I am sorry to any men reading this for my next statement, but I stand by it: Miseducation is an album that speaks in a language only women fully comprehend.

Across its sixteen tracks, Lauryn Hill uncovers the suffering and survival that governs what it means to exist as a woman in this world. I Used To Love Him deals with the power imbalance of heterosexual relationships and the subordination women undergo in the face of male entitlement. “Gave up my power,” Hill bemoans of her relationship. “Ceased being queen.” When It Hurts So Bad deals with similar themes of toxic love, ending with the warning that “What you want might make you cry/What you need might pass you by.” On Lost Ones she raps about being disrespected by the man closest to her. “You might win some/But you just lost one,” she spits.

Then there’s Everything is Everything, an mediation on the oppression of black youths and Hill’s hope to break cycles of deprivation that she’d witnessed. It’s the complement to Doo-Woop, another ‘social issue’ single that got the most radio play in 1998, which – although outdated in some of its sexual politics – took shots at the “Sneaky silent men/The punk domestic violence men/Quick to shoot the semen, stop acting like boys and be men.” As a teen, I would lie on my bedroom floor rapping to Doo Woop and thinking of my father, the man who left six children scattered across three continents, with nothing more to remember him by than a few faded Kodak pictures and hair that twisted into coils with no persuasion.

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is more relevant than ever in the #MeToo era