let’s miseducately take a seat here

This “blended” album is an homage to the three women who shaped different selves of mine over the years through music and the rest.
I invite you to read or listen to the following albums before reading the words that follow
Or maybe just let them bathe the atmosphere in the background for the words to sink in as you read and maybe echo in sound, in mind

The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill – Lauryn Hill
Here – Alicia Keys
A Seat At The Table – Solange

Intro:
Let’s take a seat at my desk right here, right now.
Right here, an ocean from the place I sat at the desk
The desk I sat at, sat next to, listened next to in that tiny living room
Right here, an ocean from the place I first saw the cover
The cover that stuck to me to this day, be it on the screen as I-Tuned in, be it on the cd booklet, be it on the wall of my teen cave, be it on the back of my computed screen
Right here, an ocean from the place I first heard what she told him, what she told me, from baby me to me talking to you through these words

Let’s take a seat at this desk and listen to what they’ve told us
Let’s take a seat at this desk and comprehend what they’ve gifted us
Let’s take a seat at this desk and feel the sound around us
From the sound to the words to the meaning that echoes in the outside world

Baby me heard, lying on the floor, from speaker to ear not yet to my thoughts
Therefore I felt
Felt the vibe, felt the tears, felt the joy, felt the love
I didn’t hear her lose one, let the ex-factor leave, welcome her Zion, warn about the doo-wop, the superstars she sold, look out for the final hour, feel so good hurting bad, love herself instead of love him, preach forgiveness for those who left her, stride the streets that nurtured her, when nothing mattered anymore, when a negative became a positive, when once miseducated she defined her destiny, when she couldn’t take her eyes off him, and told him
She told him, she told her, she told them, she told us

These albums, the songs, these melodies, these words
From all three and others among
Starting in that living room an ocean from this desk here to the rooms of mine on this side
Have miseducated me

Track 1:
There’s this orange desk
Lauryn sits at it
Alicia and Solange take a seat
They see Lauryn imprinted on it
Name and face
Miseducation face up
This is where you all listen to her miseducation at
At the desk
You sit in her place when she doesn’t respond to her name in the intro
Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill?
Lauryn Hill…
You slip in her stead
You listen at her desk
You listen to what she has learned not being at her desk
You hear what she is teaching you through her songs, her words, her beats she acquired
She acquired from venturing from street to street, city to city, culture to culture, genre to genre, middle-class to fame
Every ghetto, every city, and every suburban place she’s been
You skip from classroom to beat in the streets, in her home, in her heart
You go through the lessons taught outside of the classroom you are in
She created her classroom on tape
She created her own education on tape
And she let others sit at her desk until this day 26 years later
Not far from there, another table seems inviting
Solange shifts to one of the seats adorning it
In tow Lauryn and Alicia follow
At her table
That now is theirs
The remaining chairs left to those who desire
Like us listeners
Like the space of a classroom
It brings safety
Like the sound of the songs playing
They hug us
Like the conversations unfolding at the desks and tables
They let us share
Repressed is the oppression
“If you don’t understand us and understand what we’ve been through, then you probably wouldn’t understand what this moment is about. This is home. This is where we’re from. This is where we belong.”
And is appreciated and listened to what has been served on the table
Alicia now stays seated
Seated to stay here

Intralude :
From hearing these songs on the other side of the ocean to where I’m at now
Connecting them to that living room on that side
In that city
In it’s concrete
59th Street Columbus Circle, transfer to the 1B-, C-, and the D-train
Brooklyn-bound A. 42nd street is next, stand clear of the closing doors
In it’s feeling
In it’s culture
“Appreciating culture that is not just our own” Lauryn said
Surrounding it till weld together and brazen to my memories
Melted together in the pot
Savouring the puzzled parts of the world together
Bringing the taste of the big apple on this side
To hearing them in the living room on this side
Making those cultures co-existing here in my mind despite their lack on this side
The gospel defeating in every ghetto, every city
To finally listening to them in the backseat of the car through plugged headphones
To finally going from speaker to ear to thought
In the backseat of that car I became conscious
Conscious of the words
Conscious of the meaning they held
Conscious of what I felt
Conscious of what they meant to me
Conscious of how they were bound to me
Despite our differences society defines negatively but is a positive
Positive as how good it felt back on the other side of the ocean
Positive in their co-existence humanity wants to separate
Separate and lead to the existence of the voices in these albums
These voices that stayed on a loop since
These voices that taught me skinny legs, kung-fu and all your quirks are cool
These voices that taught me to not really care
Not really care for the voices that praised that I grew up there, raised the stupidity of my move on this side of the ocean
These voices that taught me not to see the limit from kung-fu to the arts
These voices that were the cranes in the sky that lugged me to my seat now
These voices that uncensor mine as I go on writing these words
Words of feeling, emotions coming from within
Words of gratitude to my teachers of twenty years and more to come
Teachers of us for us

Track 2:
All three women at the table
Lauryn was in the spotlight from teen to now
She bowed “haitian by association” next to her two comrades as refugees
The fugees
Solo she came to be
Emancipated, consequence of the miscommunication
She lost one
Stripped and naked as she could be
Zion in her belly
Giving the keys to the sound and lyrics that came to be
Locked away from the surrounding pleas to instead use her head
For her spotlight was at stake should she use her heart
From low pressure of just staying true to her woman self as a fugee, refugee
To high pressure of telling her truth without refuge
Heart pressure was monitored by those who thought they were higher
Till with music to inspire she soared higher
To the superstar with the Grammys in her arms
For her and others to hear what she wanted to see exist
Alicia came around here twenty years later after having seen the spotlight next to the prince
She went from how come you don’t call to not really caring
She went there, she came here and told you to let her in
In as you let the wind in as her Shaolin crew put the song to begin
Trailing behind Solange silenced for years
Being the copied shadow of her sister Queen B
Accompanied by the tracks she didn’t want to see come to be
She sat at another table and wrote her invitation
Weary of the world and running away from the metal clouds that made her mad
She asked herself where the peace was
If it was the success within
The glory within her
The anger within her
In the music it came with her
For people to understand the record
For people to understand her
As master P told her
For them by them
For us by us

Intralude :
I remember hearing them around
I remember them when I was lying on that rug when my only care was saving enough to buy an album at J&R
I remember them in my first iPod stick
I remember them in the plane
I remember them when I was at my desk doing my homework seriously those Saturdays
I remember them when they weren’t considered cool in middle school
I remember them as I first set foot in high school
I remember them when it was the only thing we could settle on together with mom in the car
I remember them as I came home alone from treatment in the mountains in the summer
I remember them when the ones that came in high school were unexpected albums
I remember getting them for christmas
I remember them on loop in the middle of the snow
I remember them when I was weary of my first relationship
I remember them when I was tired of punching the air every night
I remember them when we were locked up for months with nothing better to do
I remember them when we could finally see May together with friends
I remember them when I was infatuated
I remember them when I chose to st-art again
I remember them when I didn’t know what to draw
I remember them when I stopped punching the air
I remember them when I moved out
I remember them when I moved in
I remember them when I made bread on Saturdays
I remember them when my landlady went haywire
I remember them when I went bananas because of her
I remember them when I went up north-east
I remember them when they echoed in the small apartment like the one with the rug I lied on
I remember them as I write here
I hear them around
I hear them as I grow
I hear them shaping me
I hear them as I become she

Track 3:
She was pregnant
She was pregnant
She was pregnant
They were pregnant
Around the table they pass around the feelings and the memories

Lauryn felt overwhelmed with her hand on her belly
She let Zion help her create
She let him be her salvation
She let herself fall in love again
She gave birth to Zion and the 1998 miseducation

Alicia was on fire
And it unexpectedly lit up Egypt
Who once born became her first puzzle piece to her blended family
Working on it for the love that it’s worth
Fame be pawned for blended family is all she cared
Beatz and Keys together out in the news
To writing blended family right here in 2016
HERE in the news

Solange was at her table
Back in her grandparents’ town
Back in Louisiana
Back at writing
Her comeback in the sunlight, shadow forgotten
Back to her roots
With it came the running around the house
Little feet coursing around
Accompanied as she took care
She wrote the ode to self care
In the confines of the house and the roots of her burgeoning family
She took care of existing without the heartbreak of the outside world
She took care of forgetting temporarily of the rage
She took care of forgetting the inequality
She took care of telling her son to love
She took care of telling her son he was safe
She took care of leaving the borderline
She took care of taking it off, breaking it off tonight because she’s safe tonight
She took care because she was a lover on the mission
She took care of that, the length of a song
telling us to take care

Intralude:
Between concrete walls
Tomboys we thrived in our fifth-grade high
Hair tie and shorts on
Banned were the skirts-off
Teens came to be and it just came to be ourselves
Tomboys to just being
Being without conforming to the standard at its peak
Closing off the grandma cries for flowing hair
Closing off the girls’ cries for eye lining their eyes
Striving to be fly as ourselves
Striving to be fly for ourselves

Track 4:
Take care
Self-care
Self-image
Image-care

Coming closer to the other two around the table
Alicia told them about the girl from her class in PS 257
They passed around the bottle of Vaseline and rubbed their faces
They weren’t even black anymore
They just glowed
Just as that girl said
They just were themselves
For as beauty is only in the eyes of the beholder
Maybelline-free since 2016 Alicia said
Spotlight be damned
Curves and curls bare
On the black and white cover here
Insecurities be damned
Stretch marks bare
Cocoa butter we care
Conversing and singing in cocoa butter we share
Gender be damned
Insecurities we share

Just like Tina shared
Solange shared her mom Tina’s words
Tina taught her black is beautiful
Tina taught her there is pride in black beauty
Tina taught her to wear her crown
Solange then shared her own words
Solange said not to touch her hair
Solange said not to touch the crown that she wears
Solange said it’s the feelings she wears
Solange said it was her soul
From being in her Tina’s hair salon to wearing her crown today
The journey from young girl to junior high school to adulthood
The journey of learning the signals the crown says
The journey of the significance in black culture
The journey of letting it speak and protect it
For social and political and appropriated it can be
The feelings it wears should be cared for
Solange told them about her bare cover
Alicia went bare
Solange went unfinished
With clips still in her hair
Curls still in care
She said stop don’t touch my hair anymore
A seat she took in front of the camera
The crown reflects the flash
This is the hair she said
This is the hair I will be seated at the table with
Transitional black Mona-Lisa it will be

Powerful as two Cleopatras
In all skinny legs, press, and curls glory
Lauryn told them what the girl in that class said
Sometimes it doesn’t matter what they wear or what they look like
You just want to talk to them because they glow
Then through her glow Lauryn told them
Though she did warn about the glow
Because remember you’re only human
Respect is just a minimum
So watch out because sometimes girls and boys only want that thing
Fuck, pretend, and do it again
So watch out if it isn’t genuine
So watch out if you aren’t genuine
Hair weaves like Europeans, fake nails done by Koreans
So watch out to not to sell your soul just for that thing

Remember
She picking all the wrong ones
And she’s looking for the right one in the wrong place
You remember her face? The prettiest face, prettiest face
(Oh yeah, oh yeah)
She looking for fulfillment
You would think she was looking for love, searching for love
She just looking to be taken care of
(Oh yeah, oh yeah)
You can find her in Harlem or Brooklyn
You can find her in Brixton or Kingston, she’s a queen
Know what I mean?
(Oh yeah, oh yeah)
She think she want a baby and she do it with the wrong one
‘Cause she’s looking for something, but he don’t really care
He don’t really care
And life just isn’t fair

Intralude:
Kinder in the Garden high
Wasn’t big enough to be let alone
Wasn’t flying high enough alone
The kid in me needed babysitting time to time
To keep me seating when my mom needed to leave her own Zion
Kept down on the playground
Yvonne used to watch over my jumps
Yvonne used to keep me from scraping my knees as I fell from the high
Yvonne used to stand so tall
Yvonne used to watch over me with the shiniest crown
Yvonne used to have the silkiest crown ever
Yvonne had to care for her flat crown
Yvonne went every week to get her curls flat-ironed out
Yvonne went to the hair salon on those streets made of concrete
Between jumps in the streets, I would pass by those salons
Seeing the different braided pictures on display
Pictures that braided into my mind
Braids and curls I kept on thinking of
Thinking of them as the most beautiful crowns I could see
Thinking why should they be ironed out to shine
Thinking of them when I saw Alicia bring out HERE
Thinking it’s the prettiest out here
Thinking I missed seeing those crowns around after not being in that same concrete on this side of the ocean
Thinking naively why don’t we all feel the same
When they shone so bright in the city, in the classroom, at the desks

Track 5:
As the songs play in the background of this seated conversation
Chairs were added
Chairs were tucked away
Musical chairs away

Lauryn was the first to settle in a chair when the music stopped
She came with the intro
Followed then the track, the interludes
She then went with the outro

Alicia and Solange then simultaneously sat in the 2016 chairs
They came with the intros
Followed by the tracks, the interludes
They then went with the outros

1998 to 2016
Going back and forth
Going from chair to chair
Echoing each other despite the time spans
From whisper to ear to ear
Going back and forth
Between the struggles in common despite the time spans
Welcoming other participants in the users of these intro, tracks, interludes, and outros
Welcoming other participants in these conversations seated at the table
It’s not just Lauryn
It’s not just Alicia
It’s not just Solange
It’s them
And it’s Ras Baraka as the miseducating teacher
And it’s the kids in the classroom
And it’s Master P narrating at the table, from slave he leaves as royalty, as the chosen one
And it’s Tina Lawson
And it’s her Dad
And it’s her friends here
And it’s Elaine Brown
And they’re here for words to speak louder and clearer without singing, rapping, or screaming
And they come across just as powerful as the musical rhythms
And they come across in those musical chairs
With a point to be made across

Be it lessons on love in the classroom by poet and now mayor Ras Baraka
Be it praises of stretch marks and insecurities talk with Alicia and her friends
Be it reminders of black oppression and hostility towards black women in America in the form of the poem Black Mother read by Black Panther Party chairwoman Elaine Brown
Be it stories about embracing black beauty glowing in the eyes of a child and her baby oil and Vaseline
Be it knowing your worth and seeing No Limits through the eyes of self-made, southern black man Master P
Be it being lost in this vacuum between integration and segregation, and racism with the retelling of the childhood of Solange’s Dad Who Was Mad
Be it black kids having to figure it out themselves lacking help from say rehabs in the ghetto, there’s only the self-rehab cries Master P
Be it what Tina Taught
Tina taught accepting beauty in black
Tina taught being proud of it, loving it, not wanting anything else
Tina taught what it was to be sad to be pro-black but be deemed anti-white for embracing it
Tina taught it’s not hating white culture
Tina taught that it’s not reverse racism
Tina taught that there was a black history month but not a white history month because we only ever were taught white history
Tina taught that we shouldn’t be angry

And then it comes back to Lauryn

She lost one after the breakup as he gained the world at the price of his soul, so she let the ex-factor go, she welcomed Zion, she warned about the doo-wop to self-preserve and keep your self-respect, she sold superstars as the ones in the spotlight dropped tired ones that didn’t inspire to go any higher, she waited for the final hour of black success prevented, she hurt so bad, she used to love him, she asked the father to forgive him, she grew up in every ghetto and every city, then nothing even mattered, everything was everything when the power was fair, she miseducated herself with her aspirations and dreams despite everything being everything, she couldn’t take her eyes off him, and she told him…
And then it comes back to Alicia
She began with the poor of her words, she sang the gospel from Harlem, she pawned it all because family goes first, she killed mama, she didn’t really care but she was looking for the right one in the wrong place and she was a queen but he didn’t really care either, she saw the illusion of bliss amid the smoke, she worked on her blended family, she worked on it with him, she couldn’t be herself anymore, She said they were than they knew because no fate could not be created, she didn’t know where to begin, she then saw holy war in a world divided by difference, sexuality, and skin, she cried hallelujah, she saw what was in common…
And then it comes back to Solange
She rose, walked her way, crumbled and rose, she was weary or who would go finding her body devalued in this society, she saw the cranes in the sky, she was mad, she said not to wait for her, she said not to touch her hair, her crown, she didn’t know where to go from there as she kept them company, she said it was for them by them and not to be mad if you couldn’t sing along, she retreated from the borderline for her self care, she saw Junie jump on it during Morrison’s funk, she said not to wish her well, she saw the mens scales shine in the night to the cost of…
And they echo each other as do the meanings that double and web their words, their melodies, their feelings, their truths along with the joys and sorrows
And they act as healing provokers, towards race, towards women, towards beings
They sit at the table, feeling and talking and letting it all be complicated, painful, and beautiful as they all take turns unfolding under the covers

Intralude:
Amid the big concrete apple
While growing baby-high to teen-high
I came upon the boroughs
To stumble upon the pieces of the globe
Paving my collection of pieces the streets would give me
From that side to the other to my little bundle to carry on
Carry on to this side of the ocean
From emotion to affection
These pieces stayed by my side
Shouldering me from then to-day
To shaping my ways
And treasured will they stay
To learn and appreciate
What comes from here and whatever there
Un-prejudiced as can be
Leading to sorrow adult-high
As the view unfolds provoking the fall
From the ways of the world

Track 6:
Scattered on the table bonding the three
Lay the pieces of the world they summoned
Mustered together
Call was the r&b, the reggae, the hip hop, the soul, the zydeco, the gospel
Rifling through Wu-tang to Gladys Knight and the pips and slipping in Santana
From Africa to America to Louisiana and Alabama
Passing France and Asia to Chinatown and Harlem NY
To land in NJ
And round again
The music was lit
And the literature came with it
Summoned was the bible, Black Mother, The Miseducation of the Negro
Inviting with it the words of its creators
Creating the constellation
Carter Woodson had prophesied- “Some Negro with esthetic appreciation would construct from collected fragments of Negro music a grand opera that would move humanity to repentance.”
Lauryn to thank we have
Eclecticism and aspiration she had
Appreciating cultures that weren’t just her own from childhood she bega

Weaving, piecing influences yet assembled
Creating her sound
Her sound to share
Popular it became and popular it was
From popular culture around the world to creating popular music
Popular in the reach and not in the pop beat
Reaching to the people, to the artists
Connecting to Alicia
Connecting to Solange
Connecting to the rest
Connecting to them
Connecting them
Connecting us

Outro:
If their trio hadn’t reached me before eighteen
These words I wouldn’t be writing
Most of what I submitted to get into prep class
Was based on what I had amassed from their teachings
Echoing the news from the other side of the ocean
If their trio hadn’t reached me before eighteen
Along with the rest of my web of the world
I wouldn’t have even wanted to write these words from lack of discovery of this world
So rich is the world
So reach the world

Sources:
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill-Lauryn Hill (1998)
Here-Alicia Keys (2016)
A seat at the table (2016)
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/lauryn-hill-rare-interview-miseducation-500-greatest-albums-1109491/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/aug/21/rocks-back-pages-lauryn-hill
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/07/1013351060/how-the-miseducation-of-lauryn-hill-taught-me-to-love-blackness
Lauryn Hill interview from YouTube (2000)
https://www.wmagazine.com/story/exclusive-solange-knowles-in-conversation-with-tavi-gevinson-about-a-seat-at-the-table
https://www.npr.org/2016/11/11/501165834/weve-always-had-a-seat-at-the-table-solange-on-conversations-that-heal
Alicia Keys talks new album Here- YouTube interview
https://slate.com/culture/2016/10/solanges-new-album-a-seat-at-the-table-reviewed.html
Bits and pieces of these sources and previous of their albums and lives were deliberately quoted either in color or quotes in this essay