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She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Hardcover – Aug. 7 2018

by Joan Morgan (Author)

4.4 95 ratings

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An NPR 2018 Great Read

Celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the acclaimed and influential debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill with this eye-opening and moving exploration of Lauryn Hill and her remarkable artistic legacy.

Released in 1998, Lauryn Hill’s first solo album is often cited by music critics as one of the most important recordings in modern history. Artists from Beyoncé to Nicki Minaj to Janelle Monáe have claimed it as an inspiration, and it was recently included in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, as well as named the second greatest album by a woman in history by NPR (right behind Joni Mitchell’s Blue).

Award-winning feminist author and journalist Joan Morgan delivers an expansive, in-depth, and heartfelt analysis of the album and its enduring place in pop culture. She Begat This is both an indelible portrait of a magical moment when a young, fierce, and determined singer-rapper-songwriter made music history and a crucial work of scholarship, perfect for longtime hip-hop fans and a new generation of fans just discovering this album.

Print length

176 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Atria Books
Publication date

Aug. 7 2018
Dimensions

13.97 x 2.29 x 17.78 cm
ISBN-10

1501195255
ISBN-13

978-1501195259
See all details

Product description

Review

“Joan Morgan schools like no other. While reading this masterful, rich, and amazingly concise cultural history of the Nina-Simone-Defecating-On-Your-Microphone-Nineties, I learned two lessons. One, you cannot tell the story of Hip Hop or Black womanhood in the 1990s without a deep understanding of the prototype for Black Girl Genius that is Lauryn Hill. And two, you cannot tell the story of Hip Hop or Black womanhood in the 1990s without the fiya-spitting, Jamaican, Bronx-girl pen of Joan Morgan. Lauryn gave us the soundtrack, the artistry, and the permission. Joan and her crew of badass, pioneering Hip Hop journalists, many of whom are featured here, continue to give us the language and the frameworks to understand the singularity of turn-of-the-21st-century Black cultural production. Absent either of these Black girl geniuses, the story is incomplete. Indeed, she begat this.”— Brittany Cooper, author of Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

"Pioneer hip-hop feminist Joan Morgan takes on Lauryn Hill, the complicated star whose monumental album changed the world, and we finally get the loving, vibrant, critical attention the artist, her work, and her generation has been due. This book is a listening companion with attitude and a sure-shot conversation starter. You may never hear Ms. Hill the same again.”— Jeff Chang, author of We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation

“The dope shit always needs a remix, if only to be reminded of the brilliance of the original joint. And if you were on the scene back in ‘98, you knew it would be Joan Morgan who would remix The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, because who else would it be but another Caribbean sister stepping in the world fly AF and with the gift of verse? Lauryn might have Begat This, but Joan Morgan is giving it back to us all lovely and new and as vital as it was that summer of ‘98.” — Mark Anthony Neal, Chair of the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University

“With She Begat This, Joan Morgan brings the full lyrical prowess of her unstoppable flow and ferocious prose to tell the multilayered saga of Lauryn Hill’s seminal masterpiece. Morgan serves up an intimate artistic portrait that is compassionate, unflinching, and imbued with the razor-sharp analysis and from-the-heart truth-telling that made her a legend of hip-hop journalism.”— Daniel José Older,New York Times bestselling author of Shadowshaper and Dactyl Hill Squad, winner of the International Latino Book Award

"A new book by Joan Morgan would be cause for celebration whether it was about Lauryn Hill, Bunker Hill, or ant hills. But for hip hop's founding feminist and most incisive critic to apply the force of her intellect, the power of her memory, and the dexterity of her cultural mixology to a record so fraught with meaning and misunderstanding makes me feel the way I did the first time I heard the needle drop on 'Lost Ones.' In fact, I'm dancing with one fist in the air as I write this." — Adam Mansbach, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Part storytelling, part cultural commentary; part cipher, part praise-song, Joan Morgan’s She Begat This is perhaps the most necessary read for the present Black cultural moment. Twenty years after the release of Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Morgan’s frame of the moment, solidifies its importance as Hip Hop zeitgeist occurrence; as catalyst to our age of fierce Black outrage, and millennial Black claim. That it also serves to re-establish Morgan as Hip Hop feminism’s high-priest must be recognized, and we mean it in the manner of Hip Hop imperative . . . Recognize!”— Roger Bonair Agard, National Book Award nominee and author of Bury My Clothes and Where Brooklyn At

“With [She Begat This], we get the Platonic ideal of subject and approach, rendered with love-letter sincerity and a healthy dose of accountability….[Morgan] uses her unique vantage to grapple with the burden of expectation placed on black women’s shoulders when they share their creative genius with the public. As a cultural history, She Begat This beautifully conjures the 1990s moment that made the album revolutionary, looks at the politics of Hill’s subsequent ‘icon’ status, and—as a loving call-in—takes Hill to task for the post-album problems within her control. As the title suggests, this history traces the connections between Miseducation, contemporary movements like #blackgirlmagic, and the rich archive of black excellence that Hill (and Morgan) drew from to make their own great works."— Daphne Carr, Pitchfork’s Best Music Books of 2018

About the Author

A pioneering hip-hop journalist and award-winning feminist author, Joan Morgan coined the term “hip-hop feminism” in 1999 with the publication of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, which is now studied at colleges across the country. She is currently the program director of the Center for Black Visual Culture at NYU.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria Books (Aug. 7 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1501195255
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1501195259
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 245 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.29 x 17.78 cm

Best Sellers Rank: #450,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,777 in Musician Biographies
- #2,786 in Composer & Musician Biographies (Books)
- #4,059 in Entertainer

Customer Reviews:
4.4 95 ratings

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Top reviews from other countries

David Kohl

She Begat This: ( book)

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2023

Verified Purchase

Good read on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Elizabeth Phillips

Joan Morgan Elevates the Game

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2018

Verified Purchase

Joan Morgan's "She Begat This: Twenty Years of the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" is a priceless window into the journey Black women have taken through the minefields marking their path through popular culture, a journey filled with triumph and moments of self discovery as well as tragedy and pain. I have always admired Joan Morgan's ability to live with, and write about irony, contradiction and ambiguity while never giving in to despair or refusing moments of joy. This book positions Lauryn Hill as a figure whose persona and creative spirit not only elevated hip hop to its highest levels, but gave Black Women new ways to position themselves and imagine themselves. I say this, not with the presumption that I have the authority to speak for Black women, but as someone admires any writer who encourages people to live with contradictions and escape the boxes they are put in, sometimes by those with good intentions. Joan Morgan is such a writer. She is a prophet of freedom and self-discovery.

10 people found this helpful

Valerie E. Patterson

Great work by Joan Morgan!!!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2018

Verified Purchase

Because of my deep interest in female emcees and Hip-Hop culture, I am eternally grateful to Joan Morgan for this work. Her research answered so many questions and offered a thoughtful and nuanced assessment of the impact of Hill's Miseducation album. Yes, I was in my 40s when the album dropped, but I was amazed, impressed and taken when I heard it, as were my daughters who were young adults. Morgan's interrogation of Lauryn Hill as a gifted artist and so much more, helped me think through why we responded to the album in the way that we did. The reflections and observations offered by scholars, producers, culture critics, is pure icing, again I learned so much! Morgan brings the juice, the tea, and a complete and satisfying meal. She is a writer's writer who puts words together in a way that leaves you just shaking your head and sighing because it's pure genius. Read this book!!!!!!!!

4 people found this helpful

Maco L. Faniel

Anything out of context is a lie

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

With She Begat This Morgan offers context to help us get at the truth to why we fell in love with Hill and Miseducation in the first place. Morgan takes readers back to the zeitgeist and volksgeist that engendered the album so that contemporary listeners, and oldheads with new understandings, can learn what Miseducation spoke to and for black women in that generation. While reading, I was reminded of why we still love Miseducation and Hill — it is a dope ass album gifted to us by a magical ass black woman. We’ve wanted more of it and her. But Morgan and her scholar-sister-friends also look back to show us what we did with that which was gifted to us in our thirst for more of it. We created something of the art and artist then , and we’ve co-created what the art and artist have become.

2 people found this helpful

N. A. Johnson

Nostalgia

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a great book that takes you down memory lane and discusses the context and impact Lauryn had through anecdotal and social studies. It’s an easy read for the most part. I would have liked a bit more track by track analysis, but I don’t think that was the author’s intention here. I overall enjoyed, although at times I wish it dug just a bit deeper.

One person found this helpful

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She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Hardcover – Aug. 7 2018

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Joan Morgan

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Follow the author

She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Hardcover – Aug. 7 2018

Product description

Review

About the Author

Product details

About the author

Joan Morgan

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

Top reviews from other countries