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Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. To end today's Women's History Month Producer Picks, we're going to discuss a groundbreaking album that just turned 25. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill became the first number-one album for a female solo rapper. It also won Hill Album of the Year at the Grammys in 1999. Here to tell us more about the interview you're about to hear for our Silver Liner Notes series is All Of It producer Simon Close.

Simon Close: Lauryn Hill was just 23 years old when she released The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, but even at that point, she was already an award-winning singer and rapper as a member of The Fugees. Still, two years after the second and final Fugees album had come out and one year after Wyclef Jean's solo debut, the pressure was on for Lauryn Hill to prove herself, and she definitely did. The Miseducation of Lauren Hill debuted at number one on the Billboard album charts. The following year, Hill earned 10 Grammy nominations and walked away with five wins for Album of the Year, Artist of the Year, Best R&B Album, and two song awards for the album's big hit Doo Wop (That Thing).

Last year, my All Of It teammate Luke Green and I got the chance to see Lauryn Hill perform live in Philadelphia with The Fugees as a surprise guest just a couple of months before her solo debut turned 25. As we head into this next segment, you'll actually hear a little bit of the tape we grabbed from that show of Hill celebrating the milestone. Here's Kousha Navidar in conversation with writers Hanif Abdurraqib and Karen Good Marable for our album anniversary series, Silver Liner Notes.

Lauryn Hill: 25 years of The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. You know, that even though 25 years has passed, everything is still everything. [unintelligible 00:01:55]

[MUSIC - Lauryn Hill: Everything is Everything]

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 flippin' in the ghetto on a dirty mattress

You can't match this rapper slash actress

Kousha Navidar: Hanif, coming out of the intro, the first actual song on the album is Lost Ones, which in an album that spans rap and soul, falls way more on the rap side of thing. In an interview with Flaunt Magazine, you were asked about the top five MCs of all time, and you said, "It changes by the day and today in no order, I'd say Rakim, Ghostface, Slick Rick, MC Lyte, and Lauryn Hill." Why does Lauryn Hill belong in that top five?

Hanif Abdurraqib: Well, for me, when I go back to say The Score, I think within a group setting, it's actually a group that is more than two people, I don't know if there's ever been a better individual performance on a group record than Lauryn Hill performance in The Score and that spans any genre. I think what makes her good, and great for me, and is someone who's worthy of course top five MCs, it's fluid and for me, it does really shift daily but what puts her in that conversation always is her lyrical dexterity, the ferocity with which she attachs beats to beats and the rigor on top of her. She is clever and playful even though I do think that she's vocally assertive.

I think the way she stacks syllables and rhymes, in the Fugees library mix there's catch me mud, Mitsubishi, Mizuchi, bumping Fugees. Everything's so compact and rhymes collapse on top of each other. In Lost Ones, I think Lost Ones is one of her great performances because it does walk that line between being firm and assertive but not preachy, and there's moments of lyrical brilliance. There's sharp narration. Verse two specifically there's-- when I think about Lauryn Hill, I think of her as an MC first, and I know that if we were to maybe pull apart her entire catalog, she might be rapping less than singing including the Unplugged record and the work on some Fugees records and Miseducation. It would be close to even, I think, but every time she raps she really makes the most of those performances.

Kousha Navidar: Let's listen to some of those characteristics that you're describing in action. Here is Lost Ones. Let's hear a clip.

[MUSIC - Lauryn Hill: Lost Ones]

It's funny how money changes situation

Miscommunication leads to complication

My emancipation don't fit your equation

I was on the humble, you - on every station

Some wan' play young Lauryn like she dumb

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

My ting done made your kingdom wan' run

Kousha Navidar: We're talking about The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. My guest is poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib and joining us now is journalist Karen Good Marable, who interviewed Hill in 1998 when the album came out for a Vibe Magazine cover story. Karen, welcome to All Of It.

Karen Good Marable: Hey, how are you?

Kousha Navidar: I'm great. Thanks so much for joining us. In my hand right now, I am lucky to be holding that Vibe cover story that you wrote right here. I looked through it, it's wonderful. I'd love to ask you something, I think everyone would love to hear from you, what stands out to you now about the conversation you and Lauryn had when you wrote this piece?

Karen Good Marable: When I think about it now, I think about-- well, she was really young. You forget that she was only 23, I think, at the time, maybe 24, but the other thing that was beautiful about it that you don't see much anymore is the intimacy of the interview. It was in South Orange, New Jersey, at her mama's house. We were sitting on the steps, her kid was there, Zion, and I think she was pregnant as well but hadn't disclosed it yet. I remember that intimacy and that's the kind of-- in magazine terms we used to call that color that you can't get anymore in interviews. It was a beautiful moment.

Kousha Navidar: Karen, Hanif, here are some of the texts that we've got coming in. I'll read a few off. First one, "I was a new teacher in the Lower East Side and I would teach songs from the record to my high schoolers in a poetry unit and play the album ALL THE TIME." "My name is Denise from New Jersey, and I LOVED LAURYN HILL, from the time she was with the Fugees. Her voice was strong and she was little, but had a badass look. I was small and assertive, so I felt represented. I loved hearing a strong woman rapping and singing." Karen, I'd love to know, does anything from those texts stand out to you?

Karen Good Marable: Yes, I get it. I think that then, and even now, Lauryn is special, but it was crazy. She was a supernova. The album was also super empowering in a way that I think that was deliberate, but I think that Lauryn was standing in her power and kind of at the height, I don't want to say the height of her powers because again, she was really, really young, but she was up there. She was like, "Okay, here we are." I guess I would say the height of her powers at that moment, she was into that. It was stunning to see and just in how she presented herself on stage. She was a fashion girl but she was also giving me Rita Marley from the I-Threes. You know what I'm saying?

She was giving me vintage, but she was giving me label. She's this brown skin, dreadlocked girl or young woman who wasn't afraid of color. She just represented a certain type of woman at that time that we didn't see that much. It wasn't promoted that much. Yes, I get it. It was star power. I remember her on the cover of Time, I remember her on the cover of Harper's BAZAAR, I remember her on the cover of Rolling Stone. It was crazy and it was beautiful and it was right. It made sense.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, we asked you to tell us if there was a specific song that you felt especially connected to, and you highlighted the song When It Hurts So Bad. I'd love to play a clip. Maybe in 10 seconds, what do you think you would want to say about the song before we play it?

Karen Good Marable: Well, what I think about that song is it was her being extremely vulnerable. I would like to say, too, that she's talking about unrequited love. She took all of that into the song. She never sold out folks even in the interview that she and I had. She didn't sell anybody out, she didn't name names, but she took it to the song. That's the beauty of that. That's why I like this song.

Kousha Navidar: Let's hear it.

[MUSIC - Lauryn Hill: When It Hurts So Bad]

When it hurts so bad, when it hurts so bad

When it hurts so bad, when it hurts so bad

Why's it feel so good?

When it hurts so bad, when it hurts so bad

When it hurts so bad, when it hurts so bad

When it hurts so bad, when it hurts so bad

Why's it feel so good?

When it hurts so bad, when it hurts so bad

I loved real, real hard once

Kousha Navidar: That was wonderful. Karen, thank you so much for hopping on and talking to us.

Hanif Abdurraqib: By the way, hi, Karen. It's good to hear you.

Karen Good Marable: Hey, Hanif. How you doing?

Hanif Abdurraqib: Good, good.

Kousha Navidar: Hanif, we're getting a lot of callers in. I'd love to get to another one. Let's hear from Mara in New Jersey. Hi, Mara.

Mara: Hi.

Kousha Navidar: Tell us, what's your relationship with the album?

Mara: Oh my goodness. I was sharing with the screener from the outset, this powerful, tiny but powerful Black woman who came on. This album was such a testament to Black love. I believe there's a song, I'll try to recall with the screener, The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known), and then she became someone who got with Jamaican royalty. At the time, it was just such a testament to just being who you are, as powerful as you are, and loving what you have and what's open to you. It was just amazing to me.

Kousha Navidar: Oh. Do you remember the place where you were when you first heard that album, Mara?

Mara: Oh, I was just out of high school in Jamaica.

Kousha Navidar: Well, Mara, thank you so much. Hanif, I want to touch on something that Mara was talking about. It sounds like this spans so many generations. Can you talk a little bit about the sense you would get regarding where this album stands with young listeners and later generations?

Hanif Abdurraqib: When this album came out, it was generationally expansive, in part because of what Karen was talking about, where Lauryn Hill really schooled in the performance of-- she's in the lineage of old soul singers, and not just soul singers. That cover, not just the Roberta Flack cover, the Killing Me Softly cover, but the Four Seasons cover, Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You on Miseducation, all these things were transformed in the way that only she could, but they were done in a spirit that I think really honored the original forms of the songs, which got people in the door who might otherwise not have a high interest in Lauryn Hill. I think people, especially, I think, Black listeners really appreciate singers, and singers who sing with a real level of soul, and attention to detail, and care for the language of singing.

This album, I remember when it came out I remember being in school and older teachers listening to it as well as young folks listening to it on my bus. Now, I think people had different approaches to it. Like, me and my friends loved Lost Ones and Doo Wop, while some of the older folks maybe loved Nothing Even Matters, or anything like that, but it was still this album that managed to have something for a wide range of people.

Ms. Hill is a performer, I think, and as a writer, is someone who is unique because she seems so aware of what her influences are musically and not wanting to stray from them too far, but also injecting some of her own unique brilliance into those influences.

Kousha Navidar: Now, when you think of those personal connections, there's one caller that I think has her own personal connection. Let's talk to Alicia in Queens, New York. Hi, Alicia.

Alicia: Hi, there. Good to be with you.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you. What's your relationship with the album?

Alicia: Well, I grew up in South Orange, New Jersey. I was just one generation after Ms. Hill in the community. So I was 10 in 1998. My friends and I grew up with this album. I grew up to be a poet, so lovely to hear Hanif speak about this work because it's bringing together two of my most important things. I grew up to be a poet, and I think that listening to Ms. Hill's real attention to detail on her specificity, I'm thinking of like every ghetto, every city, where she's name-dropping South Orange Avenue, and name-dropping particular locations from our hometown.

That kind of naming and attention to detail lets her work be both really, really specific, and also really universal because every hometown has their name-drop locations. I appreciate hearing about how Ms. Hill's performances really display her influences, but I think it's also cool to think about who she has influenced. I grew up in church youth group with a woman named Solána Rowe, who now goes by SZA. SZA was also just same age as me, growing up in this same artistic community. I definitely think of her as an heir to Ms. Lauryn Hill's work.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. Two musicians and a poet from the same community. That's a vibrant community you're a part of, Alicia. That's wonderful. Hanif, how does that resonate with you as you hear Alicia talk about how it's so connected and that this community brings out this beautiful artistry?

Hanif Abdurraqib: One, I think that is equal parts unique. Then, though, if you look at-- it's also, in a way, depending on the community. We think about pockets of artistic communities in New York, it's uncommon, which is great. I do want to touch on a thing. I am also interested to look at and think about Ms. Hill's tree of influence, the folks that she has influenced. Part of me thinks that there are a great handful of those artists now.

I think the great thing about her, the endurance of her work, and in a way, I don't like to use the word mythology because it treats it as though she's no longer existing, but the larger-than-life aspect of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill specifically, not just in terms of its accolades, but its actual enduring quality. I think we'll be seeing people influenced by this record for years and years, like folks who are maybe just getting started now in music and folks who haven't even gotten started yet.

This is one of those albums that I think, one, it's mind-blowing that it's 25 years old to think about, but I think this is one of those records that the folks of us who grew up with it, some of us are parents now, some of us are elder community members to people now, this is one of those records you hand down. I remember getting handed down records when I was a kid, records that my parents loved. Because this endures, and still, today, sounds as good as it did when it came out, I think this is one of those records that will live, and live, and live, and that means that the tree of influence that Ms. Hill has created will keep growing.

Kousha Navidar: That was my conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib and Karen Good Marable for the 25th Anniversary of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. That's our Producer Picks episode for today, featuring All Of It producers, Jordan Lauf and Simon Close. We'll be back here live on Monday. Thanks for listening, and have a great weekend.

 

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