As it turns 20, 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill' is still relevant to power and pain of womanhood

Maeve McDermott | USA TODAY

It’s an unintentional-yet-fitting tribute to the genius of Lauryn Hill that, on the 20th anniversary of her classic album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” two of America’s biggest singles sample a track from the album -- Drake’s “Nice for What” and Cardi B’s “Be Careful,” both of which draw from Hill’s “Ex-Factor.”

Released on Aug. 25, 1998, “Miseducation” is Hill’s first and only solo studio album and was a defining release of its era in multiple ways. It was the album that made Hill a star, breaking the record for first-week sales by a female artist with its 400,000-plus copies, and earning Hill 10 Grammy nominations and five wins, the most for a female artist at that time.

Its most enduring hits include “Ex-Factor,” a song that’s now taken on new life among a generation that was too young to experience “Miseducation” the first time around; and “Doo Wop (That Thing),” a song that has remained ubiquitous in its 20 years of existence as a near-perfect song.

And, beyond its numerical success, “Miseducation” is a true expression of artistic greatness. Interestingly enough, the two songs from Drake and Cardi B, which serendipitously sent Hill’s music back to the top of the charts, both channel one of the album’s most compelling narratives -- the power and pain of womanhood. Released when she was just 23, “Miseducation” was famously recorded amid several defining events in Hill’s life -- her pregnancy and birth of her first child, the dissolution of the Fugees and her breakup with former bandmate Wyclef Jean -- that provided emotionally fertile conditions for her to record a classic.

In particular, Hill credited her pregnancy for giving life to this period of creativity. “When some women are pregnant, their hair and their nails grow, but for me it was my mind and ability to create,” she told Ebony in 1998. “I had the desire to write in a capacity that I hadn't done in a while. I don't know if it's a hormonal or emotional thing ... I was very in touch with my feelings at the time."

Threading together R&B, soul, hip-hop and reggae, and rooted in a profound spirituality, “Miseducation” tells the story of the feminine condition through Hill’s eyes, an album that pulses with raw emotion, telling stories of love, heartbreak and rebirth. “Miseducation” is both an outstandingly profound release to come from such a young artist and also the kind of defiantly imaginative work that makes perfect sense springing fully formed from the brain of a genius-level prodigy.

Because, let’s be clear -- “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” is the work of a genius artist.

Hill has defied expectations as to what a stereotypical female artist’s career should look like -- having five more children and largely stepping away from the spotlight after the album’s release. Her only other release was her 2002 “MTV Unplugged” album, on which she divided listeners by declining to play any of her “Miseducation” tracks and instead debuted a new set of acoustic guitar tracks that moved away from her previous album’s hip-hop leanings.

She has given her “Miseducation” songs similar remakings during her live shows, often reimagining them as completely new compositions rather than playing the fan-favorite tracks in their original forms that fans would perhaps prefer to hear.

And there’s the dramas that have marked Hill’s career in the years since “Miseducation,” from the legal fight over the album’s writing credits, to the reputation she’s earned as being an erratic live artist -- as fans who’ve attended one of her hours-delayed concerts may confirm.

Yet, Hill’s disappearance post-”Miseducation” should not diminish the album’s achievements, or color fans' sometimes-fraught opinions of Hill's creative choices . In an interview with GQ, Chris Rock invoked Hill’s name as he unpacked the reasons why some visionary African-American artists go silent after releasing their defining works.

"Black stardom is rough, dude," he said. “If you're a black ballerina, you represent the race, and you have responsibilities that go beyond your art. How dare you just be excellent? … D'Angelo. Chris Tucker. Dave Chappelle. Lauryn Hill. They all hang out on the same island. The island of What Do We Do with All This Talent? It frustrates me."

It shouldn't take a Drake song to bring Hill's name back into the cultural conversation. And while this weekend's "Miseducation" anniversary will invite writers and fans all over the internet to praise Hill's genius, her name should not disappear from the conversation about hip-hop's greatest names, which she's too often excluded from, once the news cycle moves on.