chart-topper and one-time favorite song of presidential hopeful Barack Obama is another example of the Fugees going the divide-and-conquer route. “Ready or Not”: Built around an ice-cold Enya sample, this U.K. They work in order of descending lyrical dexterity, with Lauryn slinging a string of killer disses at kids who rhyme for “all the wrong reasons.” Clef sees her ColecoVision and Go Ask Alice references and raises her some funny bars about iron-induced constipation and Seal’s 1990 hit “Crazy.” Last and least (but still pretty solid) is Pras, who raps ably but less elegantly over the spare bass line. The answer here is three, as each Fugee takes his or her turn in the spotlight. “How Many Mics”: “How many mics do we rip on the daily?” asks Wyclef in the hook. Best of all, he references the title of nearly every track that’s to follow.
“Red Intro”: Before the music pops off, Ras Baraka, son of poet Amiri Baraka and current mayor of Newark, sets the scene with a ticked-off, defiant rant about wannabe gangsters and shady music-biz types. The three haven’t performed together since 2006, and perhaps due to lingering hostilities following the dissolution of Wyclef and Hill’s relationship, there’s been no recent indication that a third Fugees album might happen. Pras has dropped a pair of LPs and gotten into film production. Hill released an undisputed masterpiece with 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and then largely disappeared from the public eye.
Fugees the score chinese restaurant skit series#
Clef has released a series of solo albums and dabbled in Haitian politics. Following The Score, the group disintegrated, and all three members went off and did their own thing. Unfortunately, the communal vibes didn’t last. In Booga Basement, these three misfit MCs took refuge in each other’s talents and musical curiosity, and with the help of producers like Saleem Remi and Clef’s cousin Jerry “Wonda” Duplessis, they made music with a genuine community feel. The trio takes its name from “refugees,” a word that didn’t just refer to the fact that Wyclef, like Pras’ parents, was born in Haiti. Part Bonnie-and-Clyde story, part “audio film,” as Hill famously called it, The Score embodies everything that made Fugees one of the era’s most important acts. Ice-T Voices ‘Care Bears,’ Lauryn Hill Sings Nina Simone on ‘Tonight Show’ It was a fantasy that we engaged in because it was almost as if the music and the group and what we were doing drew us in.” The way we related we couldn’t sustain because it was this whirlwind of creativity, this success, this performance. “It’s not that it was wrong it’s just that it was too good to be true. “It was like we knew it wasn’t going to work from the start, but we couldn’t shy away,” writes Clef, who was married to another woman at the time of the affair. If what Wyclef writes in his book was true, fans were responding not just to the Caribbean-flavored thinking man’s boom-bap found throughout the record, but also the romantic chemistry between him and Hill, his secret lover throughout this period. Thanks to its three massive singles - “Fu-Gee-La,” the Roberta Flack cover “Killing Me Softly,” and “Ready or Not” - The Score topped the Billboard 200 and went six-times platinum by October 1997. “Our recordings were pure - no tricks in sight - and it connected with music fans around the world.”Įxclusive: Wyclef Jean Talks Making ‘Clefication’ Album With Avicii & Performs ‘Divine Sorrow’
“ The Score is raw storytelling,” Clef writes in his 2012 memoir Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story. Following the disappointing sales of their shouty 1994 debut, Blunted on Reality, Fugees knew they needed to recalibrate their weapons if they were going to mount a mainstream invasion. Clef, Hill, and third member Pras Michael - the man responsible for getting the whole thing going in the late ‘80s - were militant and melodic, soldiers for change and students of pop music. There’s real instrumentation for the rock fans, a fairly obvious Bob Marley cover for stoners and college kids, and enough soulful vocals from figurehead Lauryn Hill to court middle-aged listeners still on the fence about hip-hop.
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