3. Lauryn HillThe Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill

A bolt out of the blue, which went on to deservedly stomp all over the 1999 Grammys. How could something so soulful, layered and mature be a debut solo album?

Forget all about what came after, the pressures of fame, the eccentricity, the absence of any convincing follow-up. Miseducation was an indelible high point of black American music. Lauryn could sing, she could rap, and she could write the hell out of a verse. "I know all the tricks from Bricks to Kingston/ My ting done made your kingdom wan’ run/ Now understand L-Boogie’s non-violent/ But if a thing test me, run for my gun/ Can’t take a threat to my newborn son/ L been this way since creation." The self-confidence is coruscating, the prosody leaves you shook. Long after her competitors and detractors are forgotten, maybe a century from now when we are deep in our nuclear winter, someone’s going to put ‘Doo Wop’ or ‘Everything Is Everything’ on the speakers at a party and set it, as always, on fire.