There is no denying that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is one of the greatest albums of all time. Period. It peaked at number one on the Billboard charts and has been certified diamond by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
That’s not even to mention the massive critical acclaim the album has received since it was released in 1998, and the billions of streams it has across modern streaming platforms. Now, I would say that this is in large part due to the refreshing authenticity of Hill’s lyrics and performance on the album, which is something that she sought to convey while writing and recording Miseducation.
In a resurfaced Academy of Achievement interview, Hill spoke about the meaning behind the album, saying first that “every day, it means something more” to her, before revealing that initially, audiences really did not understand the title. “People automatically thought you know ‘Oh my… [her] teachers didn’t teach anything,’ but that wasn’t it,” she shared.”
“The meaning behind it was really sort of a catch in me learning that when I thought I was my most wise, I was really not wise at all,” she continued, “and then my humility, and in those places that most people wouldn’t expect the lesson to come from, that’s where I learned so much.”
Hill went on to clarify: “I term the phrase ‘Miseducation,’ not because it was a miseducation per se, but just because it was sort of contrary to what the world says is education. It was this education that came from life and experience, not necessarily academic, all academic, but related to living.”
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was born out of “heartache, pain, and disappointment.”
The Grammy-winning singer said that she’s “gone through a lot, a huge emotional and spiritual battle, prior to the creation of that album,” and offered some context on what that experience was like.
“The funny thing is that while I was going [through] the battle, I couldn’t see my hand despite my face,” she said. “I mean, I really couldn’t see anything, because I was so emotionally entangled in everything that I had gone through, but it was like once I was delivered from that situation, and once I got the perspective, I was able to look back at heartache and look back at pain and disappointment for some reason it all was so clear.”
Finally, “the picture started to form itself, the songs started to create themselves I was able to look back and and and uh and and be a narrator of my own situation but the interesting thing was that it didn’t it couldn’t happen while I was in the middle of the of the confusion.”
Hill also shared that much of the album was self-reflecting as it was “about a young woman in the music industry, and the pitfalls, the snares, the traps,” which said said “don’t stop… They keep coming.” Ultimately, she “had to learn from those things, painfully,” but emerged on the other side of the turmoil with “a very important record.”
“Interestingly enough, that record was all about what I feel, and it’s going to be interesting to see what the next record becomes,” she added, “because that will probably be about what I think, as opposed to what I feel.” Hill has yet to follow up the album with a second project.
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