Proceedings of The National Conference
On Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2011
Ithaca College, New York
March 31-April 2, 2011
A Dialectical Approach to Rhetorical Theory: An Analysis of The
Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Mya Aaten-White
Department of Political Science
Howard University
Washington, DC 20059
Faculty Adviser: Dr. Abdul Karim Bangura
Abstract
Lauryn Hill recorded her debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, a decade ago. Songs on this collection
touch every aspect of Black American culture and internal struggle. Lauryn battles with a range of topics including
divinity, personhood, the ghetto, African American Vernacular English (Ebonics), and family. The Miseducation of
Lauryn Hill remains relevant due to the fact that the issues discussed have not been resolved within the Black
American community. The title of her album infers that society failed to give a proper education in the realms of
life and life experiences. These lessons were ones that she was able to gain through personal ventures and elderly
wisdom; hence, the setting of the classroom which allows students to be active in discussion and conversation with
the teacher. Information was gathered from relevant sources that include the lyrics from The Miseducation of Lauryn
Hill and artist interviews. Document analysis was also be used in this research. Qualitative research methods were
utilized to examine the socio-political atmosphere which produced this set of songs that would illustrate the climate
of Black Americanism in the ghetto of New Jersey. Rhetorical Theory refers to the way in which a person intrigues
or appeals to an audience using the elements of style, delivery, grammar, memory, and invention. Thus, it is
hypothesized in this study that Lauryn Hill’s use of rhetoric is an echo of her predecessors’ verbally inscribed
thoughts in such a way that the youth of today can grasp the intellectual genealogy of their ancestors. Elements such
as Ebonics, “signifyin,” and storytelling bring alive the struggle for true education for Lauryn as an individual as
well as a speaker on behalf of an entire community.
Keywords: Lauren Hill, Song, Ebonics, Black American Culture
1. Introduction
The history of Black people in the West since their encounter with Europeans has been a history recorded orally
since the forced migration of African people nearly 500 years ago. Beginning with songs of hope, courage, and
deliverance while on the African continent, and brought across the Atlantic Ocean, the story of Africa has resounded
in the melodic recitals of Blacks in America. Music was not only a form of praise and worship, but it served as a
code language that was spoken between Africans under the illusion of entertainment for their European
oppressors. Looking at 20th Century evolution of “Black music,” the question of whether or not it is still reflective
of struggle arises. This paper examines whether the infusion of social and political climate with the musical
traditions of Black people in America still exists.
This paper makes use of Rhetorical Theory in an effort to depict the ways in which Lauryn Hill maneuvers her
messages about education, love, and community around classic drum rhythms and guitar chords that make use of all
five components of rhetorical theory [style, delivery, grammar, memory, and invention/improvisation]. To most
people, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill may have been an album at face value; this paper examines the depths at
which Lauryn Hill goes in order to break down the structure of the Black ghetto and come to level ground so as to
reconstruct black social/political ideology.
Hip Hop and R&B have recently become trends in the mainstream, most often losing their social grounding and
catering to the entertainment purposes of the general pop culture community. Lauryn Hill preserves the traditions of
ancestors by making direct connections between education, love, and community to the themes of divinity,
personhood, the ghetto, family, and Ebonics in Black living. This paper gives great insight into the ongoing use of
rhetoric and storytelling in Black musical art-forms.
The major research questions examined in this paper are the following: What are the conditions that produce social
statements in present day hip hop? How (if at all) did Lauryn Hill’s album affect Black communities? By answering
these questions readers will be able to engage in the study of the intellectual genealogy that is visited within the
rhetoric of Lauryn Hill. This is an essential conversation to be had, as Black communities in America are still
impoverished and “miseducated.” The paper demonstrates that the need for a Black socio-political revitalization as
expressed in The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is still essential, even in the decade after its original recording.
2. Literature Review
The study of the political awareness and expression of hip-hop has been looked at since the evolution of hip hop in
the late 1970s. Since the emergence of Lauryn Hill in particular, there have been hundreds of scholarly works
produced revolving around her vocal diary, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The following is a thematic review of
a sample of these works.
In her 2010 work, Imagining Black Womanhood: The Negotiation of Power and Identity Within the Girls
Empowerment Project, Stephanie Sears examines the thought processes and opinions of society labeled, “urban
girls,” in regard to stereotypes that are associated with them. She does her research amongst a group of Black girls
in an Afro-centric Youth program in California. The girls bring up the example of Lauryn Hill as a positive face for
young girls coming out of the nation’s ghettos.
Recharting the Black Atlantic: Modern Cultures, Local Communities, Global Connections (2008) by Annalisa
Oboe and Anna Scacchi delves into the ways in which African culture, awareness, and commonalities spread
throughout the African diaspora after the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Lauryn Hill is used as an example of the
glorification of the mammification of Lauryn Hill. Her initial appearance was a challenge to the “mammy” and the
negative attributes given to that of the “mammy” in the public eye. The text also quotes lyrics from The
Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in an effort to illustrate the way in which Lauryn moves from denominational issues to
social ones.
In a 1972 article entitled “Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality,” published in
the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Ernest Bormann wrote about the way in which small groups create a common
culture in order to effect dramatizations in public messages spread out across larger public groups. Once a group is
active in that rhetorical vision, it comes to experience a second hand way of life that would have been less accessible
in the time before encountering the culture.
Understanding African American Rhetoric: Classical Origins to Contemporary Innovations (2003) by Ronald L.
Jackson and Elaine B. Richardson features a chapter by Celnisha Dangerfield which is titled “Lauryn Hill as a
Lyricist and Womanist.” The chapter examines the evolution of Black music through time and space, tracing its
female based intellectual genealogy through the lyrics of Lauryn Hill. The author also looks at the development of
culture within the Black community in relation to the acknowledgement of African cultural retention and memory.
In 1995 the African American Review published an article by Kalamu ya Salaam called “It Didn't Jes Grew: The
Social and Aesthetic Significance of African American Music.” ya Salaam’s article discusses the aesthetics that are
created around the culture of Black styles of music. He specifically focuses on four categories: (1) Gospel, (2)
Blues, (3) Jazz, and (4) R&B.
Gettin' Our Groove On: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop Generation (2005) by Kermit
Campbell examines the importance of recognizing African American Vernacular English (Ebonics) as a truly
significant and essential part of Black culture in the West. He looks at the way in which it allowed those Blacks
who did not have access to education to speak on behalf of themselves and voice their thoughts and opinions. He
takes the theme of Ebonics and translates it into the unique culture of Black music such as hip hop and analyzes the
persistence of the language until it was accepted by the mainstream.
Ronald Jackson puts together an anthology of Black literature that shows ways in which Blacks form identities
around their rhetoric. He uses the literature to shape a greater understanding of Black cultural patterns in song,
dance, poetry, and art in his 2004 book titled African American Communication & Identities: Essential Readings.
1361
The ways in which reggae music influenced the social and political climate of Jamaica were the first evidences of
mainstream effect of Black rhetoric in the musical form. In their book Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social
Control (2002), Stephen King and Renee Foster delve into the idea of the ability of music to manipulate sociopolitico circumstances within a culture.
Philip Foner’s text, Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787-1900 (1998), is a collection of speeches
given by Blacks that were able to motivate change and movement within Black communities across the Black
diasporic community. These speeches are evidence of the power of words in communicating change.
Black Identity: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalism (2003), by Dexter Gordon gives
readers a view into a perspective of the development of Black rhetoric due to disenfranchisements among whites.
He explores the concept of alienation as a leading factor in development of culture and rhetoric in the Black
American community. The role of alienation and its relation to being misinformed or “miseducated” is critical when
looking at the relatively quick development of Black rhetoric within the United States.
This paper adds to the listed works by providing a perspective that analyzes the social climate of the time period
after the release of Lauryn Hill’s album. It provides insight into the decade following the initial reception of the
music. Limitations of these works include the bondages of time and space in relation to the point in which the
publications were released. There is also the limitation of political phenomena that occurred after the publications
were released that could not be predicted at the time of said release. This paper captures those unique moments in
time and link them back to the referenced scholarly works.
3. Theoretical Framework and Research Methodology
This paper makes use of Rhetorical Theory to analyze the manner in which Lauryn Hill articulates her experience in
the political climate of New Jersey. Rhetorical Theory is the art of communication through oral, written, or visual
discourse (Donawerth, 2002). When analyzing the rhetoric of Lauryn Hill, there are several issues that are
addressed. The issues are as following: (1) History legitimates a viewpoint that includes political and ideological
assumptions. (2) Historians are rhetoricians who construct texts, not just inspired discoverers of evidence. (3)
Histories are dangerous if they rely on myths of continuity, heroic man and woman, and progress. (4) The best
histories strive not to glimpse universiality but to locate theories and events in specific historical and material
circumstances. (5) The best histories do not tell a single story, leaving out information that does not fit, but stress
multiplicity and diversity (Donawerth, 2002).
Rhetorical Theory has historically been referenced by scholars to analyze the types of communication
relationships that take place between an audience and a speaker. It is able to narrow down components of speech
delivery to focus on specific elements which combine to persuade an audience into supporting the speaker’s
message. This paper is supported by Rhetorical Theory because it examines the modes of language, and, essentially
elemental persuasion techniques used by Lauryn Hill in her appeal to Black people in the ghettos of Southern New
Jersey.
Qualitative research methods were used in this study to examine the type of atmosphere The Miseducation of
Lauryn Hill was recorded in as well as the atmosphere it created after its release. The unit of analysis is sociological
because it deals with the social response to a message of social criticisms. Analysis is at the mezzo level of the
ghetto in South Orange, New Jersey as opposed to the micro level of a specific street in the New Jersey ghetto or the
macro level of the entire state of New Jersey.
This paper also utilizes document analysis methodology to chart the change in political involvement of Blacks
living in New Jersey ghettos during the periods prior and after the release of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in
1998. According to the sociologist Earl Babbie, document analysis is the study of recorded human communications,
such as books, websites, paintings and laws (Babbie, 2010). Document analysis allows for specific pieces of
literature, photographs, video, and voice recordings to be used in research to study the political and social climates
of a specific time.
1362
4. Data Analysis
The findings of this research are discussed here synchronically or thematically. The first section is made up of
interviews with experts on the topic. The second section examines secondary sources dealing with the effects Lauryn
Hill’s album had on the music industry.
4.1. Expert Interviews
An interview was conducted with Dr. Gregory Carr, professor and chair of Africana Studies at Howard University
and nationally and internationally well noted scholar on Black rhetoric. Dr. Carr indicated that the fact that Lauryn
Hill’s name is able to be so vividly remembered is evidence enough of her ability to tap into a memory well of the
mainstream population. Lauryn Hill was able to weave and connect the philosophies of past artists such as Nina
Simone and Aretha Franklin with her rhetoric. She reaches back in history within her title referencing Sonny
Carson’s Miseducation of Sonny Carson as well as The Miseducation of the Negro. In regards to the demographic
that was at the core of Lauryn Hill’s message, Dr. Carr says that the demographic became a culture. During the
1990s, there was a particular movement of historically conscious lyrics that drive the political culture of Black
communities across the nation. Hill was able to incorporate the image that was created and celebrated by Blacks
and Whites alike into a base for self-knowledge amongst Black people. Dr. Carr’s expertise in the field of Africana
Studies allows him to tap into the genealogy of a creative lens that is developed and nurtured out of the Black
experience—not only that of mainland USA Blacks, but those across the Diaspora as well. He plays on this notion
of cross-border boundaries and philosophy with his analysis of Lauryn Hill’s connection to the family of Bob
Marley.
Dr. Carr ended the interview by saying that Lauryn Hill was a risk taker, and this aesthetic that allowed her to
stand out within the Black community which had previously been given a standard of beauty that was encompassed
by characterizations of the Mammy or Vixen. There is a particular exoticism of Lauryn Hill through her lyrical
rejection of Western concepts and ideals that challenges the mainstream so strategically that it is appealing in the
most curious of ways.
I also interviewed Nadia Cole, a graduate student at the University of the District of Columbia working towards a
graduate degree in English Composition and Black Rhetoric. She discussed the use of the story telling element in
Lauryn Hill’s music. Hill’s appeal was able to extend into a broader audience by constructing the album as a story
roundtable; it made the album understandable and took away from the complexness of the issues she was speaking
on.
Furthermore, Cole noted the use of rhetoric in the definition of aesthetics. Not only does Hill fit a phenotype for
the “enlightened rapper,” she also slips references to an aesthetic dynamic that was not acceptable amongst Black
people during their time in the West after encountering Europeans and enslavement in the New World. She
references Cleopatra and Nina Simone directly within her lyrics, introducing her listening audience to characters in
history that were critical symbols in the paradigm shifts of Black femininity and beauty.
4.2. Record Sales And Popularity
Prior to the release of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, there had been no female artist to sell over 400,000 records
within the first week of release; to this day, no female hip hop artist has outsold Lauryn Hill in the first week of
release. The song continues to be in radio and television rotation and the album has gone on to sell over 18 million
copies in the last ten years, according to the statistics posted by the Billboard Top Hip Hop charts presented in
Figure 1.
1363
Figure 1: Highest Opening Week Sales from Female Hip Hop Artists
5. Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to examine the social reaction to Lauryn Hill’s debut solo album. Based on Rhetorical
Theory, it was hypothesized that Lauryn Hill’s use of rhetoric is an echo of her predecessors’ verbally inscribed
thoughts in such a way that the youth of today can grasp the intellectual genealogy of their ancestors. The hypothesis
appears to be tenable after research.
Lauryn Hill’s socially constructed persona allowed her to play a puppeteer role in shaping the ideologies and
political awareness of those stemming from similar and varied backgrounds. She tells the story of the result of years
of Civil Rights work and perseverance in the face of adversity and confusion. Lauryn Hill escapes her
“miseducation” through the education and re-education of everyone who picks up her album and gives it a listen.
After doing this research, it has given the researcher further insight into the effects that music is able to have on an
entire community. The political and social aspects of musical art forms in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries are
still reminiscent of those that allowed Blacks to persevere through enslavement in the West. It is with great hope
that further studies are done, not only on this particular artist, but on other Hip Hop and R&B artists who exhibit
knowledge of the past and bring that knowledge forth to create newer, brighter futures.
6. References
1. Babbie, Earl and Allen Rubin. (2007). Essential Research Methods for Social Work. 2nd Edition. Belmont:
Brooks/Cole.
2. Bormann, Ernest. (1972). “Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of Social Reality.”
Quarterly Journal of Speech.
3. Campbell, Kermit. (2005). Gettin’ Our Groove On: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop
Generation. Detroit:Wayne State University Press.
4. Donawerth, Jane. (2002). Rhetorical Theory By Women Before 1900: An Anthology. Lanham: Rowman and
Littlefield.
5. Foner, Phillop. (2007). Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787-1900. Tuscaloosa: Alabama State
Press.
6. Gordon, Dexter. (2006). Black Identity: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Nineteenth-Century Black Nationalism.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press.
7. Jackson, Ronald. (2004). African American Communication & Identities: Essential Readings. Thousand Oaks:
Sage Publications.
8. Jackson, Ronald, and Elaine Richardson. (2003). Understanding African American Rhetoric: Classical Origins
to Contemporary Innovations. New York: Routledge Press.
9. King, Stephen, and Renee Foster. (2002). Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control. Starkville:
University Press of Mississippi.
1364
10. Oboe, Annalisa, and Anna Scacchi. (2008). Recharting the Black Atlantic: modern cultures, local
communities, global connections. New York: Psychology Press.
11. Sears, Stephanie. (2010). Imagining Black Womanhood: The Negotiation of Power and Identity Within the
Girls Empowerment Project. New York: SUNY Press.
1365