Word: lauryn
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...such younger performers as Chris Whitley and Ben Harper, asks what's worth listening to in record stores these days. You recommend the new Seal album (in fact, you give him your only copy), the sound track to the hip-hop movie Slam and rapper/singer Lauryn Hill's debut album (you point out that like him, she's a Garden State resident...
...Show-ish street; walking up, the door wasn't locked, it wasn't even closed, and it creaked open wider when you knocked. This ain't Compton, this ain't the Queensbridge projects, but this is where hip-hop lives in the 9-8: this is the home of Lauryn Hill, rapper/singer/actress, member of the rap trio the Fugees; the woman whose neosoul vocals took a hip-hop remake of Killing Me Softly to the top of the charts; the woman whose first solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, was released last week to wild acclaim. The streety...
...Wyclef Jean, in high school, then spent two years at Columbia University before dropping out to pursue music. On the old-school-funky Every Ghetto, Every City, one of Miseducation's best tracks, she pledges to remember her roots: "Way before the record deal/ The streets that nurtured Lauryn Hill/ Made sure that I'd never go too far." Hill isn't out to create bourgeois hip-hop lite; she constantly strives to connect her message to the street. The album veers from rapping to singing, from hip-hop to neosoul, from African-American argot to Jamaican patois. Part...
...Gooden, urban-music supervisor for the HMV store in New York City's Herald Square, says Hill's CD is racking up heavy sales: "The people who are buying it are all ages, all backgrounds...but I've noticed a lot of adult, together women buying this CD. Lauryn Hill is their peer, and so they want to buy her album...
Right now she's making her chief impact with her music. Hill wrote and produced every song on her CD (except for two standards she covers). Her album also uses live instruments, giving it a fresh, personal feel. "People like Lauryn and Wyclef and Missy [Elliot] are making creative albums," says Funk Master Flex, a D.J. for New York City's Hot 97 radio station, whose own CD, The Mix Tape Volume III, is a Top 10 hit. "They're sending a signal to other artists: check yourselves, and step up your game...