Her artistic prowess firmly established, Hill also goes on to castigate Jean—or whoever the song's protagonist is—for "(gaining) the whole world for price of your soul/ Trying to grab hold of what you can't control/ Now you're all floss, what a sight to behold/ Wisdom is better than silver and gold." In the harpsichord- and harp-driven "Superstar," Hill mines a similar vein, hammering her hip-hop peers for making dull, diluted music simply for money's sake. "Come on baby light my fire," she sings, quoting Jim Morrison in a resonant alto that clearly benefited from time spent working with Aretha Franklin, though it's still not the sort of full, fleshy voice of a diva. "Everything you drop is so tired/ Music is supposed to inspire/ How come we ain't getting no higher?"
Questions like that make Miseducation the travelogue of an artist reporting back from an inspiring, soul-searching journey. It's loaded with introspection at a time when banal materialism and featherweight frivolity reign supreme in rap and hip-hop. Even the album's cover resonates: It's an homage to Bob Marley and the Wailers' Burnin', with a similarly styled sketch of Hill's pensive face dominating the artwork.
The late Marley (whose son Rohan is the father of Hill's year-old boy, Zion, toasted here on the somewhat mournful, gospel- and blues-tinged "To Zion")—is also recalled in such spiritual examinations of destiny as "Forgive Them Father" and "Final Hour." Elsewhere, Hill turns to other thoughtful pop titans for inspiration, including Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder; the latter's sound and spirit are notably revisited in the earthy, exuberant "Every Ghetto, Every City," in which the 24-year-old Hill warmly recounts her childhood in great detail with a Wonder-ful melody over some funky clavinet vamps. Stevie would be proud.
In "Doo Wop (That Thing)," she reaches back even further, borrowing a simple, repetitive piano line and opening "woo ooo hoo hoo" vocals from the '50s R&B groups. The musical bed stands in contrast to the song's decidedly modern subject matter, which finds Hill admonishing loose women to stop gold-digging and acting like, "a hard rock when you're really a gem," while asking "Cristal-by-the-case" men: "How you gon' win when you ain't right within?"
But Hill need not worry about such questions herself. The personal subject matter of Miseducation demonstrates that she's absolutely right within, and she's poised to win, too, with what is easily the urban album of the year.
- Josh Freedom du Lac (Wall of Sound)
n her raw, righteous, revealing, and ultimately rewarding solo debut, fabulous Fugees frontwoman Lauryn Hill asserts herself as a fiercely independent force to be reckoned with—a vocalist, writer, producer, and arranger of considerable depth and rare talent who blissfully ignores the apparent hip-hop and R&B rule opposing solo female artists.
It's no wonder, then, that the groundbreaking album's first track, "Lost Ones," is an apparent indictment of highest-profile Fugee Wyclef Jean, who has boasted that he is the trio's creative mastermind and the real reason for its massive worldwide success. Upset that "my emancipation don't fit your equation," the sharp-tongued MC lashes out against Jean, though not by name, in an attempt to settle the post-Score score. "Some wan' play young Lauryn like she dumb," Hill raps angrily and with affected Jamaican inflection over a spare drum-and-a-reggae-sample loop. "But remember, not a game new under the sun/ Everything you did has already been done/ I know all the tricks from Bricks to Kingston." Hill then shows a trick of her own, placing her vitriolic rant in a unique verse/pre-chorus/verse/pre-chorus/chorus arrangement that helps build tension by delaying the inevitable arrival of the soulful, harmonic hook for an entire verse.