Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill Research Paper

Hip Hop in the late 1980s and 1990s was filled male-centric ideals with no space for women, emotions, or anything outside of the hard-hitting “thug-life” persona. (Williams) Women were more often than not objectified and sexualized according to the male perspective, and this can be seen and heard in a plethora of Hip Hop music videos and lyrics by artists such as Nelly and Dr. Dre. However, Lauryn Hill’s award winning debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was groundbreaking in that it provided a female voice and perspective in the predominantly mysogynistic Hip Hop culture. “Because of Ms. Hill’s lyrical dexterity coupled with her commercial appeal on Miseducation, she ultimately brought a brand new face to hip-hop: the face of a

Growing up in South Orange, New Jersey, Hill went into the entertainment industry at an early age, joining the Fugees, a Hip Hop group consisting of Wycleaf Jean and Pras Michel, at only 13. She became the group’s songwriter, rapper, and vocalist, and with the subsequent hectic schedule, Hill, who was a freshman at Columbia University at the time dropped out of school to pursue music full time. When the group split in 1997 to focus on solo activities, Hill focused on producing her album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, while expecting her first child with Rohan Marley. With the major success of the group’s second album The Score released in 1996, Lauryn Hill had already showcased her masterful talents as a singer, rapper, and artist, but her debut album would cement her place as the music legend. Earning titles such as greatest rappersith Times Magazine dubbing her the “Queen of Hip Hop”.she’s known for today, both in terms of commercial success and artistic achievement. Still the record holder for most Grammy nominations in one night for a woman, she won five Grammy Awards of the ten nominations she received for the album. As with a majority of the songs on the album, “Doo Wop (That Thing)” was written, produced, and recorded by Lauryn Hill the song herself. She broke barriers that many Black female artists faced in the industry

The idea of being emotionally open in Hip Hop was often seen as a negative, especially for woman. There was no room for vulnerability in Hip Hop. Blending that toughness with R&B and its themes of emotions, love, and vulnerability seemed almost impossible, but not for Lauryn Hill. “By centralizing emotion in general, and love in particular, on an album that is unabashedly a Hiphop album, Hill invites the theme of love into the center of Hiphop’s lyrical discourse.” (Bennett) Establishing herself as a creative force within the industry, her perspective and experiences as a woman and mother provided social commentary beyond the conventional topics of Hip Hop at the time of mainly sex, drugs, money, and gang life can be heard in every single song in The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. She expressed her experiences as a young mother in “To Zion” and rapped about sell-out culture in Rap with “Superstar”. In “Doo Wop (That Thing)”, she does the same by empowering both men and women to value themselves more and not be tempted by sex. In an 2013 article with XXL Magazine, American Rapper Nas says, “There was no chains, no fancy cars, she checked us on all of that. On songs like “Superstar” and “Lost Ones” and “Doo Wop,” she talked to us, she went into who we were as men and women.” (Nas) Greatly influenced by Bob