Dissect - MS1E8 - Finale: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

We conclude our eight episode deep dive into The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Want to know the subject of Season 4 of Dissect? Follow @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram for clues over the break. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Today we conclude our serialized analysis of the miseducation of Lauren Hill. Over the course of this miniseries, we've dissected the spiritual and emotional journey Miss Hill documents so transparently in song. Triggered by the end of her relationship with Wyclef Jean, the disbandment of the Fugis, and her first pregnancy, the 21-year-old Lauren Hill, was confronted. with a dynamic array of challenges that resulted in the creation of miseducation. The album opens with a dualistic expression of heartbreak. Lost On's is a venomous, lyrical assault on her ex and a declarative assertion of autonomy.

With the album's next song, X Factor, Ms. Hill quickly reveals the pain beneath her heart and exterior, letting us know that her resentment is the aftermath of emotional suffering. With 2 Zion, Ms. Hill experiences for the first time a different type of love, a mother's love of child. This significantly contrasts with the type of love she experienced with who we assume was Wyclef Jean. Two Zion is also an expression of Ms. Hill's forging independence. Despite pressures to abort, Ms. Hill followed her own heart and prioritized family over career. Miss Hill's pregnancy helped reveal who in her life, life truly cared about her and who was simply looking to capitalize on her talent. She told the

Rolling Stone, quote, that song is about the revelation that my son was to me. I had always made decisions for other people, making everybody else happy. And once I had him, that was really the first decision that was unpopular for me. It was one that was based on my happiness and not what other people wanted for me or for themselves. And it was the best decision that I could have ever made because I'm the happiest and healthiest that I've ever been. It also revealed to me which relationships were right, which ones were sincere, and which ones were based on exploiting and hurting me, unquote.

With this new perspective on the world and those around her, Miss Hill continues miseducation with a trio of songs Senator around authenticity. With Duop That Thing, she calls out the shallow sexualization and materialistic pursuits of her peers. The one you were looking for your friend, the one you let hit it and never called you again. Remember when he told you he was about to bench a man, I thought you and him, they give him a little trim to begin. How you think you really going to... The song Superstar then reveals the falsification and exploitation of contemporary hip-hop,

while Final Hour warns those who partake in self-indulgence and sin, will ultimately be held accountable when judged by God. Following final hour, Miss Education continues with another trio of thematically linked songs. Here Miss Hill focuses on love, heartbreak, and her attempts to get over her ex. When It Hurts So Bad questions the very nature of love itself, as Miss Hill is confused as to why love can often make us feel our worst.

With the album, next track, I used to love him, Ms. Hill works to move on from her unhealthy relationship documented on when it hurts so bad. Ultimately, the song concludes with Miss Hill turning her life over to God. This is the moment of revelation that the entire album hinges on. By entrusting her life into God's hands, Miss Hill is able to move forward with a restored vision of her future. Having been forgiven herself, she works towards forgiveness of those who've wronged her on the song, Forgive Them Father. Miss Education continues with yet another trio of songs that expound upon a similar theme.

With Every Ghetto, Every City, Miss Hill reflects on her upbringing in New Jersey. I was just a little girl, skinny legs a pressing curl. My mother always thought I'd be a star. Narratively, every ghetto, every city symbolizes Miss Hill's rebirth as outlined on the album's previous two tracks. It's a celebration of self. a jubilant expression of personal liberty. This thread of acceptance, contentment, and celebration

continues into the album's next track, Nothing Even Matters, a commemoration of true transcendent love. This purity of love contrasts with the album up until this point. It's a love that transcends the physical, and having now experienced this type of love, Miss Hill's contentment allows her to accept the things she cannot control, as expressed in the song's title, Nothing Even Matters. This notion is continued in the album's penultimate song, Everything is Everything. On Everything is Everything, we find Ms. Hill preaching to a younger generation,

a message of patience, acceptance, and love of self, precisely the things she learned through the experiences documented throughout miseducation. We find Ms. Hill passing on the lessons she learned she learned not in the classroom, but through hardship and experience. In this way, Everything is Everything is the narrative conclusion of the album. The Miseducated becomes educated, and the student becomes the teacher. The miseducation of Lauren Hill ends with the album's title track, an epilogue of sorts that finds Miss Hill reflecting upon her life and experience with a maturity well beyond her 22 years. The song begins with the sound of a needle

being inserted into the grooves of a vinyl record. Straight away, this imbues the song with a nostalgic quality. Indeed, aside from the song's reflective themes, we think also of a young Lauren Hill obsessively listening to her parents' record collection growing up. You know, there was one of those old record players. After I moved up from the little suitcase record player, there was a bigger record player

that my grandmother given to me, and it was one of those old arms, you know, when you pressed, repeat, it turned, and went down. and I used to play my records aloud until one night my mother was like, this is too loud, I'm not having it. And so I put on headphones, but in order for me to listen to the records, the headphones didn't stretch all the way to my bed from the record player. So I had to sleep on the floor in order to hear the records,

and that's where I slept until college. I slept on the floor right next to the record player until I was probably 19 years old, really. I mean, I just started sleeping in the bed again, because my records, you know, that was their space. the bed, and I just stayed on the floor listening to this music from, you know, morning to night. The album's title track is centered around a single piano, with bass, strings, and organ complementing this piano as the song progresses. It's reminiscent of the piano ballads of the

1960s and 70s, a la Roberta Flack and Stevie Wonder, the kind of artist Miss Hill grew up listening to. Structurally, the miseducation of Lauren Hills title track is very simple, two verses and one brief hook. Again, like we've seen throughout the entire album, Miss Hill writes very simple lines for her sung passages, which contrasts with the cryptic wordplay of her rap verses. My world, it moves so fast today, the past it seems so far away and life squeezes so tight that I can't breathe. And every time I've tried to be,

What someone else thought of me so caught up, I was unable to achieve. It's immediately apparent why this song is the album's title track. It's a reflective look back at all Miss Hill has been through, and a reiteration of the conclusion she reached. She sings, My World It Moves So Fast Today, The Past It Seems So Far Away, And Life squeezes so tight that I can't breathe. These lines established the conflicts in her life.

We think of her relationship with Wyclef, her rise to stardom in both the Fugees and acting, her pregnancy, the pressures to abort, all while she was attempting to navigate the music and film industry at a very young age. These pressures laid on the shoulders of the 20-year-old female while under the scrutiny of the public eye. Understandably overwhelmed, Ms. Hill listened to the advice of others, as a young person often does. Quote, and every time I tried to be what someone else's thought of me, so caught up I wasn't able to achieve, unquote. Given her commercial successes, we know achievement here is not money or power, rather it's self-actualization, fully realizing one's potential, finding contentment and internal peace. Ultimately, the advice of

others didn't have Ms. Hill's best interests in mind, and it wasn't until she looked within that she found the answer she was looking for. Regarding the album's title track, Miss Hill said, quote, This song means a great deal to me. It has a lot to do with how I figured out some things from my life. It doesn't necessarily mean mis-education like I didn't do well in school, as I did do good in school. But it has a lot to do with finding out about your own aspirations and your own dreams, and not those dreams and those aspirations that some might have for you.

It's a song about movement and growth and inspiration. I want to encourage all of those who are moving from one period to another, especially those graduating from one stage of life into another, whether that be school or any life lesson in general. I encourage you to be strong, to be independent, to be positive, and to know that you can choose your own destiny and your own path, unquote. These sentiments are reflected as the title track continues into verse 2. Having what happened to everything we used to be?

I hear so many cried for help, searching outside of themselves. Now I know that his strength is within me. Having found the answers within her, Ms. Hill is able to see clearly those around her doing what she once did, searching outside of themselves for answers when they're inside of you all along. To me, the key line of this verse is the final one. quote, Now I know his strength is within me.

As we discussed earlier, a pivotal moment of the album was Miss Hill's submission to God, and she acknowledges this once again here at the album's end. She's able to look within herself for answers because she is guided by God's grace.

Every day is a lesson in focus for me, you know, and not buying into sort of the world's concept of what you have to be. You know, I'm really try every day to be individual and not just in, you know, my style or my look or my music, but in my approach to life.

Even, you know, I don't want to be religious. I want to be spiritual. You know, anybody can be religious. Some people jog religiously. You know, you don't want to be that. You want to be spiritual. You want to have a relationship with God as opposed to doing what everyone else does.

And it just, you know, it's about having that unique approach and finding out what works for you. And if what works for you, may not work for someone else. You know, it usually works out the best when I, you know, suppress and not, not kill, not destroy, but just suppress, allow my spirit, you know, to navigate the rest of my, you know, devices instead of allowing those things to have control over my spirit. Because I just, I have a considerable amount of confidence, but it's not in me.

You know, it's the work that God's doing in me that makes me confident. The Miseducation of Lauren Hill's title track is the conclusive moment of the album. A reflective look into the distance of her sunsetting horizon, marking the end of a transplanted formative chapter in their life and the beginning of a new one. Indeed, upon the release of Miseducation into the world on August 25, 1998, Miss Hill's life would be forever transformed. To say the album was a success would be a drastic understatement. It was a moment of historic cultural significance. The week of its release, the album sold more than 420,000 copies, breaking the record for first week sales by a female artist. In just over a month, the album was

certified gold and ultimately spent 81 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart. Miseducation would eventually go eight times platinum in the United States alone and has sold over 19 million copies globally. At the 1999 Grammys, Lauren Hill was nominated for a record 10 awards, winning five, including album of the year. It was the first ever hip-hop album to win album of the year, a fact not lost on the 23-year-old. Wow. You know what, this is so amazing.

Thank you God. Thank you, Father, so much. This is crazy because this is hip-hop music. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, just have to stay firm. Alongside the album's countless accolades, Ms. Hill herself was thrusted into the global spotlight, gracing the covers of mainstream magazines like People,

Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Time, among many others. The miseducation of Lauren Hill is widely heralded as the crossover album that helped cement hip-hop's presence in the mainstream, and Lauren, talented, young, beautiful, and charming, was an amiable poster child the mainstream media was comfortable propping up. Regarding Miseducation and Miss Hill's cultural impact, Kanye King, founder of the Music of Black Origins Awards, said, quote,

Miseducation lifted boundaries for female artists. Recorded while she was heavily pregnant, her debut album busted through the industry's glass ceiling, rejecting society's notion that a female artist must choose between starting a family and having a successful career, unquote. Indeed, editor and journalist Akiba Solomon told Joan Morgan, quote, A lot of black female artists in the 1990s were making albums that were essentially all about I love myself so much.

But not all of us needed that. Some of us needed someone who represented us in all of our contradictions and pain, and could put it in a well-mixed album that sounded good. Lauren was that girl. Her image was just really relatable. A lot of women could relate to being nice. as in being on top of your game, being beautiful and being in love with the wrong man. She was inspiring because she was like, I'm dope, and you can be dope too, but I'm doper than you.

Lauren had a little stankness to her, but I feel like women, women of color and black women in particular, can relate to that, unquote. And while post-miseducation Lauren Hill was an inspiring international sensation, all was not perfect in Miss Hill's personal and public life. Just months after the album's release, Ms. Hill was sued by the musicians she collaborated with in making miseducation. We'll impact this lawsuit, as well as draw some final conclusions about miseducation right after the break. Welcome back to Dysect. As you know from the first episode of this miniseries, Ms. Hill worked closely with a handful of musicians and producers to create the miseducation of Lauren Hill.

She had two creative teams, one nicknamed the Newark band comprised of Veda Nobils, Kylo Pug and brothers Johari and Tejimal Newton. The other team was Chegg Rivera and James Pointer. The legal and financial terms between these musicians and Miss Hill were initially based on a quote-unquote handshake deal. That is, no terms were ever defined on paper. When Ms. Education was released, Lauren Hill was officially credited as writer, producer, arranger, and sole executive producer of the album. Production and writing credits were given to Miss Hill's collaborators in the form of either co-production, additional production, or additional lyrical contribution. In November of 1998, just two months after the album's release, the Newark band members filed a federal suit against

Hill, her management team, and her label, claiming Ms. Hill, quote, used their songs and production skills but failed to properly credit them for their work, unquote. They claim primary songwriting credits on Nothing Even Matters and Everything is Everything, as well as deserving full or partial credit on five other songs. Because proper crediting amounts to royalty payments, the suit ultimately came down to money. After two years and against her lawyer's advice, Ms. Hill pushed for a settlement out of court, and the Newark musicians were awarded a reported $5 million. Shea Rivera and James Pointer would later claim similar miscrediting, though they never took legal action against Ms. Hill. Regarding the lawsuit and the claims of fraudulence, Ms. Hill has always admitted to being too

casual in her agreement with her album's collaborators, though she remains adamant that she did not steal or falsify. Quote, the miseducation was the first time I worked with musicians outside the Fugis, whose report and working relationship was clear. In an effort to create the same level of comfort, I may have not established the necessary boundaries and may have been more inviting than I should have been. In hindsight, I would have handled it differently for the removal of any confusion. The album inspired many people from all walks of life because of its radical intense will to live and express love. I appreciate everyone who is a part of it in any and every capacity. It wouldn't have existed the way that it did without the involvement, skill, hard work,

and talents of the artist, musicians, and technicians who are a part of it, but it still required my vision, my passion, my faith, my will, my soul, my heart, and my story, unquote. Now, I'm not here to solve the unsuble. That is, I can't tell you, nor can anyone else, who wrote what, who should be credited for what, and the rest of it. But what stood out most to me in my research was just how young they all were. Lauren was just 21 years old when she began work on the miseducation, and most of the musicians she worked with were not much older than she was. In a way, they were all victims of their own success. No one could have possibly known the extremes of commercial success miseducation would

eventually reach. Had they, there would have been a slew of man. managers and lawyers involved before a single note was ever written. Instead, this group of young kids created something pure, concerned more about the art than the paycheck it would garner, and together they crafted one of the greatest albums of all time. It's certainly unfortunate that crediting and compensation was an issue after the fact, but we, the consuming public, are fortunate to have been gifted this masterwork created from a place of purity and positive creative energy. And for that, we remain forever grateful to everyone involved. The lawsuit was one of several events happening in conjunction with Ms. Education's massive

success that would eventually leave the 23-year-old mother-of-two unsettled and disheartened with her position within both the music industry and the world of celebrity at large. In the years following Ms. Hill would begin to recede from the spotlight. Hollywood viewed Lauren Hill as a next multimedia actress-slash-musician megastar, all in Jay-Lo and Madonna. She was offered prominent movie roles in Charlie's Angels, The Matrix, The Born Identity, and others. She declined them all.

Miss Hill also wasn't in a rush to put out another album. She stated in the year 2000 that she needed to experience more life before she had something of importance to say on wax. I'll be very honest with you as a musician today. I'm not in the studio right now and everybody in my world thinks I'm crazy. What's going on? You need another album out. The time is running out.

You have a window, a certain window to make music. And for a little while I listened to that. And I was like in the studio working real hard, trying to get it done. And you know, music was created. Definitely music that I think people will appreciate, but it wasn't my best. And it wasn't my best because there was no substance. And there was no substance because there was no experience. I'd gone from the studio to the stage back into the studio again.

And the only reason why the miseducation was no experience, why the miseducation was the album it was because of a myriad of experiences that took place before the production part, before the creation. So what I realized is, you know what, I can't create and not live. I can't be in this vacuum of, you know, of creativity, creativity, without life. So, you know, in hip hop, we're all trying to get to this next level without, as my brother says, without the next level finding us. You know, it's like life is peaks and valleys. And some people think that that, some people explain that as good times, bad times, but I actually think it's learning or, let's say, learning mastership, learning

master's, okay, or study master'ship, study master's. Now right, I went from the top of one mountain. I had mastered something, had mastered something and people appreciated it. But, but, you know, once you're on the top of that mountain, you have to go this way. But in hip-hop, everybody's like, I'm not moving. I'm the master. I'm great. I'm dope. I'm hot. I'm here. I've arrived. I'm not going anywhere. And that's what you stay stuck on top of one, on one hill, one mountain, when, you know, God's intention is that we study and master a bunch of different things.

After turning to intense Bible study and firing her management in the year 2000, Ms. Hill would record her second commercially released solo album in 2001. It was a live album for the MTV Unplugged franchise and featured Miss Hill performing all new songs as she accompanied herself on acoustic guitar. And I know that a lot of the content in the songs is very heavy, you know, but, see, fantasy is what people want, but reality is what they need. And I've just retired from the fantasy part.

Because I realized that I... The album wasn't a sequel to The Sound of Miseducation, nor was an attempting to be. It was a new version of Miss Hill, her best attempt to reintroduce herself, her real self, to the world. That voice, the right one, said to me, he said, Lauren, you know, the real you is more interesting than to fake somebody else. You can't get it from the outside in. Truth is from the inside out, you know. And the way we've been trying to heal and be healed is with these topical surface, superficial, temporary solution and I'm telling you true healing is it's from the inside out.

It's not something that happens overnight. We all have to be introduced to each other. I'm telling you I know that I'm up here and you know Lauren Hill and you came to see Lauren Hill but this is the first time you're meeting me. You see what I'm saying? Don't think you met me before. Okay and and as I grow you're gonna beat me a little bit more. You're gonna be exposed to the real me a little bit more. I had to introduce reintroduce myself to everybody I know my mother and my father. Listen, y'all never knew me. I want to introduce you to me.

I'm just getting to know me. And you know what? Anything that's not growing is dead. So we better be changing. You know, people will say to me, they will hold me hostage. And they seriously, emotionally hostage. They say, she's changing. The money's changing.

I said, listen, the money's not changing me. God is changing me. I'm changing because that's a natural part of life. We're all supposed to change. Who wakes up and is the same way tomorrow in the day after that? Nobody is. Let the experience teach you and be. Real, man.

And when they say, hey, that doesn't fit into our box for you, and we say, well, I ain't in no box. Don't try to put me in one. The majority of the unplugged album rails against the system's missile abandoned, addressing her disappearance from the public eye and being labeled crazy. Your stinking resolution is no type of solution. Preventing me from freedom, maintaining your pollution. I won't support your lie no more I won't even try no more

If I have to die, oh Lord, that's how I choose to live Compromise no more I can't be victimized no more I just don't sympathize no more Because now I understand You just want to use me You say love than abuse me You never thought you lose me

But how quickly we forget your tune is for In terms of commercial success, the Unplugged album paled in comparison to Miseducation. Reviews of the albums were mediocre at best and lambasting at worst. Some critics went so far as to call the album a public breakdown, while the Village Voice named it one of the, quote, worst albums ever released by an artist of substance, unquote. If Unplugged was Miss Hill's attempt to introduce the real Lauren Hill to the world at large, the world largely rejected her.

When they will have so many things, they'll have so many things to say about you, to say about you. When viewed side by side, miseducation and unplugged tell a dramatic story of the malability of success and celebrity. In less than four years, the public perception of Lauren Hill went from a talented, smiling superstar poster child heralded for her vulnerability to an unstable recluse chastised for her vulnerability. It's an all too common story of celebrity, because often lost in the glitter of extreme fame

is one's humanity. Celebrities are propped up by media machines, their image, and idealize one-dimensional version of who they truly are. And it's easy to fall in love with this manufactured version. We make assumptions about who they are based on who we want them to be. We idolize, we praise, we construct pedestals. And when these people diverge from that established persona, when they reveal a different inside of themselves, when they experiment, when they make a mistake, when they evolve, when

they diverge from who we want them to be, the pedestal crumbles. We question, we criticize, we judge, we make memes and unceremoniously move on. Miss Hill, for her part, seemed to see the riding on the wall early on, triggering her self-imposed exile from the public eye in the years after miseducation. In a rare interview in 2009, Ms. Hill told Essence magazine, quote, People need to understand that the Lauren Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at that time. There was much more strength, spirit, and passion, desire, curiosity, ambition, and opinion that was not allowed in a small space designed for consumer mass appeal and dictated by very limited standards. I had to step away when I realized that for the sake of the machine, I was being way too compromised, unquote.

Later she said, quote, I don't think I ever handled celebrity. For a period of time, I had to step away entirely. There were many temptations, enticements, entrapments, whether it was the dependence on an image or just some false sense of security. I created from such a sincere, pure place, but those enticements produced a very toxic situation for my creativity, my person. At 23, you don't know how to handle that in a diplomatic manner, especially when everybody around you has been affected by the money, the fame, the attention. Celebrity itself becomes an addiction. One of my hopes for artists today is that they don't get trapped in images

that don't really reflect who they are. Everybody is sort of bound to this super cool, super mature, super perfect, super consistent image. It looks great on the shelf, but it could also hurt people and stunt their growth because their image is growing but their persons are not, unquote. Having spent now eight episodes analyzing the miseducation of Lauren Hill, If we accept her at her word and song, we know that personal growth was always priority one for Miss Hill. The album outlines a young woman blossoming into her own, learning to make choices for herself, escaping the expectations of those around her, and rejecting any societal or

industry structures that put her personal growth at risk. She rejected the notion that women must choose between motherhood or a successful career. She rejected the prevailing trends in hip-hop culture, calling attention to the materialistic, ego-driven pursuits of men and the hyper-sexualization of women. She rejected the self-imposed limitations of hip-hop music, assimilating soul, reggae, R&B, and gospel into a cohesive, beautiful, and approachable package. She expanded the boundaries of hip-hop without sacrificing its integrity, becoming the first superstar to rap and sing with equal ability and priority, showing vulnerability without sacrificing her swagger, paving the way for today's megastars like Kanye West, Drake, Nikki Minaj,

and others who do the same. In more ways than one, Miss Lauren Hill proved herself a necessary renegade, a singular, stubborn visionary less concerned about what is and more concerned about what could be. If her process and personality has ruffled a few feathers along the way, so be it. Oftentimes that's a necessary side effect of seismically advancing culture. And anyway, without her subversive instincts, the world would not have the timeless gift, that is, the miseducation of Lauren Hill. Please respond when I call your name, Kevin Charles and Jarrett's Boykin, Alicia, Susset. As we conclude our analysis of the miseducation of Lauren Hill, I'd like to return now to the recurring skit that is placed between many of the songs on the album. As you know, the skit features a teacher moderating a discussion about love with young kids in a classroom.

L-B-L-B-love. Love. Over the course of the album, these kids share their thoughts and experience with love. Though young and thus inarticulate, they share some pretty insightful responses. You might stop being in love with them, but truth is not going to stop loving that point. Maybe sometimes they've never been love before. They don't know what the feeling is to be loved. She's bored.

She killed it. We get in that conversation with that, right? Of course, love is a timeless phenomenon. Writers, thinkers, artists, and everyday people have throughout human history sought to define what's at the core of love, just what this mysteriously powerful, sometimes transformative, sometimes destructive phenomenon actually is. Just like everyone else, the kids featured on miseducation skits are taking a stab at defining the essence of love.

This thing that most of us have experienced, but find extremely, difficult to fully articulate with words. Conceptually, the classroom is a metaphor for Ms. Hill's quote-unquote miseducation when it comes to love. She's absent from class and therefore miss this education. Instead, she had to learn through experience, and those experiences are what's documented so transparently on the album. Just as the kids took stabs at defining what love is and means, the songs of miseducation are Miss Hill's attempts to do the same. When viewed this way, the album is a kaleidoscopic, multi-angled analysis of love in its many forms and manifestations.

Half of the album addresses loving improperly. Songs like Lost On's X Factor, When It Hurt's So Bad and I Used to Love Him, address the effects of heartbreak, the result of romantic love gone wrong. With Doop That Thing, Superstar, and Final Hour, Miss Hill exhibits tough love by addressing the superficiality and insecurities of her peers, which are the results of loving oneself improperly. The other half of miseducation defines the solutions to these types of improper love. It begins first with the love of God, as expressed at the end of I used to love him. She addresses authentic self-love on songs like Every Ghetto Every City, Everything is Everything, and the album's

title track, while celebrating true transcendent romantic love on Nothing Even Matters. Then there's two Zion, perhaps the most powerful expression of love, a mother's love of child. Indeed, over the course of this mini-series, we discussed some of the main elements that helped to unify miseducation into a cohesive body of work, the whole greater than the sum of its parts. We heard how the hip-hop-style drums and scratching turntables unified the disparate sonic influences of reggae, soul, R&B, and gospel. We discussed how the album's classroom skits work as narrative and structural threading used to stitch together the album's 14 tracks. We heard how Lauren's personal journey into woman, mother, and adulthood was documented throughout these tracks,

revealing a vulnerability that millions of listeners identified with, but rarely heard expressed so transparently in the hip-hop ecosystem. But more than all of this, what resounds loudest now 20-plus years after its release, is Miseducation's unrelenting emphasis on love and forgiveness as a weapon against life's inherent injustices and hardships. Ms. Hill preaches love of God so that you may properly love yourself. She preaches love of self so that you may properly love another. She preaches love of another so that you may forgive. And through forgiveness, unburden yourself from the resentment that impedes on one's ability to love wholly and completely. And it's through this fundamental emphasis on love's transcendent capacity that makes this album an enduring resource for guidance in times of confusion,

comfort in times of sorrow, and strength in times of self-doubt. Indeed, time has proven the miseducation of Lauren Hill to be an education of a lifetime. And like all masterworks of great art, the world is a better, more beautiful place because of its existence. We are challenged not just to learn, but to learn how to learn. When we value knowledge and remain open, we can with wisdom apply to life what we know and thereby help to become the architects of what we love. We can help what we love come to life, come into existence in the world. You are young, vibrant, and beautiful. The world is an open field.

Remain in love with life, knowing that despite challenges, There are always solutions. Be vigilant. Don't be afraid to ask the questions you need answered in order to be satisfied with knowledge and to get the understanding you need so that you can make bold, informed steps and also not be afraid to take risks.

Faithfully, explore, and pursue what you might not have experienced yet, but is still there waiting for you. It's not enough for us to simply express our discontent, about things we may not like. It's our responsibility to help improve them through consideration, action, and personal involvement. Respect and love yourselves.

Respect and love your families. Be a source of respect and love within your community so that the universe will reward you reciprocally. Remember, we receive what we put out. What you do for others, you in essence, do for your community. yourselves. Likewise, what you have not mastered doing for yourself, you will be challenged to do for others. Therefore, love yourselves, care for yourselves, invest in yourselves, and be kind to yourselves so that you might be able to be channels and instruments of love, care, kindness, and investment

in others. Remain true and authentic versions of yourselves. That is your value. Take every opportunity you can to learn, to flower, to observe, to take in. Choose your friends and environments wisely, as if you were choosing a greenhouse for a flower. Let no false pressures distort you. Be a light to others in any way that you can be.

When you honor who you are, you make decisions centered in honesty and love, and this can have a tremendous effect on the world around you. In essence, your good choices can help give permission to others to make solid decisions for themselves that can stimulate change among the people they're connected to and have influence upon, and so on, and so on, and so on. Congratulations to you all. God bless you.

Thanks everyone for tuning in to our first ever mini-series of Dysect. If you're new to the show, be sure to check out our previous seasons on Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, and Frank Ocean. We'll be back in a few months with Season 4. but until then, follow Dysect Podcast on Twitter and Instagram. There I'll be giving clues about the subject of season four, as well as doing fan polls, AMAs, collaborative Spotify playlist, and a bunch of other fun stuff. Again, follow At Dysect Podcast and don't be afraid to say hi.

I'd like to thank Spotify's Michelle Santucci for all our support this season. A big thank you to B-Rocratic for composing yet another killer theme song, and shout out to Andrew Atwood for the beautiful song Recreations. Also, thanks to Akash Ponday for the research help this season, and a huge thanks to Sonos for exclusively sponsoring another season of Dysect. Of course, thank you to each and every listener of the show. Your passion and enthusiasm for music is endlessly inspiring, and I can't thank you all enough for tuning in every week.

Seriously, thank you. Okay, I'll talk to you all in a few months, where we'll dissect another masterwork of contemporary music, because great art deserves more than a swipe.