This week, the fine people at Vinyl Me Please sent out their exclusive 20th Anniversary Edition pressing of the Fugees’, The Score. The second, and last album by the trio consisting of Wyclef Jean, Pras Michael, and Lauryn Hill, is a classic. A revolutionary album that Lauryn Hill describes as “an audio film. It’s like how radio was back in the 1940s. It tells a story, and there are cuts and breaks in the music. It’s almost like a hip-hop version of ‘Tommy’, like what The Who did for rock music”.
At the time of its release in ’96, rap music was dominated by “gangster” rap. Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt, 2 Pac’s All Eyes On Me, Nas’ It Was Written, and Ghostface Killah’s Ironman topped the charts. That’s not to say that conscious rap didn’t exist, A Tribe Called Quest (RIP Phife Dawg), De La Soul, Lord Finesse, and Outkast all released albums, but most would be overshadowed, only to be fully appreciated a few years later.
However, The Score was different, it had gone six-times platinum in a little over a year. The lyricism, word play, and vocal styling of Lauryn Hill, combined with Wyclef’s vision and Pras’ production, became an undeniable formula for success, that future artists would soon look to take advantage of. Unfortunately for the fans, 1997 also marked the end of the Fugees. The same creative chemistry that propelled the Fugees to the top of the billboards, ultimately became their demise, proving the old saying, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”.
Wyclef and Pras would continue their careers, occasionally teaming up for a record. In 1998 Lauryn Hill would release The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of the greatest albums of all time, leading to a long hiatus from music. Luckily she is once again playing shows around the world.
20 years later, The Score remains one of few socially conscious, hip-hop albums to see huge commercial success, and leaves us wondering what could’ve been had the Fugees stayed together. Listen to the album below.