When 23-year-old Fugees member Lauryn Hill stepped up and recorded her ambitious, sprawling, and superb solo debut, 1998's
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hil, she revived a music-business doctrine promoted by James Brown: honest hard work. Hill wrote, produced, and performed on every track on the disc (its title drawn from Carter G. Woodson's book,
Mis-Education of the Negro), emulating the "musical journey" production style of a couple of other inspiring masters,
Stevie Wonder and
Marvin Gaye. Hill's theme is love -- of self, of family, of community, and of significant other, with many of the songs introduced by a grade-school classroom discussion on the subject. While Hill's rhymes sometimes reach for the highbrow, she also dispenses the folk wisdom of "How you gon' win/When you ain't right within." Singing in a dark, low alto, Hill reveals well-rounded influences and tastes, seeing herself as a vulnerable vocal hybrid of
Chaka Khan and
Betty Wright on the steamy "Ex-Factor" and soaring above
Carlos Santana's resolute guitar on the gorgeous lullaby to her son, "To Zion." Ranging from edgy, insistent hip-hop to horn-enhanced, '70s-flavored soul, Hill is a purist, but -- as on "Every Ghetto," a funky, Wonder-ful tribute to the New Jersey neighborhood she grew up in -- the whole album exudes a timely energy. Her five Grammy wins for this album reveal the scope of her appeal, but this is Hill's personal triumph and celebration.
![Epiphany: The Best of Chaka Khan, Vol. 1 [2005]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0081227646424_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Epiphany: The Best of Chaka Khan, Vol. 1 [2005]")
