Highly influential debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill with this eye-opening exploration of Lauryn Hill and her amazing artistic legacy. Released in 1998, Lauryn Hill’s first solo album is often cited by music critics as one of the most important recordings of all time. Artists from Beyoncé to Nicki Minaj to Janelle Monae have called it an inspiration. In 2017 it was included in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, as well as named the second-greatest album by a woman in history by NPR.
“One, you cannot tell the story of hip-hop or black womanhood in the 1990’s without a deep understanding of the prototype for Black Girl Genius that is Lauryn Hill. And two, you cannot tell the story of hip-hop or of black womanhood in the 1990’s without the fiya-spitting, Jamaican, Bronx-girl pen of Jane Morgan. Indeed, she begat this — Britney Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
For hip-hop’s founding feminist and most incisive critic to apply the force of her intellect, the power of her memory, and the dexterity of her cultural mixology to a record so fraught with meaning and misunder-standing makes me feel the way I did the first time I heard the needle drop on “Lost Ones.” In fact, I’m dancing with one fist in the air as I write this.” — Adam Mansbach
Pioneering hip-hop journalist and award-winning author JOAN MORGAN coined the term “hip-hop feminism” in 1999 with the publication of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, a book now studied at colleges across the country. Joan has taught at Duke University, Stanford and The New School.