CD of the week
Michael Odell Sweeting
Of course we knew there were two Ringos in the group. The Fugees, the biggest-selling rap group in the world, comprises two blokes employed to shout “One time!” and Lauryn Hill – who combines the singer/songwriter talents of Lennon and Macca.
The Fugees was never the arena to showcase her tonsillar prowess. However, once the Haitian trio hit paydirt, vanity solo projects were inevitable. Wyclif Jean split the atom attempting to spread his talents over two sides on The Carnival. Pras’s apparently quite good album Getto Superstar is due next month.
Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation lives up to all the promise and humbles her two pals. She begins by reassuring her hip-hop constituency: Lost Ones is a slick hardcore put-down of non- specific losers and abusers. Superstar continues the theme, challenging and entertaining rather than succumbing to her own hype.
She appeases the trainered hordes, but really she’s come here to talk about love. She sets out her stall with a song which really challenges the critic.
You listen once and you know it’s more than good. Listen again and you wonder: “Is this really my Tutankhamen’s tomb?” You’ve scrabbled through the rubble and crap so long, could this really be it? Yes. Ex- factor is a fantastic, no, a perfect song.
A tale of attritional relationship woe, it lilts along almost shambolically as Hill surveys the love wreckage, sounding warm but in control. As the angst sets in she steps up a gear, and then, as she loses her stoic self-control and starts pleading to the man who shall henceforth be known as Bastard, she hits sublime new heights as a cascade of perfect harmonies intervene to save her. Billy, Phive, Eternal, All Saints, and anyone else toying with the carcass of R&B: take note.
Miseducation reeks of emotional pain. I Used to Love Him is a cute hip-hop- driven mantra in which Mary J Blige bolsters Lauryn’s post-split resolve with a sisterly shoulder. Like so much of this record it casually slips through stylistic gears from old-skool to ultra-modern. The album’s first single, Doo Wop, is a call to sisterly vigilance when dealing with men, this time in cheeky upbeat pop mode.
Zion is the pivotal song, a hymn to her one-year-old boy by Bob Marley’s son Rohan. “I’ve never been in love like this before,” intones Hill. Here, and on the D’Angelo duet Nothing Even Matters, are the only times Hill can commune with the male of the species without contemplating the use of tissues or an axe.
This is what The Fugees would sound like if they resolved their serious overmanning problem. It’s already number one and the biggest-selling debut by a female in the United States. She’s called the bluff of younger R&B ninnies still acting out their stunt-sex/big-car fantasies.
Reggae, hip-hop and R&B carry the message with assured diversity. The Fugees are due another album soon. Let’s hope someone kidnaps the two Ringos and leaves Lauryn Hill to have her heart broken just as wonderfully again soon.