We Heard Lauryn Hill, But Did We Listen?

Still Processing

The New York Times

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s the 20th anniversary of the release of Ms. Lauryn Hill’s 5-time Grammy-winning debut solo album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” Still very much a part of our contemporary musical landscape — being sampled by everyone from Drake to Cardi B to Kanye — her prophecies on fame, artistry and the music industry reflect her own career trajectory and serve as a cautionary tale for other artists on the rise. We take a closer look at “Miseducation,” alongside her follow-up “MTV Unplugged No. 2.0” album, and try to understand both her meteoric rise, and what she means when she says it “all falls down.” Discussed this week:“The Score” (The Fugees, 1996)“The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” (Lauryn Hill, 1998)“MTV Unplugged No. 2.0” (Lauryn Hill, 2002)“Ooo Baby Baby” (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, “Smokey Robinson and the Miracles LIVE!,” 1969)"They Won't Go When I Go" (Stevie Wonder, "Fulfillingness' First Finale," 1974)“All Falls Down” (Kanye West, “The College Dropout,” 2004)“Dave Chappelle’s Block Party” (Directed by Michel Gondry, 2006)

Transcript

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0:00.0	You could all be so simple, but you rather make it hard
0:24.0	and we both end up in school.
0:38.2	Don't you just love that song, X-Factor by Lauren Hill?
0:41.2	I do.
0:42.2	It's one of my favorite songs off of her album, The Miseducation of Lauren Hill, which came
0:47.2	out in 98 20 years ago.
0:49.0	Okay, so X-Factor, Lauren Hill, she is the spine of Drake's Nice for What.
0:56.0	Also makes an appearance in Cardi B's, be careful.
1:04.2	And she's just in the culture right now.
1:05.8	She is touring with this album, 20th anniversary Miseducation tour.
1:11.8	So given that this album is the masterpiece, given all that it managed to do to American
1:19.0	popular culture or American music in 1998, it won a bunch of Grammys the following year.
1:26.7	It established a major recording artist on a trajectory up, up, up.
1:34.1	And then what, the bottom fell out or did it or did it?
1:39.6	She is somebody who, to me, seems to have been both discarded and revered, almost in
1:49.7	the same moment.
1:51.9	Some of these questions that we have about Lauren Hill have to do with her behavior.
1:56.6	Some of them have to do with the way the music industry works.
1:59.5	A lot of it has to do with how fame works.
2:02.4	And this is before there was social media.
2:04.1	Yeah.
2:05.1	You know, she was famous before we could tweet about her all day long.
	...

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