Thursday Rewind: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Walk the red rocks of Arizona with Ms. Lauryn Hill.
It’s Thursday morning! Every Thursday I put on a cassette from my collection and share the memories, stories, moments, and excitement associated with each tape. Let’s rewind!
One Summer in my early twenties, I casually perused my city’s local thrift shop. I never expected to find much on the dusty shelves filled with old radios, creepy trinkets, and baby shoes, but I always left a little room for hope. There as I sauntered through the back aisle of the shop, I saw a stack of cassettes. My ears perked up like a hound’s. My eyes scan the stack, while I pray it’s not four copies of some Oak Ridge Boys album. My prayers had been answered as I saw titles from Rage Against the Machine, Ice Cube, R.E.M., and Ms. Lauryn Hill.
I grabbed the cassettes, shuffling through them, checking their condition. They were clean. As I looked at the rectangular jewel case of Lauryn Hill’s one and only studio album, I was transported back to a different time, a different place, and what felt like a different universe. This universe takes place over a year earlier to a time of confusion.
The memory of Sedona, Arizona plays like an old movie in my mind. The images are slightly grainy as the camera pans over the city’s red formations below a blue open sky and, above it all, the soundtrack is the classic 1998 album The Miseducation of Lauren Hill. I can still hear Miss Hill’s iconic voice still lingering between those dusty mountains filling the empty spaces of time, as her music always has.
When I was 21, my parents generously took me and my brothers to Arizona for Spring Break. This was an odd spot in my life. I was stepping into adulthood but still felt like a kid. I was working constantly, while not feeling I was going anywhere, and had recently experienced a bad break-up. An existential crisis about where my life was headed was in full tilt. A little vacation, at this point, felt like a nice escape.
As we drove through beautiful cities and desert landscapes, all I wanted to do was admire the grand canyon state and its scenery with beautiful songs behind it. I had recently gotten into 90s rap and hip-hop, diving into artists like A Tribe Called Quest, Tupac, Wu-Tang Clan, and Dr. Dre. You may be rolling your eyes at this list of obvious essentials, but as a kid who grew up, mostly, on rock and alternative music, this was all new to me, and I loved it all.
While I was in the middle of my exploration of rap and hip-hop, I was learning about Lauryn Hill and her influence from music magazines, social media, and “greatest of all time” lists. So, before a long two-hour drive from Scottsdale to Sedona, to hike the red rocks, I downloaded The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The album started and the light guitar sounds over the noisy classroom in ‘Intro’ had my head swaying as I looked out at the Arizona skies. I embraced the peaceful feeling, as the teacher called out Lauryn’s name, like I was back in elementary school waiting for class to start. Then, as the classroom faded, that hard staggering beat broke through my headphones, and I was lost. I gave myself up to Ms. Hill.
‘Lost Ones’ is a searing diss track, but it also carries so much beauty. How could cold, piercing lines like, “Can't slick talk on the day of judgment/ Your movement's similar to a serpent/ Tried to play straight, how your whole style bent?” end up coming out so elegant? Miss Hill’s poignant stab at whoever she was talking about (I was unfamiliar with Fugees lore at this time) was the perfect mix of sweet and sour.
While sweet sounds permeated the album, aching lies within each song. Just look at the titles. ‘Ex-Factor’ ‘When it Hurts so Bad’ ‘Forgive them Father’. These songs are just asking you to cry from the pain that emerges from something so graceful as Ms. Hill’s music. They ask you to dive into the depths with her and share the grief of not just her, but all people.
Two songs stick out as actual love songs. The first is ‘To Zion (feat. Carlos Santana)’, a loving tribute to her newborn son, that contemplates the possibility of if she would have followed the advice to abort him. The cry of Hill’s voice with devastating lyrics, all over Santana’s melodic soloing brought tears to my eyes as I looked out on the desert.
The second love song is ‘Nothing Even Matters (feat. D’Angelo)’. The verse suggests nothing less than a touching sentiment to a partner until the chorus rings in with the repeated line “Nothing even matters to me.” This line suggests what one could consider a toxic relationship. Notice that Hill never sings ‘Nothing Even Matters except you, baby.’ It is nothing matters because of you. What are we doing? Why are we doing this? You’ve taken over my life. If nothing matters when you are here, how could “we” matter? What is life together without the world? These are heavy lyrics to hear after a toxic breakup. I felt heard by Ms. Hill.
I listened to the record twice in my headphones as I stared out at the dry country. When we arrived at our hiking destination, my family and I prepared to stain ourselves red from the rocks before us. But before we started, I put my headphones back in my ears, and looked at the album still on my screen; the same album I had just listened to twice, and I pressed play. I took Ms. Hill’s words and wisdom with me on the rocky trail that day; and every rocky trail after that.