The Fugees

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Fugees were an American hip hop group from South Orange, New Jersey. The trio consisted of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel. Hill and Pras met at Columbia High School in Maplewood, and then Wyclef joined them. They began in 1990 as Tranzlator Crew. In 1993 they signed with Ruffhouse Records, a label distributed through Columbia. The new name came from refugee, a word often used disparagingly for Haitian Americans. Jean and Michel themselves have Haitian roots.

Music and breakthrough

Their debut album Blunted on Reality was released on 1 February 1994, after a dispute with the record company, with singles such as Nappy Heads and Vocab. It barely caught on. That did happen with The Score from 1996, with Fu-Gee-La, Killing Me Softly and Ready or Not. The album reached the top of the American album chart and for a time was the best-selling hip hop album ever. It was the second rap album to be nominated for a Grammy for Album of the Year. They also worked with Simply Red on Angel and with Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest and John Forté on Rumble in the Jungle. They also founded the collective Refugee Camp All-Stars and gave the biggest concert in Haitian history. After that the three went solo. Jean released The Carnival in 1997, with contributions from all three.

Influence

The Fugees stood out at a time when gangsta rap dominated. They combined hip hop and R&B with reggae, soul and other music of the Black diaspora, played real instruments and wrote socially conscious lyrics. Lauryn Hill, a singer and rapper at once, went on to have a solo career of her own. They showed that hip hop could also be melodic, warm and broad.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1994Blunted on Reality
• 1996The Score

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 10: Women in Pop Music^NL Reader