10 Greatest Hip Hop Concept Albums

For fans of the former Fugees standout, it’s a shame that this remains Lauryn Hill’s sole solo record to date. For the artist herself, though, this is an incredibly difficult act to follow. Hill’s 1998 masterpiece doesn’t feature a complex narrative, but it’s built around the rapper and singer’s titular education as an artist, a young woman, and later, a mother.

The album is structured around some of hip hop’s least objectionable skits, with teacher Ras Baraka addressing a classroom full of kids on one of the album’s key topics - love. From there, the album comes in hot, with “Lost Ones” and “Ex Factor” in quick succession. Hill operates primarily as a singer on the record, but she’s eager to remind listeners just how good a rapper she is.

There are heartbreak songs like "When It Hurts So Bad", and tracks on which Hill attempts to convey her experience of love and loss to the next generation, like the still-great “Doo Wop (That Thing)”. Most personal of all is “To Zion”, an amazingly honest track about motherhood.

While there’s no great overarching message, there can be few albums on which the performer’s personality shines through so clear as this one.