Amerigo Gazaway is a producer now based in Berkeley, who has been known over the years for making a series of mashups, creating collaborations that never were. Some of his previous projects have paired De La Soul with Fela Kuti, Yasiin Bey with Marvin Gaye, and UGK with B.B. King. Apparently while discussing his work at Pop Con two years ago, writer and professor Zandria Robinson called him out for having any projects celebrating women artists. Taking the criticism to heart, Gazaway now presents his project pairing Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon.

As Gazaway has worked on these projects over the years, he’s done a few things to make them go above and beyond. The first thing is that he’s not simply throwing vocals tracks from one artist over instrumental tracks from another, he’s actually dissecting the music of both artists, taking apart the elements, and remixing them into something entirely new. As a result of doing this, you get to appreciate what a brilliant musician Nina Simone was, and just how prevalent her music has been as a sample source over the years in hip hop. You also get to appreciate that no matter what else happened in her life, Lauryn Hill gave us two of the best albums of the ‘90s between her work with The Fugees and as a solo artist. Another way in which Gazaway elevates the album is with his interstitial work. Occasionally, he’ll play a short clip from an older song to demonstrate where Hill or Simone’s roots and influences are. Other times, he’ll play clips from interviews with Nina Simone, shedding light on her particular place in music history. Mostly, though, this project works because Gazaway chose two African American women with strong personalities and brilliant musical minds whose music already spoke to each other, and because he put so much care in passion into making this project work. It can be taking the reggae groove of Nina Simone’s “Baltimore” and pairing it with “Ready or Not,” or making the somber connection between Simone’s “Brown Baby” and Hill’s “To Zion.” My personal favorite comes when Gazaway pairs Simone’s “Take Care of Business for Me” with the underrated Fugees track, “Take It Easy,” to create an absolute barn burner. Really, you can’t go wrong with this album.

Amerigo Gazaway has managed to maintain his career working in this particular manner, making artists talk to each other, for much longer than anyone else. This is because he truly enjoys the concept of these projects, and he puts so much care into them. Hill and Simone make for a natural pairing, but you still need someone like Gazaway to do that deep dive, find just the right elements that work together, and make something entirely new and exciting in the process.