We're Miseducated on Lauryn Hill

0:00Hey everyone, you're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR. I'm B.A. Parker. Now, we spend a lot of time here on Code Switch talking about culture and the people who have shaped it. So when Kai Wright and Manuel Jochi asked if I was game to explore the legacy of Lauryn Hill, one of the greatest hip-hop and R&B artists of all time, on their podcast, Big Lives, has said, heck yeah. So for some context, Big Lives is a show hosted

0:32by Kai and Manuel. You might have heard them on the Guardian stage side or This American Life. They dig into the BBC archives to find material that reframes what we think we know about culture's biggest trailblazers, people like David Bowie, Richard Pryor, Meg Ryan, and makes you really consider how these icons set the stage for today's cultural landscape. So in this episode, I chat with Kai and Manuel about how Lauryn Hill's genius continues to

1:05shape hip-hop, soul, and pop, the pressure she faces as a frontwoman, and what it means to be a Black woman trying to make art. From Nas to Drake to Livi Rodrigo, Lauryn's stamp is there. And I loved getting to dig into that and so much more. And if you like what you hear, find more episodes of Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts.

1:35From BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries, this is Big Lives. I'm Kai Wright. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. And on this show, we take a single cultural icon, we break down their legacy with the help of the BBC's vast archive. And today, to do our breaking down, we have a special guest, B.A. Parker, one of the hosts of NPR's podcast, Code Switch. B.A., hey. Hello. Thanks for having me. So you're here because you have kind of sent in a DJ request.

2:06Yes. So I know that you are responsible for going to the archives and talking about these great, great people. And you have certainly run the gamut. And I was wondering if we could explore the legacy of Lauryn Hill. One Lauryn Hill. And why? Why did you want Lauryn Hill? What is the... I think she gets a lot of grief. She is my J.D. Salinger. She made one thing that has stood the test of time. That was all really needed. And I feel like she got a lot of guff.

2:41A lot of guff in the sense of just the way she's been characterized. Yeah. To you, what are some of the ways she's been characterized? What would you say?

2:50Late.

2:52I was going to say, that's the understatement. That's the thing. She's late as hell. Just so if anyone doesn't know who among us has not stood in a concert, having bought a ticket to a Lauryn Hill show and waiting hours for her to actually show up. To be fair, I knew what I was getting into. But someone who would speak truth to power and through her art, and maybe misunderstood. Maybe her vulnerability not being accepted in good faith by her fans. Yeah. She's been called crazy, amongst other things.

3:23Yeah. Don't love that word. What about you, Emmanuel? What's your relationship to Lauryn Hill? Honestly, my relationship to Lauryn Hill is just like, I just remember being a kid in the late 90s, early 2000s, and I just felt like Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, her big classic album was a soundtrack to my life. So many songs, I feel like, soundtracked my childhood, and then I just remember it kind of ending, and not hearing her songs as much, and hearing them again as an adult. And then, unfortunately, you know, waiting for hours to see her at the Pitchfork

3:56Musical Festival in Chicago a couple of years ago. But... Her disappearing, one other word that's used to describe her is recluse, you know. Yeah. She's been described as somebody who just kind of became out there and weird and difficult and hidden from the public and all of these things. And so we want to get into some of that and why people thought of her that way and where it may have come from. But first off, if you are somehow visiting from Mars and don't know Lauryn Hill, please, as Emmanuel said,

4:29look in the dictionary, under the 1990s. I just don't even know where to begin. No, I mean, it shouldn't get lost in here that we're... I don't use this word very lightly, but, like, we're talking about someone who is considered a genius, musically. Because she is! Like, legitimately, exactly. Absolutely. So she's one of the pioneers of this music genre that blends soul and hip-hop and reggae. She's rightly called the queen of neo-soul. Just so, so influential in music,

5:03period. Certainly Black music. Part of the band The Fugees, one of the most loved groups in the history of hip-hop. And then, as we said, went out on her own, made one of the greatest records of all time. Like, literally is on many lists as one of the greatest records of all time, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Multiple Grammys, multiple firsts. We'll get into all of that. But above all else, she is here to kill you softly. Aw. Killing me softly with his song. Killing me softly with his song. Telling my whole life. With his words. Killing me softly.

5:44Parker literally put our hands to her heart when that song hit. This is just, you know, it's just one of the great songs in history of music. But despite all of that, as I have been looking through the BBC archive on your behalf, Parker, I have found not a lot, to be honest. Because, again, she did kind of become a recluse. She just does not do media interviews. Good for her.

6:14Good for her. It's your opening bid. Okay. But I did find two e-interviews that will be our text for today. And one of them is from her time with the Fugees. And then the other one is right around the release of Miseducation. So in both of these, she's at her prime. She's happy and excited about her future in music. And just really sounds confident in her place in the industry,

6:46oddly. I can just do my part and, you know, stay on the right path and don't step on anybody's toes and, you know, try and be a strong, righteous woman. You know what I mean? So we're going to listen to both of these conversations. In them, you hear that sort of optimism of the moment, but you do also start to hear her thinking about some of these questions about what it really means to be a Black woman trying to make her art in her own way in this

7:22culture and how complicated that can be and how, for her, how curdling that became. So we'll get into all of that. We'll get into the tape after the break.

7:41Welcome back. This is Big Lives. Today we are talking about the Lauryn Hill. Parker, when did you first encounter Lauryn Hill? I mean, elementary school. It was when, uh, Killing Me Softly came out. So I was, I was a wee babe. And so like, I knew like one time and that and Ready or Not, that era of the Fugees. And so when the miseducation of Lauryn Hill came out, it just felt like a, like a cool extension. That was my understanding of her. Like she felt like this cool big sister.

8:14Big sister. Yeah. I mean, now that I'm an adult, I realized just how young she was when all this happened, but she just seemed like, she seemed very like singular. Like I'd never seen anyone like her before. And I think my grandmother would watch her on As the World Turns, which was a soap opera back in the day. And so she was like one of the two Black people on a soap opera called As the World Turns. As a teenager. As a teenager. So my context was the soap opera and like Ready or Not.

8:49You use the phrase big sister and that is useful for us all to hold. Cause I think there's a lot of people who felt that way about her. A lot of Black women who felt that way about her, Black girls, I guess, who felt that way about her. And that's going to be part of the story we're here to tell. So like I said, we're going to pull from two key interviews as we talk about this, both in the nineties. And the first one is with a British music journalist called Andy Kershaw. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing it because I don't have a British accent, but he's a big deal. And we

9:20don't know exactly when this interview comes from because the tape is not properly labeled. That's a thing we've run into with the archive a couple of times, but I'm pretty sure it's the summer of 1996. So it is the same year that the Fugees dropped that huge hit album, the score that had Killing Me Softly that had Ready or Not on it. And you know, it's fun because this guy Kershaw, he is just having a blast. So it starts with him reading off this concert bill that just, listen to this

9:52night schedule pinned up on the wall. Sunday, August the 18th, four o'clock doors open, six o'clock Call of the Wild, 6.08 Spearhead for 25 minutes, then Buster Rhymes, seven o'clock Tribe Called Quest, 7.46 The Fugees, including Naz, then it's Cypress Hill and topped off at 9.51 by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers. It reads with the omission of diggable planets and one or two others, like Kershaw's Guide to Quality Rap. And it's arrived in the most

10:23unlikely hood, as we rap inside us call these things, the cradle of white American music, Nashville, Tennessee. Okay, so let's just acknowledge what you're laughing at here, right? Hood?

10:37Sorry, I'm pretty sure that I still find that funny. But just to say though, that lineup is wild. Wild! Can you imagine? I mean, Jesus, listen to that. That's so many cool people. Like, it's Buster Rhymes, it's Tribe Called Quest. It's like, let's go back to 1996. It's right. So if you want to relive the 90s, this is a perfect playlist for you to do that with all of these groups. And they're also like, they're mixing soul and jazz and hip hop, even some punk with Cypress Hills. Feels like in that era, they're reaching back through

11:12all of black music, bringing it all together to make this new sound. And Lauryn Hill is credibly considered the beating heart of it all at that moment. And she is a lousy 21 years old at the time. Wow. So just to back up and give me, let me give you the basic bio stuff. She, Lauryn Hill, born May 26, 1975 in East Orange, New Jersey. Grows up mostly in South Orange, which is just a stone's throw away. She's in a Baptist family where music is just everywhere. It's a constant presence. Her

11:45mother, Valerie, is an English teacher, but who also plays the piano. Her father is a consultant who sang at nightclubs and at weddings. So it's just like music, music, music. By age 13, she's on stage at the Apollo. I have this in common with her. We have both played the stage of the Apollo. Yeah. Wait, really? Brag about it. Yeah, look, you know. Okay. I made a podcast on the stage of the Apollo a couple of times. It counts. It still counts. It still counts. It's different. But still. And so she does the Apollo at 13. She does the Motown classic,

12:20Who's Loving You? Written by Smokey Robinson, but made big by Jackson 5, of course. So it makes sense for her to do it as a 13-year-old. I had to look up clips of it right on YouTube. And I was like, is this AI? This can't be real. But it is her. Of course, she gets booed, as you do with, you know, Showtime at the Apollo. Let's boo a child. Let's boo a child. That was the tradition. Because it's a hazing. It's a hazing. Okay. But she stays in it. They're booing and she stays in it. And she wins them back

12:55over a little bit by the end. Her mom told Rolling Stone in a profile later that she cried about it. Yeah. Right, because she's 13. But it's funny because her mom, Valerie, says she told Lauren, she's like, well, maybe this isn't for you if you're going to cry. So she tells her mom, no, you're nuts. This is for me. This is my calling, even if I'm going to be booed off the stage. Oh, go for her. Anyway, she grows up surrounded by a massive record collection and all this music. And it's full of 70s soul. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, and of course, Roberta

13:28Flack. I see there. And so, you know, she tells Kersher that these are the sounds that shaped her music. Was Killing Miss Softly your idea? Yeah. You want to tell us how that came about? But I mean, it wasn't any major revelation. No light bulb went on. It just, you know, my mom was a Roberta fan. The music was always in my house. And one day, me and Pryosh were in the car and the song came on the radio and we just looked at each other and we were like, pshh. I said, I had mentioned it to him earlier that that song, you know,

14:02was it. So first off, can we just talk about the basic idea of the two versions of these songs, Roberta Flack and Lauryn Hill and what she does with it on the Fugees album? And I don't know, for me, it's like these voices of two Black women connecting across generations. Totally different sounds, but totally same vibe and emotion. That is my take. I mean, you know, there's such a beautiful soulfulness to how Lauren is singing it as well,

14:35but it's wrapped up in like the Wyclef beat and the like the one time, two, like, but it is like this, the soulfulness that she is like reaching out through the song. Like she sang it recently at the Grammys in honor of Roberta Flack. And everyone was so excited that Lauryn Hill even blessed this event, but that she was able to still have that yearning in her voice while singing it and like this mournfulness to it that from 21 to now in her 50s still have

15:10that ability to engage and compel the audience that way. Totally. It's like, she's so young and this conversation has been helpful because I forget that how young she was, but she has a similar quality to like the Jackson 5 song, that song. There's a quality I feel like to some of these old records, which is just everyone who's singing them is young and yet you listen to them. You're like, oh, you've lived a life. You believe it. You know what I mean? You believe what they're singing. Right. Michael Jackson at whatever you believed, you know, that they're this child.

15:4310 years old being like, who's loving you? Yeah. And it's poignant, you know, I mean, which is why it works. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, she, so RIP Roberta Flack, you know, she recently passed, who was just a really titanic voice in black music in the 70s. And I feel like there is some analogy there too, in the sense of the way Lauryn Hill is this young woman who is standing out in the 90s and black music that is mostly thought of at the time. And now is about all these young men,

16:18but she's actually at the center holding it together. And Roberta Flack is similar in the 70s with 70s soul, you know, she's keeping it going. And there's just some beautiful synergy that this song unites these two remarkable artists. But so in that clip, you heard she mentions Pross. That's Pross Michelle. He and Lauryn formed a band together when she was in high school. Later, they added Wycliffe Jeanne and they become the Fugees, which is one of the great and tragic band stories in music history. And in that tape,

16:52again, with Andy Krishor in 1996, there's this lovely moment where he's hanging out backstage with Wycliffe just playing the guitar. It's apropos of nothing, but I just, it's so pretty. Like, I'm going to play it. Yeah, please. We ready? Sure. Let it roll.

17:29It's a new idea you're working on. Actually, I'm just vibing, man. It's called the vibes. Whatever comes to your head, you just do it. Backstage and killing time before the show in Nashville. And Wycliffe's noodling around on

18:07his acoustic guitar.

18:10This is what's happening backstage at that Nashville concert. Like, while we're waiting for Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes and all of that to happen, this was going on backstage. Vibes hadn't hit the UK yet. It's not like that. But listen, even now listening to that, I was just like, you know, when you hear somebody talk and you're stuck on every word they say? Yeah. I was stuck on every single motif or direction that piece of music just went, even though he's just noodling. Yeah. Oh, I can see why I would be enraptured at 20 years old listening to Wycliffe.

18:47Listening to Wycliffe. Play the guitar and try to, like, spit rhymes in the green room. Yeah. So at this moment, this is, like I said, the Fugees, Praz, Wycliffe, Lauryn Hill. They have just dropped their second album called The Score. First album wasn't a thing commercially, but the score dropped in February of that year and it broke the world. It broke people's minds, sold 22 million copies worldwide, won the Grammy for Best Rap album, which made Lauryn Hill the first woman to win that award. Killing Me Softly was just one of the incredible examples

19:22that she brought to the music. There's also Ready or Not, where she's so beautiful on. There's Fuji La, you know, Fuji La La La. It's just where I think without her, the song is, nothing. And in this interview with Kersher, it's all just a few months after this fact. And it's interesting that with all we know about Lauryn Hill and her relationship to media and fame now, right, how she turned on it and it turned on her, whichever you come from,

19:54but, like, she don't hang with people like Kersher anymore. To hear her just relaxed optimism and openness as she talks to him and as she just talks about the art itself. I think one of our goals is just basically to, you know, reunite the youths, you know, reunite the youths with, you know, musicality and the depth, like the old school, you know, back in the days. Just basically, you know, I think that musically, hip-hop is sort of like,

20:27we're like the descendants of disco. So we lost a little bit of our musicality because everybody started to synthesize and use this in that computer. I think we're just trying to bring that vibe and that soul, you know, back. By using, like, live musicians on stage. The musicality, you know, the musicality back to black music, the lyricism, the depth, the soul, the feeling, you know. It's not about, you know, sex and money and drugs. It's about, you know, it's about more than that. It's about feeling. It's about we're very spiritual people. If we're in

20:57touch with it or not, it's still there. I think we're just trying to, you know, move more young people towards that. We're the descendants of disco, she says. And she's right. I love the phrase, descendants of disco. Yeah. Put that on a t-shirt.

21:17But it's true to think about their music, right? That was, again, part of that moment in the 90s. It was about the return of instrumentation to hip-hop. I guess the return of instrumentation, the introduction of instrumentation to hip-hop, where, you know, somebody like young Emanuel with his saxophone might have been able to hop on a, hop on a track. There you go. KG it up. Listen, but we joke, but honestly, I feel like a lot of these songs are my introduction to those

21:47instruments, right? And when I started playing saxophone, I started playing violin as a kid, for example, hearing the way they use strings, hearing the way they use brass, all of that, I was hearing it through the lens of stuff like this. Well, also, when we talk descendants of disco, like her, the Fugees and her music, because it's sampled by some of that earlier music, like, I mean, Fujila comes from Tina Marie or, you know, Breda Flack or Jackson 5, the 70s music that is being repackaged a little bit

22:21for a newer generation. You can see the threads. She's repacking the music for, a newer generation in a way that's so respectful, too, and so clearly understands where that music comes from in a way that's so refreshing to hear from someone so young. She's building on it. Yeah. It's just refreshing to hear. Well, I mean, to that point, I love this little wisdom she drops next. I really love black culture, you know, and all of its assets and all of its dimensions. People have

22:54tried to label me as a racist because of that. That I'm not, you know. Sorry, in what sense? I don't understand. Well, no. I mean, I love everyone universally, but I happen to love my culture. I just think black culture is just the fucking bomb. Excuse my language. You know what I'm saying? So do I, and I'm white. Yeah, but here's the deal, though. But when someone who's black and articulate and strong and making powerful music says it, it becomes an issue. You understand what I mean? It definitely becomes an issue. It becomes an issue when we are unapologetic about it, is what I hear her saying.

23:28I think it's the fact that she is understanding that, of just, like, being so vocal and getting pushback from it, I can totally understand how trying to navigate that, especially as your light is getting bigger and bigger, can be an interesting push and pull. But the push and pull, right? And we've talked about this some on the show before, Emmanuel, with black artists, this push and pull, because it's also this deeply 90s set of ideas that's

24:01happening here, where simultaneously we were all being unapologetically black, right, as part of this expansion, too, also of what blackness could be culturally that she represented. Like, black hip-hop could be feminist. Rappers could be hippies, you know? It was all this new thing, but it's also this desire to then cross over, not in a negative way, but in a way to say we are also, we are unapologetically black, and we are also universal, right, at the same time.

24:36Listen to her talk about that. How do you feel when you look out at a crowd like that one tonight in Nashville, and you see that mixture of people? Oh, that's dope. I think that's dope. I think that what that does is it introduces people who wouldn't normally understand or have any knowledge or exposure to certain forms of culture. You know, it's all about, you know, it's like me. You see me? My life was always like a duality. I grew up in

25:10two different places. You know, I grew up, it's like I lived amongst black people, but I went to school in a very suburban community, you know, so I got to see how life was on both sides, and I saw that as different as they were, you know, there were some similarities, but that both were so alien to each other, and that's not healthy. You know what I'm saying? That's never healthy. You know, we have white people afraid of black people, black people unaware that white people exist outside, you know what I mean? It's just, that's no good. I think that in everything that I do, you know, I try to

25:41incorporate the concept of universality and growth, you know, and development and potential, and the fact that all of us have it. All of us have it. Even the poorest of the poor. She tries to put universality into everything, but I saw you, Parker, nodding at I grew up with this duality, the two different places idea. Yeah, I mean, I think about, I think the fact that wasn't one of her classmates Zach Braff? Like, she went to high school with the guy from Scrubs, but also just trying to, she's trying to thread this needle of being so authentically herself

26:14while being not palatable. I don't think she really cares if she's being palatable. I think she wants to be true to her, like, artistic self and how she's trying to express herself, and if you come along for the ride and accept it, that's really nice, but there's no malice to it. It's just, that's a period of time. I think about a couple of years ago, I went to, like, an anniversary showing of Malcolm X in a movie theater here in New York, and the event was so, like, 1990s Black of, like, the Pan-African flag was everywhere, and they were in, like,

26:46the map of African necklaces, and the Kachikis, and, like, Arrested Development was playing. And that is, so the fact that, like, the early 90s was such this utopic idea of what it means to be Black and proud and still be a part of the mainstream media. And it's tricky, too, because it's, on the one hand, it's, she's walking this thin line, and I feel like you said that whole 90s sort of Pan-Africanism, back to our roots as a people sort of thing. It's tricky, because on the one hand, you have white people who are just like,

27:19oh, you're racist against us, because you are talking about yourself so much. But then on the other hand, I mean, more so now, but I imagine even then, there's also a conversation going on within the Black community, which is, ah, just because I wear my hair in the weave doesn't mean that I'm any less Black than you, or, I mean, like that. And I feel like she's walking a thin line. A very thin line. That I, even now, I went to see her in concert a couple of years ago. So, um, I mean, Grant Kaye, this is how, I'll tell you, doors opened at six.

27:52I got there, I knew what I was getting in for. I got there at nine. She started at 9.40 on the dot. And then there was an intermission, because the Fugees were coming out afterwards. Like, Prize and Wildclaw were coming out after she did the full Miss Education of Lauryn Hill. Wait, wait, wait, you went to that concert? Yeah. You went to that concert in the time span of our friendship, and you didn't invite me. And I went with one of our friends.

28:20Sorry, Emmanuel. Sorry. It was at Barclay. It was great. This whole time you mentioned the concert, I was like, okay, yeah, one-off concert, whatever. I didn't realize it was that concert. Yeah. But, okay, it was on a Thursday night. During the intermission, so many people left, because they, like, they left. I mean, it was Thursday night, whatever. But they left before the Fugees came out. It was, like, a whole thing. And I'm like, no. This is a whole, like, this is what I'm here for. Like, I don't let me out for it. This is history, but you're going to have to wait for it. It ended around midnight. But you know what? Whatever. But, like, this is something historic that's happening.

28:53But it was so many people who maybe didn't, I mean, they weren't Black folk. And they just flooded out during intermission. Like, something historical is about to happen, but they did not care. And I feel like Lauryn Hill in her 50s, trying to still connect. She had a big presentation before she comes out that's like, Nelson Mandela, and all this kind of Pan-Africanism of the 90s presentation that was moving and all that. But I was like, I don't know if people are picking up what you're putting down in the 21st century.

29:25I don't know. Yeah, we're in a very different time. And just so people know, because we're getting ahead of ourselves here. No, no. But, you know, there was a very bitter breakup between Lauryn Hill and the Fugees, all three of them. And this concert was the first time they were back together in however many decades that is that I don't want to reflect on for my own age. And it was a big, big moment. But her and many of her peers at the time effort to simultaneously be unapologetically Black and universal in the sense that we have something to say that is relevant to everybody.

30:04That really is the 90s in a nutshell. And people, it had a bigger ear at the time than we can remember because that is now would be even harder to do. But it's funny, in this conversation with Andy Kershaw, he accidentally illustrates the challenge of doing this and how it could go wrong. And it's a funny and awkward moment. But I just, she uses it as a teachable moment. Let me listen. Just listen to this. See, when Wycliffe came out on stage tonight, he said two or three times to the crowd, hey, this is a black party, this is a black party.

30:42Who do you think he's reassuring, the crowd or himself? No, no, no, no, no, you misunderstood him. He didn't say a black party. He said a block party. Sorry. No, no, no, no, Wycliffe, that's not Clef. Black party means everybody's invited. It's for the whole block. Sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's a matter of accents, Lauren. Let's see now. Black party. Check this out. I want you to check this out. Do you see how easily you could have misunderstood that? I did. Well, I did misunderstand. Taking it back home. You see what I'm saying?

31:12Taking it back home. I did misunderstand. And said, well, you know, those Fugees, man, they just try to alienate all the white kids. You know, they said it was a black party. You understand what I mean? And then all of a sudden the world thinks that we're these racist, you know, people trying to, you know, rule the world or something. And, you know, that's not it. No, I'm sorry. It's his New York accent. It's a black party. Yeah. Block. Block. As in the block. The block party. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. All right. Thank you.

31:40She ends that. He's like, let's just cut. You can hear it. So that also, like, so it's funny, but like at the beginning, like at the end that you start to hear the beginning of her being through with media and through, which she will become totally and completely done with doing this kind of interview eventually.

31:58Yeah. Like you said, she really uses it as a teachable moment and she's very patient. She's on it right away of like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here's what he said. Which that's a lot to be on like that. It's a lot to be on like that. I want to say, I thought she did say, I thought she did say black party, but when he was saying it, I was like, oh, that makes total sense. He's trying to reassure in these spaces where hip hop becomes more and more homogenized that the black people that are there make them feel comfortable because they're getting

32:28outnumbered. But no, block party also does make total sense.

32:34Like it would have been fine in the even way, actually. There you go. But this is, again, this is the thing, you know, like in that context. We didn't need an affirmation that we were, we didn't need that part. We didn't need to be told, yeah, this is for black people. We knew it was for black people. Yeah. They were trying to also be universal. But that was an uncomfortable and funny moment. But it's also uncomfortable to listen to this now because as we've said a few times, this is the beginning of the end of the Fugees. It is shortly after this that things really bitterly fall apart.

33:09And the gossip and the recounting of accusations about how everybody has behaved in the course of that has gone on for decades now. But Wycliffe and Lauryn Hill were having a relationship. It was stormy. He does not come off as a gentleman in most accounts. The drama is, it's complicated, honestly, and I don't even want to try to recount all of it. You guys are welcome if you want to try to do it. But the point is he was married. And at one point, Lauryn Hill got pregnant with her first child.

33:44There was some dispute over the paternity of the child. Suffice to say, the dissolution of their relationship got caught up in the dissolution of the band. And what is interesting to me, though, is the dispute over art that is part of it, because at least according to an interview that Praz gave to Rolling Stone, that was a big part of it, because they're big and famous at this point after the score comes out. Wycliffe starts pursuing a solo project, and they all support him. But when Lauryn Hill starts pursuing her solo project, which will become Miseducation, he can't

34:20be bothered with it at first. And she's really hurt by that. And everybody in her life is like, this is some bullshit. And there's misogyny in it, because it was also, at the time, increasingly, people were talking about her as his side piece, right? And that the Fugees were Wycliffe, you know? Oh, really? And that she was just like, you know? That was a real thing? Because it's so wild to me, because to me, it's so obvious looking at it now where you're

34:53just like, they work, because Lauryn is the essential piece that makes all of it, that transcends it from being something that's really good to being something that's great and iconic. Like, I feel like everybody knew that it was the secret sauce. That, well, the reason that is now so clear to you is because she went on to make Miseducation in order to make that point. Good for her! You know what? That was part of it. Exactly! I don't mind pointing at you accusatorily, but yeah!

35:26That was part of it. And so her son's father was actually Rohan Marley, who is Bob Marley's son. She was also in a relationship with him. And so as she went to make Miseducation, she went to Bob Marley's studio in Jamaica to record the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill with intentionally live instrumentation, raw human sound, to show this is what I can do. I filled the studio up with every instrument that I always loved to hear, you know, every instrument that I just adored.

35:59And if I ever heard a song, I said, what is that? I mean, I figured it was a Celeste or a Rose or a Harp or something. I said, I want every live instrument. And then let's try to make this hip-hop something really, really musical. The album drops on August 25th, 1998. And as we have clearly established in this conversation, we have never been the same.

36:21Debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with the highest first week sales ever at the time for a female artist. Wins five Grammys, another record for a female artist at the time that included Album of the Year. Obviously, that was the first hip-hop album to become Album of the Year. Famously at the Grammys in her acceptance speech, she declares, this is crazy because this is hip-hop music, right? There's all of that. But I want to put an idea to you that I've seen some critics say that you can trace a line from miseducation all the way up to Beyonce's Lemonade and all the rest of it.

37:00Oh, sure. And Joan Morgan wrote a book back at the 25th anniversary of the album called She Begat This. Lauren Hill begat all of this. And I'll admit I have not read the book. But the argument is that miseducation just blew open the door of the culture for Black women to be authentic and unexpected and innovative and self-expression that just had not been possible before that commercially. Oh, I mean, 100%. I mean, there's still some, not problems, but I think only two other women have won Best Hip-Hop Album.

37:33It's Cardi B and Doji. Yeah. And that's it. And then even less Black women, specifically when you're talking about, like, Album of the Year, right? I mean, it's her and it's Cowboy Carter? Four Black women have won Album of the Year. Okay. And Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston. Lauryn Hill and Beyonce. So. Those four. Those four. You know, if you're going to give it to four, at least that's the right four, you know?

38:05I mean, she is the blueprint. I mean, the fact that I remember when Drake first came out and he was like, I'm the first person to combine, you know, hip-hop and singing. And I'm like, no, you're not.

38:17No, sir. We can literally go all the way back to, like, before you were, like. Let's not bring Drake into the room. Anyways, that is to say, like, she is 100% like the blueprint for how, I will say, like, to be a young Black woman drunk in the club singing X Factor is a rite of passage. Yeah. So, to this day, I just think, like, you look at any kind of soul-bearing, I think, that is in hip-hop or in R&B, that bubbles up, is automatically compared to Miseducation.

38:54Yeah. Again, I want to go back to just how young she was. Like, that album came out when she was 23. See, the same age as Olivia Rodrigo now. Wow. Yeah. And the kind of, like, perceptiveness and, like, honesty and, like, earnestness that she is putting into that album that even now we think about, for some reason, while we're having this conversation, I'm thinking about Chapel Roan as someone who is maybe, like, a mixed bag relationship with the media.

39:28As someone who's trying to, like, establish boundaries while being, like, a young woman and not getting enough grace for it. Then we have, like, Lauryn Hill trying to start off in kind, as we see in her conversation with that presenter. Like, at a young age and still there's, like, the memory, like, I am a woman in this space and this is how people are going to treat me. So, let me, you know, mind my P's and Q's, but also having that realization of, no, I don't have to engage with this if I don't want to at such a young age.

40:04I just, I want to say good for her. If I had, like, the biggest moment of my career at 23 and, like, I would be a cobbler in St. Kitts somewhere, like, you would never see me again. Speak, speak, speak, right? You would never see me again. Absolutely. Would have been a wrap. So, like, yeah, like, she did this thing. Also, how do you compete with that? This thing was so, it was everywhere and so beloved and I can't count, almost 30 years later, it's still, like, the blueprint.

40:40Yeah. How do you try, not even try to top that, like, anything you make afterwards, they'd be like, but it's not like the miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Yeah. What's she going to do? But as we've said, this should have been the beginning of a wild and incredible career, but it is not. Lauryn Hill almost totally disappears from the music scene shortly after miseducation. And the second interview that I'm going to dig into gives us some sense of what was going on for her.

41:12We'll get into all of that after the break. Welcome back. This is Big Lives. Today we are talking about the Lauryn Hill with our special guest, B.A. Parker from Code Switch. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Oh, so we have made it to 1999. Thank goodness. Miseducation has come out and blown all of our minds, set all kinds of records commercially, Lauryn Hill's on top of the world.

41:45I haven't even, we brought up briefly her acting career, which, you know. Yeah, we left out Sister Act 2, okay? Sister Act 2. The classic. There's also a movie called Restaurant that I remember really loving when I was a film student. Okay. Where she is the girlfriend that Adrienne Brody pines for, for the entire movie. As he should. He deals with, it's him dealing with race relations, and he realizes he loves black women, and that's like his thing. Oh, okay. And then he realizes he's been pining for this whole time that broke up with him as Lauryn Hill, who, I think this was when she was pregnant with her second child.

42:22So she is very pregnant in the movie. Okay. Well, I mean, so those are the things that got made, but it is worth pointing out that, like, when that Fuji's album broke, she was getting all of these offers to do movies. Born Identity wanted her, for instance. What? Wow. Yeah. No, apparently, like, just huge movie offers, and she turned it all down because she wanted to focus on Miseducation. And, yeah. I mean, I know that the album gives us so much, but I also would have enjoyed a Born Identity with her.

42:56She was focused on y'all to know. Yeah, that was a Julia Styles character. That would have been interesting. She wanted y'all to know what she could do musically. So she's on top of the world after Miseducation comes out again, and she sits down with a DJ and music journalist called Trevor Nelson. Mm-hmm. Emmanuel, as our resident British translator, you want to explain?

43:18Because Trevor Nelson's a big deal. You want to try to explain who Trevor Nelson is? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I'm not going to say that much more than what you just said, but no, he was, like, a big deal radio DJ and personality on the BBC for years. And, honestly, I know him in conjunction with this Lorne Hill interview that I think you're going to talk about. Like, that's his calling card. That's, I feel like, his biggest calling card that he's been talking about for years, and he should. I'm so excited to get into this. Oh, okay. Parker's looking him up. I'm looking him up. Bald British black man.

43:49Yes. It's like looking into a mirror. It's a print. Both.

43:55Because Emmanuel is a bald British black man. As are you, Kai. Well, not British, but you're a bald black man. I just want to say, this is a bald black man's face. That's true. I'm so glad to be welcome.

44:10Well, she sits down with this bald British black man in 1999. And this interview comes the day after she's given a performance at the Brixton Academy in London, which Trevor Nelson was at. When you perform on stage, it seems as if the spiritual side of your music is coming out and breathing even more so than anything else. You seem like you're kind of taking. I look a little crazy, right? It's okay. It's jumping around, wiling out. But talking to spiritual, is that a very important part of your life right now?

44:42Yeah. I think, you know, I think live show is important because, you know, it communicates to the people, you know what I mean, in person, what it is that they hear. And, you know, I couldn't write the music and then not perform it, you know, in a meaningful way. So I try really hard to, you know, every night it's a challenge to get up there and, you know, and express that music. You know what I mean? Because, you know, it's very honest music.

45:14So it means a lot to me, you know, every, each 537th time, you know, I sing those songs, you know, each time it means a lot to me. I know I look a little crazy sometimes. For me, it's awkward to hear herself refer to herself as a little crazy here because of the discourse about her that began shortly after this. And I think we've, we've touched on it in various ways throughout this conversation, but can we just like for a minute, just be direct about the ways in which she is discussed in the culture now and has been discussed in the culture for the last, you know, 20 years.

45:54Just like the, the negative things said about her. So, yes, it's funny. We say, oh, she shows up late to concerts all the time, but people talk about that as more than a joke. They talk about her as unhinged and erratic and quick to anger and a diva. All these clearly loaded phrases in relationship to black women. I mean, the things that I say about her are in jest because I know she's a lady who has been through some things.

46:27I think there is not often grace that is given to black female artists. It's so interesting because I re-listened to, like directly after, after Miss Education of Lauryn Hill, she does this MTV Unplugged album that I remember listening to as a teenager and being like, what is this? This is not very good. I love parts of that album, but we continue.

46:59I mean, because I think at the time, like the people that responded to it, that like the reviews weren't very kind. There was, I mean, to be fair, like she is sucked on a throat lodging for a large swath. She does this album, she came to it with damage to her throat, but she insisted on doing it anyway. She insisted on playing the guitar, even though she was just learning to play the guitar. I will say, Madonna did the same thing with American Life and everybody was like, this is fun.

47:33But when Lauryn Hill does it, they're like, what is this? But to be fair, again, I was, I was a child and I was like, this is not, but then I re-listened to it recently and I was like, oh my gosh, this is really beautiful. For me, it is akin to when Wyclef is just bandying about on the guitar for that presenter of just like, she's figuring things out. And there's a song, I think I gotta, I remember the song being long when I was like, and I was like, oh, not a doubt. Like, yeah, this is almost like a 10 minute song called, like, I Gotta Find My Peace.

48:05And at the end of it, she's in this kind of like spiritual revelry that I think may make people uncomfortable. And then you can hear someone go at the end, like, are you all right? She's like, yeah, I'm fine. In a way that I, I don't know if people fully understood what she was throwing down, but she's also like really vulnerable again. And I don't know, she's a pregnant lady who was vulnerable, who made an album. And who was in the middle of a very, a very profound withdrawal from public life. She was beginning a really, really sharp withdrawal from public life.

48:36They should have felt blessed that she was coming in to sing a song for them. Yeah. So I said, thank you, we kept it moving. That's the thing that people felt entitled to, and still do. You know what I mean? I think that's part of it is like, I think it's hard for people to understand when you have that sort of success and fame, why you would show any sort of reticence to protect yourself from it. Yeah.

49:01And I think the assumption people make is, well, so there must be something wrong with you. And so all of these sorts of... You don't want to be famous? Yeah. And so all of these sorts of... And so things that are real, right? Yeah. Like, she is late to concerts. Yeah. Um, like, there is, of course, all this controversy about sort of, like, the credit that she did or did not give to, like, so many of these live musicians who performed with her when making, like, the Miss Education Lord. There are all of these sorts of things. Am I jumping a bunch? Sorry. So let me talk about that. Because that is...

49:33So part of the... There's a belief, people in her life believe, like, the withdrawal really began with this controversy that you're bringing up, Emmanuel. So, because remember, her big motivation for making Miss Education was her desire to show her value, right? Like, man, this is, like, here's what I can do. I'm not just Wycliffe Jeans Sideshow. And so she was really keen to make the album herself, to make sure everyone knew she made

50:03the album. And then after release, a group of producers who worked with her on it were like, but wait a minute, we also worked on the album, where's our credit? And they sued her, saying that they hadn't been given proper credit or compensation. And so that suit went on. Finally, she settled it a few years after the album came out and paid them $5 million. And that apparently was one of the big, big moments where she started to say, I don't really

50:38want to be part of this public life. And none of that has happened. None of these things that we just talked about have happened when she's talking to Trevor Nelson. Mm-hmm. But it is almost like she's prophesying that things are going to turn for her in this way. Listen to this. Do you think there's too much pressure now, though? I mean, a lot of the kids that are in hip hop and R&B have come straight from the street. They haven't had the education of record company how to handle vast fortunes of money. Do you think there's too much pressure on these kids now?

51:09I think it's unfortunate. I think it can be a system that is set up to help people to fail, to be honest with you, because it's way too much, you know, without the proper information, you know, without the proper knowledge, you know, who could possibly be prepared, you know what I mean, for everything that happens, you know, in the music industry without some guidance, you know. So that's why, you know, prayer is important, you know, proverbs and psalms, man, they make

51:41a lot of sense. I mean, you know, it's like there's so much, you know, so much to deal with. There's so many different forces. There's so many people grabbing at you. Who's prepared for that? You know, who grows up in New York, New Jersey or Brixton, you know what I'm saying, and knows how to handle, you know, just by virtue of their regular, normal, everyday lives, you know, all the pressure, all the attention, you know. You know, she's being theoretical. Who grows up?

52:11She grew up right out of Newark. Newark, yeah. So it feels like she's talking about herself, that she's already feeling this kind of pressure. And it's also to think about her personal life in all of this, because again, she had all of this sort of dramatic breakup with Wycliffe Jean, messy, dramatic breakup with Wycliffe Jean. And she's married to, in her language, Rohan Marley, but he is actually still married to somebody else from a relationship.

52:43And like, her stance is like, leave the state. What the state says about my marriage doesn't make it a marriage or not, you know? But like, it's, you know, that's in the culture too, is that she's a woman who is unmarried, technically, you know. She's got now two kids. And I should say, it's notable that when she was pregnant with Zion, who is her first son,

53:14and there's a song dedicated to him on miseducation, there are reports that she was urged, people in the industry urged her to terminate that pregnancy because it would look bad. I gotta say, at the concert a couple of years ago, she sings to Zion, and then Zion comes on stage as like an adult. Yeah. Full sobs. Aw. It was, like, because you know the story of Zion, you're like, oh my God, it was beautiful. We, everyone in the audience was like, so happy to see you.

53:47But I don't know. Anyway. That's what's going on. Listen, I want to play a little bit from this Trevor Nelson where she talks about Zion. Take one track, for example, of the album Zion, about your child, your first child. Now you have two. Yes. How much of an impact has that had on your life? Oh, I'm crazy now. A lot crazier than I would. No, I'm only kidding. I'm very blessed, you know. I think it's matured me a great deal. It's taken my priorities in order, you know what I mean?

54:18You know, everything is very clear. I think there was a time when, you know, I thought I may have known more than I actually did, you know, and wasn't able to admit that. But now I'm very clear that I don't know very much at all, you know. And that's what children do. They sort of humble you and kind of give you clarity in a world of confusion. And, you know, I'm very blessed. Would you actually let them get into music? You know what? I think that if their hearts, you know, if in my daughter's heart or my son's heart, you know,

54:52they feel they have to do music to fulfill themselves, then, of course, I would support them. But I would let them know that, you know, this is a crazy business and try very hard to prepare them, you know, for everything that's out there because, you know, a lot of the young kids coming up today, they really don't have those mentors and those people who prepare them for the traps and, you know, and the pitfalls. And it could be a very dangerous and lonely place. But, you know, if there's a love there, I could never block or hinder a love. So, again, she's talking about those kids.

55:23She's 23. You know. 23 with two kids and, like, you're the most famous female artist currently, like, on the planet. And you're trying to figure out what the heck you're supposed to do next. We're talking about the most famous people on the planet. Yeah. Yeah. That's too much. And I think you can start to hear in this, like, between the stuff about the industry and thinking about her kid and then the, you know, with the lawsuit, you just start to hear the building blocks, I think,

55:53of the wall that she builds around herself. And she just withdraws. She starts, like, she won't do interviews. She's charging thousands and thousands of dollars. She's like, if you want to interview me, you've got to pay me $10,000. Um, she, uh, you know, look, hey. You know what? I respect it. I respect it. I'm not going to knock a hustle. She does that MTV Unplugged album. It is not a success. But in part, there is some self-defeat in that, you know, like, doing it with a destroyed throat

56:27and, you know, the choice with the guitar. Um, I will say, I, to circle back to, like, um, kind of, like, uh, passing along with the torch. I, uh, remember, I think it was Kanye's All Falls Down, um, is an interpolation, is from, uh, her song called Mystery of Inequity from the Unplugged album that Kanye hears. And he's like, I would like to use this for, um, All Falls Down.

56:57And she says, you can't use my voice. But then he gets into someone else to sing it. But it's like, the, the, the, the, the, the, All Falls Down comes from Lauryn Hill. And the hook comes from that. And it's like this beautiful, kind of like a passing of the torch of, uh, like, something that, clearly, like, Lauryn Hill did with, like, Roberta Flack or Tina Marie. And now you have Kanye kind of doing that with Lauryn Hill. Like, there is still, like, a conversation being had, um, amongst artists when it comes to Lauryn's work at that time.

57:30Oh, undeniably, this is the point. Yeah. It's like, undeniably. She hears. That is what is so interesting to me. You know, this person who removed herself very actively from the public conversation in, like, 2002. Yeah. You know, um, this is the year of our Lord, 2026. And she remains, uh, just at the center of the culture despite that. And I, and I think part of it, there's the part that's, like, her being a Black woman.

58:04That is part of the, what came at her and complicated her journey, but it is also core to why she remains still so important at the same time, right? Like, is the fact that she is a Black woman and the way she has lived, uh, and what she has meant to Black women and to Black art. And in this regard, there's two things she said to Trevor Nelson that, as we start to wrap up, I want to play for you when she thinks about this. So, here is the first.

58:35I grew up as a tomboy. And, um, the more I realized it, the more I really know that that was such an important experience for me. Because though I used to dirty up my clothes and get beatings for it, you know, now I'm clear that I never really had a respect for, you know, that social separation of the sexes. You know, I had never thought that, you know, there was something that men could do that I couldn't do. You know, I was always trying to hang with the boys and trying to do as many push-ups as the boys were and, you know, arm wrestling with the guys and running races with the guys.

59:05And, you know, so I never really had a respect for those lines. So, I never felt, uh, you know, uh, you know what I'm saying? I never felt restricted, you know, or I never felt limited, yeah. A lot of women who come into this business seem to have more talent than actually comes out by the time they churn through the system, you know? So, it's kind of odd to hear her describe herself as a tomboy because I think she's this truly classically beautiful woman calling herself a tomboy. But that's the point.

59:35It's that she gets to be the person she sees, not the person I see. And I just think that, you know, that's what I hear in that clip. I can see that. Because she is so authentically herself and has a level of self-reflection, she's had to reflect a lot about what it means to be, like, a female artist. Like, who were her peers that were going to, I don't know. At that time, not really.

1:00:06At that time? Queen Latifah? Doing the exact same thing? Not really. I mean, I guess you have, she's at the vanguard of, like, that whole wave of neo-soul artists, right? Yeah. So, I guess you have people like Jill Scott or Erykah Badu, but they're, like... Mary J. Blige. Mary J. Blige. But, like, they're still in a different... They're in the same universe, but they're still somehow not in her galaxy. They're all kind of, like, siloed. Yeah. So, we're talking about who was her role model. Yeah. Trevor Nelson asks her about her being a role model, and I want to end with that, because

1:00:37I think her answer is, well, just listen. You are a role model, period. There's no escaping the fact. I think people throw that term up a lot. I had a really corny joke to what you just said, but I'm not even going to say it. But you are... I just saw myself with a bag of bread. Yeah, but so many... I just... Whenever I talk to women about it, particularly black women, black girls about you, it's just... I love Lauryn Hill. I'd love to be Lauryn Hill. I love what she says. You know, it's just a tirade of great things people say about you.

1:01:09Can I just say, whatever their names are, they are who they are. They are... We are all so capable. It is not about me. It's about them. It's about young women having self-esteem. And being confident about who they are, you know. And I was raised by a very strong... By a history of very strong women, you know. So I grew up, you know, never feeling unattractive, not because of my outsides, but because of my insides. So there was a confidence that I had as a young person.

1:01:40And it's not an arrogance, you know, but just a confidence knowing that God is great. And that, you know, if you just, you know, if you have self-respect and self-esteem and you love yourself, you know, why can't you accomplish what you want to accomplish, you know? Everything requires hard work, you know, and discipline. But we're all so blessed, you know what I mean? And it's just a matter of us figuring out, you know, our gifts and really working hard to fine-tune them and be dope, man. And she says, whatever their names are, they're them.

1:02:15And that's who they are, they're not me. I don't know, I love that sentiment. But you were amongst the people, Parker, you called her a big sister at the beginning. Yeah. And now I also feel bad because, not feel bad, but like, Outkast isn't being asked what it's like to be a role model. Yeah. Like, Black Star, like, Yasin Bey and Talib Kuali are being asked, what's it like to be a role model? Right. It's like, Lauryn Hill, what's it like, it's the same thing they would do with, like, Britney Spears or Alicia Keys or, you know, like, Olivia Rodrigo or, like, what's it like to be a role model?

1:02:48But they're not going to ask Kendrick Lamar. Like, I don't know, like, there's like a weird onus placed on female artists that I don't love, but also I know that when I was a kid looked up to her, but it's also not her job. Her job is to be an artist and to express herself in whatever way she sees fit and not being allowed that grace and having this extra layer of what it means to be a role model, I think does her disservice.

1:03:26Because she is, again, she's just like, I don't know, I think she's cool, but also it's not, that's not a job requirement. Right. But at the same time, what's true for you? Yeah. We contain multitudes, Kai, I don't know what to tell you. That's right. That's right. And if there is any perfect last word about Lauryn Hill, it is that we contain multitudes. This woman certainly contains multitudes.

1:03:57There you go. Everything is everything. There you go. Everything is everything. Yes. Thank you all for this time. Thank you. We're making me go back and spend all this week just looping miseducation and the score. It's been a good week.

1:04:15Big Lives is a production of BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Kai Wright, and Emmanuel Jochi. From BBC Studios, our producer is Emma Wetherill. Our archive producer is Samira Chowdhury. Our executive producer is James Robinson. The sound designer is Melvin Rickaby. Production coordinator is Galen Davis-Connolly. And production manager is Mabel Finnegan-Wright. Our apprentice is Amy Woods. From Pushkin Industries, our executive producer is Constanza Gallato.

1:04:46Producer Daphne Chen. Legal advisor Jake Flanagan. And marketing by Morgan Ratner and Jordan McMillan. That was an episode of Big Lives from Pushkin and the BBC. Find Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts. Big Lives from Pushkin and the BBC. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:05:17Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.