What I’m Zoning To Now
Generally speaking I love hip hop, it was around for 100% of my life as an art form, although it was relatively new when I was born. For me, it is a universal language in the same way that math is and there is no translation needed when it’s done right. Seeing as I’m a child of 90’s hip hop, subjectively deemed as the golden era, I have a rather diverse palate. I still listen to my favorite albums of that era on a regular basis. Which brings me to my current vibe.
As far as albums go, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is in my humble opinion one of the best ever in any genre and THE best ever hip hop album. It’s not a traditional hip hop album in the sense of a lot of rapping, rather it is hip hop culture in album form. I still listen to it without skipping any songs which is a testament to the lyrical content and production that went into this body of work. There aren’t many albums that are over 20 years old that I can stand to listen to, let alone the entire album without skipping. Hell, I skip songs in my own catalog from 5 years ago.
When this album came out, I was still in high school and it was before the iTunes and YouTube era so there was no sampling music for free before buying. You either believed enough to spend your hard earned $17.99 at Sam Goody’s or you didn’t. Don’t let multiple albums come out at the same time. It forces some tough decisions, and I’ve regretted a few of those decisions. Either way, music was consumed differently, so there was an attachment that the listeners had that is no longer present in the microwave music era now. Listening to an album instead of random playlist meant paying attention to the “album fillers” and all. Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the microwave music, and there is a time for it, but I don’t feel the music, and I can count on one maybe 2 hands how many folks cook that soul food hip hip. But I digress.
All that to say, I salute Ms. Hill for making one of my favorite albums of all time. It was one of the rare albums that achieved “classic” status upon release.