Lauryn Hill Essentials

Editors' Notes Though she released just one studio album as a solo artist, Lauryn Hill's influence on popular music is titanic. Whether she's serenading her son with exquisite vulnerability, or coming correct with tough-as-nails battle-rap bravado, the former Fugee kills us with her song. With her bandmates, she perfected a swaying, swaggering amalgam of hip-hop, reggae, and global pop; on her own, she took that cross-pollination further, folding in doo-wop and dancehall, R&B and measured rhymes, establishing herself as a turn-of-the-millennium neo-soul visionary.