ISSUE 005: FRIENDS AND FAMILY, MS. LAURYN HILL

ON THE COVER:

Lauryn Hill photographed by Jessica Madavo

Twenty-eight years prior to the release of this issue, on August 19, 1998, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” was released by a 23-year-old Lauryn Hill, shattering industry expectations. The album sold 422,000 copies in its first week—at the time, the highest single-week sales figure ever registered by a woman in the SoundScan era. The following year, Ms. Hill walked away with five Grammys, including Album of the Year—making her the first hip-hop artist to win the Recording Academy’s highest honor.

With the release of “The Miseducation”, the young star, Black and beyond beautiful, offered a timely sermon and message to a generation of young Black people attempting to reckon with questions of how to live. She also gave a generation of young Black women an alternative way of seeing themselves–valuable and complex–in direct opposition to the images of Black women popularized by other hip-hop artists of the late 1990s.

Almost three decades after the release of “The Miseducation,” Ms. Hill, now a grandmother, seems to be stepping back into the spotlight at another cultural inflection point, still armed with a message of conscience and connectedness. 

For the cover of this issue—wanting to be on the continent leading up to the revival of her Diaspora Rising! music festival,  Ms. Hill took us to Casablanca, where photographer Jessica Madavo captured her as she wanted to be seen–in control of her image and her message.

Inside the magazine, Ms. Hill offers an open letter exploring her vision and message, and our editorial director offers an editor's note tracing Ms. Hill's impact and contextualizing the star as a person.

Also featured in this issue:

Andre D. Wagner, Becky Akinyode, Cheryl Clarke, Darnell Moore, Don Brodie, Jawara Wauchope, Jessica Madavo, Kennedi Carter, Kokoroko, Polo Silk, Rafael Rios, Rahim Fortune, Remi Ajani, Robert Franklin, Robin Givhan, Ronan McKenzie, Tayari Jones and more.

Issue 005, the Friends and Family issue, explores what it means to look to those around us as the answer to how we elevate ourselves through the most trying of times. 

When all seems to be falling around us, and we feel powerless to the forces swirling around our heads, we retreat to our most sacred spaces, holding on to those with whom we share our most intimate bonds.

These same people do not only occupy space with us in the dark, but they sustain us in the light. They stand by us at our best, pushing us forward and celebrating our wins.

The possibilities for what we can do and bear are boundless when we have our friends and family by our side.

For Issue 005, we turn our gaze away from the individual and toward the collective, knowing that it is in “community”, among our friends and family, that we can access that well of power needed to meet the moment.