Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (Columbia) With her solo debut, Fugees front-woman Lauryn 'L-Boogie' Hill has proved she is a force to be reckoned with, a dynamic and fiercely talented singer, writer and producer.
Hip-hop soul at its best, this soulstress' visionary album is filled with all the pain and passion that urban music can bring.
L-Boogie flows with the best of them in the infectious and brilliantly constructed hip-hop track Lost Ones. Meanwhile, Ex-Factor, a beautiful R&B track about passionate love gone wrong, is, like most of these tracks, soul-stirring.
Hill pushes the current hip-hop and R&B fold, with Carlos Santana featuring on To Zion. Superstar, a critique of the status of hip-hop today, contains an interpolation of The Doors' Light My Fire.
In Doo-Wop (That Thing) Hill takes you back to the 1950s soul girl sound. She recalls Stevie Wonder in Every Ghetto Every City, and the seductive sounds of Marvin Gaye in Nothing Even Matters.
Hill's Miseducation is by far the best musical miseducation we've had all year.
