Released on August 25, 1998, the album received rave reviews from contemporary music critics, and was the most acclaimed album of 1998. Critics lauded the album's blending of the R&B, doo-wop, pop, hip-hop, and reggae genres and its honest representation of a woman's life and relationships. David Browne, writing in "Entertainment Weekly", called it "an album of often-astonishing power, strength, and feeling", and praised Hill for "easily flowing from singing to rapping, evoking the past while forging a future of her own". Robert Christgau quipped, " record of the year—songs soft, singing ordinary, rapping skilled, rhymes up and down, skits , production subtle and terrific". In 2017 NPR rated the album as the 2nd best album of all time created by a woman.