Gazaway does a different kind of labor in this mashup, creating a private, interior space for these women to speak the truths of their lives, both to themselves and to each other. We ride along and listen quietly as Hill drives down South to retrieve Simone from North Carolina and the two travel back north together, to New Jersey and then to New York, and onward to woman-ish soul eternity.
With "The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon", Amerigo Gazaway renders listeners children in the backseat of a shiny black Chevy, transfixed by the mysteries of grown women’s conversations. With Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill seated together at the table, collaboration transforms into vivid conversation, call and response, and a call to action-private, personal, and public-across space, time, and realm. “Soul Mates’ “collaborations that never were” enters new territory with a now familiar deft and verve, this time highlighting intergenerational conjurings between two black women cultural workers from the civil rights and hip-hop generations. Given the project was, in part, inspired by Zandria’s question, she got the first listen and has written a few words on the album below. Two years later and I’m excited to finally share the answer with my new Nina Simone + Lauryn Hill mixtape, “The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon”. During our discussion, a fellow panelist, writer and professor, Zandria Robinson, posed an interesting question: “where’s your project celebrating women artists?” Watch the teaser video here: youtu.be/KPyHcFTUggsīack in 2016, I had the pleasure of discussing my conceptual collaboration projects via a roundtable discussion at MoPOP’s annual POP Conference in Seattle. Continuing the “collaborations that never were” theme of his previous releases, the producer seamlessly connects the dots between Hip-Hop and the genre’s predecessor, Soul. Percolating with hip-hop, reggae, and R&B, Miseducation was right on time and ahead of its time, encouraging a generation (including future stars like Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar) that it’s okay to show your soul.With his latest Soul Mates Project, Amerigo Gazaway imagines a studio session between The High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, and living legend, Lauryn Hill. “Doo Wop (That Thing)” and “Lost Ones” are vital crowd-movers, while “Ex-Factor,” “To Zion,” and “Everything Is Everything” collect Hill’s penetrating insights on life, love, and motherhood. She put her Fugees past behind her, seizing the spotlight to showcase her rapping skills and amplify her emotional singing voice. The response to it was universal-Miseducation was a juggernaut, earning five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year.
Hill’s first solo album provided a sharp counterpoint by injecting the perspective of a young black woman dealing with identity and sexuality. Materialism and misogyny were rampant, fanned by music videos that presented women as objects or conquests. To understand the significance of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, it’s important to remember what mainstream hip-hop was like in 1998.