The student turns out to be the master on the Fugees singer’s grade-A solo dispatch.
The disc is infused with African-American musical history.
When Hill breaks into hardened patois, she recalls the moral fervency of Bob Marley.
Credit: Sony Legacy
Her use of harmony singers recalls 60s girl groups or Marleys I-Threes.
But like The Sweetest Thing,The Miseducation of Lauryn Hillis no quick withdrawal from the nostalgia bank.
For someone so young and so successful, Hill, who is 23, appears to have chips onbothshoulders.
Doo Wop (That Thing) chastises Cristal-by-the-case black men and the women who grovel for their attention.
Superstar takes shots at an unnamed music-industry figure who denigrates musicians.
Wolves in sheep coats who pretend to be lovers are some of the many targets in Forgive Them Father.
In her hands, sanctimony can be ravishing.
Doo Wop (That Thing) is wrapped in gorgeous, intertwining street-corner vocalese.
Using a rhythmic snippet of Marleys Concrete Jungle, Forgive Them Father sways with island-lilt harmonies.
Messianic, finger-pointing raps in Lost Ones and Everything Is Everything give way to fluidly sung choruses.
Every cut, even the apolitical ones, presents a new and unexpected twist, both musically and emotionally.
The potency of that personality cant be underestimated.
Theyre mostly populated with lustrously packaged divas guided at every turn by male label heads and producers.
The music is as exquisitely manicured as high-cost nails but deeply impersonal.
A cloud hangs over the album, but the effect is human, not programmed.
On the FugeesThe Score, Hill rapped of having inner visions like Stevie.
