You'd never know it from the hits--dark, sweeping, cinematic arias such as "Ready or Not" and "Fugee-La"--but The Score began with modest ambitions. "It was like, 'Yo, let's do this album like we want to do it,'" rapper/producer Wyclef Jean says. "Hopefully it'll go gold or something, so I can get some sneakers and L. can get a Honda." Well, it definitely went gold or something, selling 18 million copies worldwide and paving the way for changes both sublime (an open-minded inclusiveness) and crass (countless pop-song retreads) in rap music. But two years after stiffing with their spotty debut, Blunted on Reality, the Fugees weren't exactly industry powerhouses. So the Haitian-born Wyclef Jean, his cousin Prakazrel Michel, and their high-school pal Lauryn Hill met at Jean's New Jersey home studio and set about being themselves: well-read, mixed-culture, multi-instrumentalist fans of everything from Bob Marley to Gary Numan to Doug E. Fresh. They sampled the Delfonics, jammed on electric guitar, and covered Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." They penned racist-cop diatribes and riffed on Jim Carrey and Guinness stout. What gave the results such power (besides criminal amounts of talent that led the threesome to successful solo careers) was the Fugees' deceptively simple contention that their soulful, melodic, genre-bending music is hip-hop because they are hip-hop--native speakers of a diverse, urban-based culture that needn't soften to uplift. "The Fugees created a poetic hybrid that has become hip-hop's universal amalgam," says Elektra Records CEO Syliva Rhone. "It's the new definition of pop." - Spin Magazine, 9/99. The Fugees created one of the most enduring crossover albums of all-time and, personally, one of the most important soundtracks to a season in my life. The nostalgia I feel while listening to this project is incredible, to this day -- it's truly a pleasure to click play and revisit this classic below. Do it, too...
As always, a copy of the full review in Spin Magazine is below...
