Lauryn Hill

Why she matters

Lauryn Hill was born in East Orange and raised in South Orange, in a house full of records; her mother played piano and her father sang at clubs and weddings. In 1988 she sang on Amateur Night at the Apollo. At Columbia High School she founded the gospel choir, and Pras Michel brought her into the group that became the Fugees. She started as the singer and learned to rap afterward, building her flow from male MCs like Ice Cube rather than copying the women already on the radio.

By The Score (1996) she was out front. “Killing Me Softly” put her voice on pop, R&B and adult radio, and her verses held up next to anyone’s. When the group split in 1997, she had already written more than thirty songs in her attic studio in South Orange, and had written and produced Aretha Franklin’s “A Rose Is Still a Rose.”

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was recorded from late 1997 into 1998, starting in New York and New Jersey and moving to Tuff Gong in Kingston. Commissioner Gordon Williams supervised, with Che Pope and James Poyser on most tracks and live instrumentation throughout, because she wanted it to sound human instead of programmed. It debuted at No. 1, “Doo Wop (That Thing)” debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100, and she became the first rapper to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 (2002) went the other way: one woman, one acoustic guitar, new songs and spoken interludes. Critics split. It has since been sampled by Kanye West, Frank Ocean and Method Man.

What a working rapper can take from it

Earn both skills. Hill could sing before she could rap, and she put in the work to make the rapping just as strong. Plenty of rappers now sing a hook; fewer can do both without one half sounding like a placeholder. If you’re adding melody, practice it like a second instrument and record it with the same care. The vocal recording guide covers getting a sung take and a rapped take to sit together.

Write a lot, keep the few. Thirty-plus songs came out of that attic, and only some made the album. Volume gives you something to edit. Write through the bad ones; the verse-writing guide has drills for keeping the pen moving.

Put the credits on paper before everyone leaves. Miseducation had a lot of hands on it: co-producers, engineers, live musicians, singers. Any session with that many people needs splits agreed in writing while the music is still fresh. Use a split sheet before the last person walks out.