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
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