Black History Music Pt. 23

In celebration of Black History Month, the Ear Candy Update intends to celebrate landmark recordings by black artists that have shaped the collective consciousness, mentality, and sense of cool the world over. Next, Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill."

"The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" is a breakup letter to bullshit - to the bullshit of boys hurting the women who love them, to the bullshit of gangsta materialism and misogyny on top of disco samples, and to the bullshit of oppression. The album arrives from an intersection of Motown, hip hop, and reggae, three deep veins of richly important ideas in all of music.

It also arrives at a pivotal moment in Lauryn Hill's life. She was 22 when she began writing it, pregnant, single and a recognized talent on the strength of The Fugees' "The Score." She's staring down adulthood while navigating an ugly split from Wyclef Jean, while also carrying her and Rohan Marley's first child. She had already written songs for Whitney Houston and traveled to Detroit for an audience with Aretha. It was time for a statement. It was time for the sea plunge of epiphany when the bright lights of the soul aren't merely described, but revealed.

The album provides a fierce counterpoint to the hip hop and popular music of the era. Mining doo-wop harmonies and inventing her own, she drew inspiration from the integrity of reggae's most inspired songs (half the album was recorded at Bob Marley's own Tuff Gong studio in Kingston, Jamaica), old school East Coast beats, and mounds of soul from the likes of Camille Yarbrough and Ann Peebles. She steered the album's direction with a focus on demonstrating that telling truth can also be astonishingly beautiful. 

“Is this just a silly game
That forces you to act this way?
Forces you to scream my name
Then pretend that you can't stay
Tell me, who I have to be
To get some reciprocity”

There's liberation here, by the pound, but there's also confession and fully-realized strength of character. Lauryn lets her considerable pipes loose, playing at the top of her range on the mesmerizing "Everything is Everything," while also turning in a rap performance that rivals contemporaries Andre 3000 and Method Man.

“I philosophy
Possibly speak tongues
Beat drum, Abyssinian, street Baptist
Rap this in fine linen, from the beginning
My practice extending across the atlas
I begat this
Flipping in the ghetto on a dirty mattress
You can't match this rapper slash actress
More powerful than two Cleopatras
Bomb graffiti on the tomb of Nefertiti
MCs ain't ready to take it to the Serengeti
My rhymes is heavy like the mind of sister Betty
L-Boogie spars with stars and constellations
Then came down for a little conversation
Adjacent to the king, fear no human being
Roll with cherubims to Nassau Coliseum”

Mary J. Blige, D'Angelo, a virtually unknown John Legend, and some guy named Carlos Santana all turn in performances that dig into hip hop and soul without robbing either side. But this is still Ms. Hill's masterstroke. She's ferociously confident, determined, and self-aware. This was a call to spiritual arms. No need for violence.

“And when I let go, my voice echoes through the ghetto
Sick of men trying to pull strings like Geppetto
Why black people always be the ones to settle
March through these streets like Soweto.”

What we needed, and what we got, was 77 minutes of a woman sharing her deeply personal revelations of self while using those as a springboard to more divine inspiration. Each builds off the other and spirals upward and upward still.