The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

1	Intro 0:47
2	Lost Ones 5:33
3	Ex-Factor 5:26
4	To Zion 6:09
5	Doo Wop (That Thing) 5:20
6	Superstar 4:57
7	Final Hour 4:16
8	When It Hurts So Bad 5:42
9	I Used to Love Him 5:39
10	Forgive Them Father 5:15
11	Every Ghetto, Every City 5:14
12	Nothing Even Matters 5:50
13	Everything Is Everything 4:53
14	The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 4:17
15	Can't Take My Eyes Off of You Bonus Track 3:41
16	Sweetest Thing Bonus Track / Mahogany Mix 4:40

Barnes & Noble

When 23-year-old Fugees member Lauryn Hill stepped up and recorded her ambitious, sprawling, and superb solo debut, 1998's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hil, she revived a music-business doctrine promoted by James Brown: honest hard work. Hill wrote, produced, and performed on every track on the disc (its title drawn from Carter G. Woodson's book, Mis-Education of the Negro), emulating the "musical journey" production style of a couple of other inspiring masters, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Hill's theme is love -- of self, of family, of community, and of significant other, with many of the songs introduced by a grade-school classroom discussion on the subject. While Hill's rhymes sometimes reach for the highbrow, she also dispenses the folk wisdom of "How you gon' win/When you ain't right within." Singing in a dark, low alto, Hill reveals well-rounded influences and tastes, seeing herself as a vulnerable vocal hybrid of Chaka Khan and Betty Wright on the steamy "Ex-Factor" and soaring above Carlos Santana's resolute guitar on the gorgeous lullaby to her son, "To Zion." Ranging from edgy, insistent hip-hop to horn-enhanced, '70s-flavored soul, Hill is a purist, but -- as on "Every Ghetto," a funky, Wonder-ful tribute to the New Jersey neighborhood she grew up in -- the whole album exudes a timely energy. Her five Grammy wins for this album reveal the scope of her appeal, but this is Hill's personal triumph and celebration. Martine Bury

Barnes & Noble

{The Fugees'} {Lauryn Hill} turns her debut solo album into a life-affirming evocation of love and all the ups and downs that go with it. Mixing in a little bit of pop and straight R&B with the dominating hip-hop, =Miseducation= plays like one long narrative on the joy of spiritual and physical devotion. While its sprawling theme and length are comparable to {Fugee} bandmate {Wyclef Jean's} debut from the previous year, =The Carnival,= its borders are a bit more confining (a lot of this has to do with the grade-school lessons on the history of love that bridge the songs; {Hill} rarely moves beyond its scholarly walls or her own musical ones). And, quite simply, {Hill} is a better rapper than singer, and she does a little too much crooning on =Miseducation= to qualify it as the hip-hop classic it wants to be. Still, when she gets into a groove, like on the playful "Doo Wop (That Thing)," {Hill's} education doesn't seem all that misguided. ~ Michael Gallucci, All-Music Guide

All Music Guide

Though the Fugees had been wildly successful, and Lauryn Hill had been widely recognized as a key to their popularity, few were prepared for her stunning debut. The social heart of the group and its most talented performer, she tailored The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill not as a crossover record but as a collection of overtly personal and political statements; nevertheless, it rocketed to the top of the album charts and made her a superstar. Also, and most importantly, it introduced to the wider pop world an astonishingly broad talent. Hill's verses were intelligent and hardcore, with the talent to rank up there with Method Man. And for the choruses she could move from tough to smooth in a flash, with a vocal prowess that allowed her to be her own chanteuse (ā la Mariah Carey). Hill, of Haitian heritage, rhymed in a tough Caribbean patois on the opener, "Lost Ones," wasting little time to excoriate her former bandmates and/or record-label executives for caving in to commercial success. She used a feature for Carlos Santana ("To Zion") to explain how her child comes before her career and found a hit single with "Doo Wop (That Thing)," an intelligent dissection of the sex game that saw it from both angles. "Superstar" took to task musicians with more emphasis on the bottom line than making great music (perhaps another Fugees nod), while her collaborations with a pair of sympathetic R&B superstars (D'Angelo and Mary J. Blige) also paid major dividends. And if her performing talents, vocal range, and songwriting smarts weren't enough, Hill also produced much of the record, ranging from stun-gun hip-hop to smoother R&B with little trouble. Though it certainly didn't sound like a crossover record, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill affected so many widely varying audiences that it's no surprise the record became a commercial hit as well as a musical epoch-maker. John Bush