I grew up with Lauryn Hill. I knew her as an actress before I knew the Fugees existed. She played a character named Kira on a daytime serial called As The World Turns. When the album The Score dropped she was brought back onto my radar. I can’t say I considered her a rapper, she was more of a singer to me. Then Miseducation dropped and it changed the game. Don’t get it fucked up, Miseducation was damn good. It deserved all the accolades and sales and she sang the song of Black women which wasn’t being sung at that time. This was the age of Foxy Brown and the Queen B Lil Kim. Women in rap, not unlike life were objectified and sexualized. Don’t get me wrong, I was here for it. I will write a post one day about why Lil Kim is my blueprint, but this moment is about Lauryn.

What resonated with me about Lauryn was her decision to make the music she wanted to make on her own terms even if the industry was selling something else at the moment. It was that authenticity which made Miseducation such a staple in my rotation. Even if I never 100% bought into the respectability politics of it all, I can still do all the words of ‘Dat Thing from memory. Ex Factor became that song which I kept on repeat through multiple breakups with The Man. Lauryn spoke to more variations of me than Lil Kim who mostly spoke to the savage in me.

Lauryn served up boss bitch attitude before the term was a thing. She was her own woman, her own force of nature. She refused to compromise her vizion of what her music should be, and in return gave us greatness. She was unapologtic about her life, her mistakes, her afffairs. She believed that if she told her truth through her music that the people would buy it, would support her and she was right.

Cardi had the same belief in her talents. If we are comparing bars, the win goes to Lauryn. If we are comparing determination and ambition I think that round goes to Cardi. After all Lauryn isn’t on Instagram explaining how things at strip club had her robbing niggas. But Instagram was not a thing then. Miseducation dropped. If it were, perhaps Lauryn would be explaining to us how to align our chakras and how to stop being called ho.

My point is that women in hip hop even if their messages are different speak from the same place. To all of those writing the think pieces about why Lauryn was the artist we needed and how our 20 year olds need her now, stop it. We need all of the Lauryns all of the Cardis. We don’t need any of the Azelia Banks though, her problematic ass can be traded in the racial draft.

We need the woman who carries that respectability flag high, and the woman who started from the bottom now she’s ‘here’. It’s the same way we need all of the male voices which have run the spectrum since the infant days of the cypher. One isn’t better than the other, in the sense that all of it is needed.

Cardi tells the story of the girl who doesn’t think she can grow up and be a success without being anything other than what she is and what surrounds her. That is not Lauryn’s story to tell.

Right now, someplace, a 12 year little girl is listening to Invasion of Privacy and daring to dream. I want her to have those dreams and live those dreams. I’m not willing to condemn Cardi or idol worship Lauryn for that to happen. Lost Ones is a banger….Money is a banger. I’m not going to engage in unreasonable comparisons.

Aphrodite Brown