08 AMJ.T. Davy - Sunday Gleaner Writer
“I wanted to write songs that lyrically move me and have the integrity of reggae and the knock of hip-hop and the instrumentation of classic soul,” says Ms Lauryn Hill in a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone.
As history would have it, Hill did just that on August 25, 1998, when she released her now acclaimed first solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. An instant classic, it reflects on love, self-acceptance, home, fame, capitalism, materialism, misogyny, motherhood, blackness as well as black American and African diasporic philosophy. This year the album celebrates its 25th anniversary, it seems fitting to explore how Hill explored Jamaican music and culture, in her magnum opus.
Opening with a classroom roll call where Hill is noticeably absent, the album’s takes its title from Carter G. Woodson 1933 publication, ‘The Miseducation of the Negro’. Its cover, however, is an ode to Jamaica music. The album cover features Hill’s face carved into a piece of wood which takes its inspiration from the cover art of The Wailer’s 1973 album, Burnin’. This album, released in 1973 and the last before Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer left the band and it became Bob Marley and The Wailers, features the bandmates face carved into wood.
Hill’s love for Bob Marley is no secret as on the Grammy winning rap album, The Score, recorded by The Fugees (the rap group made up of Hill, Praz and Wyclef Jean) consists of a cover of Marley’s No Woman No Cry. Still, during the recording session of Miseducation, Hill felt uncomfortable and would travel to Jamaica to find solitude. As she stated in a 1999 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, “The album was still in my head at that point. When I started recording the album in New York and New Jersey, lots of people were talking to me about going different routes. I could feel people in my face, and I was picking up on bad vibes. I wanted a place where there was good vibes, where I was among family. And it was Tuff Gong.”
Thus, a few songs on Miseducation were recorded in the studio, named after the record label formed by The Wailers in 1970. Tuff Gong was Bob Marley’s nickname. His youngest son, Damian, performs under the moniker Jr Gong. ‘Gong’ is of extreme importance to Rastafari history. Leonard Howell, one of the founding members of Rastafari, went by The Gong and G.G. Maragh, which is an ethos of the Hinduism and Indo-Jamaican roots of Rastafari. This relationship is expounded by Dominique Stewart in his paper, ‘Early Encounters in Colonial Jamaica: Hindu and Rastafari Divine Metaphysics’. As such with Hill’s locs spread across the album, she gave her own homage to Rastafari and one of its most famous members. This peace founded at Tuff Gong she elaborates on the album second track, Lost Ones, where she raps, “I was hopeless, now I’m on Hope Road”. The lead engineer on Lost Ones and Forgive Them Father was Errol Brown, who also served as Bob Marley’s engineer. Almost a year after the album’s release, in October of 1999, Hill lend her vocals and a rap verse in a remix duet version of Bob Marley’s Turn Your Light Down Low.
Still, Miseducation goes beyond the Marley factor. Forgive Them Father features Shelly Thunder, a Jamaican musician who open the track with, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those dat trespass against us. Although dem again we will never, never, never trust”. Hill, also used a vocal interpolation of Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam where that song borrowed its lyrics from The Maytals’ 1966 track, Bam Bam. Nothing Even Matters, which is arguable one of the greatest love songs ever recorded, features neo-soul trailblazer D’Angelo. Two years after the release of Miseducation, D’Angelo released his critically acclaimed, Grammy awarded album, Voodoo, where promo photos of the album were shot in Cuba. These images saw D’Angelo taking part in a suggestive Cuban Santeria ceremony where his album opens up with an actual record of the ceremony.
PROFOUND EFFECT
Nevertheless, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill had a profound effect on Jamaican society. As Nadine Sutherland states in Dr Joan Morgan’s book, She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, “Lauryn Hill was a culture shifter in a lot of ways, even for us here in Jamaica. Remember we are a country that still struggles with the restrictions of a patriarchal environment. She helped usher in a new school of dawtas. For young women who liked the concept of Rastafari but didn’t fully buy into all of its philosophies and ideologies, Lauryn Hill gave them a different narrative.”
The politics of Hill, a dark-skinned woman who wore her natural hair in the ‘90s cannot go unnoticed. The fact that she “did not have the right look” in the aesthetics obsessed entertainment industry broke plenty of social norms. Joan Morgan expounded on this in the 2023 Netflix docuseries, Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip Hop, Dr Morgan states, “Lauryn Hill is considered one of the most beautiful rappers that has ever lived. And Lauryn showed up dark-skinned with dreadlocks and appeared on probably more magazine covers at that point, and fashion magazines covers, than any other female rap artiste before. Davina Bennett, second-place runner up for 2017 Miss Universe pageant, stated this had a tremendous effect on Jamaica society. In an interview with Dr Morgan she said, “She gave those young women a different imaging of what could be because of how she presented herself. In Jamaica, a lot of young women discovered a voice because of Lauryn Hill, one that allowed them to be themselves, to be sexy with a natural hairstyle.”
Today, it is hard to quantify the influence Jamaican music had on Miseducation. It is even harder to count the influence the island has on Lauryn Hill’s entire discography, including her projects with The Fugees. However, many prominent young Jamaican artistes have listed Lauryn Hills as inspiration and paid homage in many ways. In a 2021 interview on Deadly Links with host Becca Dudley, Lila Iké recalls a conversation she had with Skillibeng, “I remember him asking me if Lauryn Hill was one of my inspirations and I said ‘yea man’ and he said ‘you remind me so much of her’ and he said that his dad always played Lauryn Hill music everything he hears second chance that’s what he thinks about”. Sevana has also cited Hill and the album as an inspiration. In the 2022 promotion run for her debut album, Shenseea had a viral moment when she freestyled over the instrumental of Miseducation’s fifth track, Doo Wop (That Thing). In 2018, Protoje joined Hill on the album’s 20th anniversary tour. In an interview with The Gleaner, Protoje states, ““I thought she was the illest rapper. Then when she did T he Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, I saw the whole scope of her artistry. She is truly in a class by herself. Overall, I think she is one of the greatest artistes in modern music”. Five years later, as Hill looks to kick off the album 25th anniversary tour next month, she will be joined by another Jamaican artiste – Koffee.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill had first-week sales of 422,624 copies and set a record for women artistes at the time. Her record was broken in 2015 later by Adele, with her album 25. Miseducation went on to achieve five Grammys making Hill the first woman to earn five Grammys in one night. Her wins included Best New Artiste, Best R&B Album and Album of the Year. No other black woman has won Album of the Year ever since. The only other rap act to have won the same award is the rap duo Outkast, made up Andre 3000 and Big Boi, for the group’s 2003 double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Throughout Hill’s career, she has won eight Grammy and received nineteen Grammy nominations in total. In 2015, the album was added to the US Library of Congress as an influential body of work. Then in 2021, Guinness Book of World Records, announced that Hill had become the first woman rapper to reach RIAA Diamond certification for selling 10 million copies of Miseducation. The only other rappers to have projects that have achieved Diamond status are: Eminem, OutKast, Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Beastie Boys and MC Hammer.
As hip-hop celebrates 50 years of origin, many Jamaicans have helped in the shaped of the genre. In the same way, Jamaican music has helped in the construct of one of its greatest projects – The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Her thesis, (she stated on the album’s 7th track, Final Hour, “I treat this like my thesis”) is a perfect study of black American aesthetics, Jamaican culture and the struggles and achievements of African diasporic woman. L. Boogie knew this, as she raps on Lost One, “I know all the tricks from Bricks to Kingston”.
Despite the controversies of the recording of the album, it is no doubt that one of the greatest musical art of modern history. Thus, as we salute The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, we reflect on how it has been influenced by and influential on Jamaica.
J.T. Davy is a member of the historical and political content collective, Tenement Yaad Media, where she co-produces their popular historical podcast, Lest We Forget. She is also a writer at the regional collective, Our Caribbean Figures. Send feedback to jordpilot@hotmail.com and entertainment@gleanerjm.com.