a hip hop tribute
The Fugees:
The Score
20 Years of
Magic
happen, it’s something they often wish
for. It happened briefly ten years ago, but
clearly for the wrong reasons. It was clear
that everyone wasn’t in the same place
mentally, and the chemistry wasn’t full on.
Nevertheless, their legacy remains strong,
in the end. Let’s take a look at some of the
most recognizable tracks from The Score!
I can remember it almost like it were
yesterday. As I sat on the always-congested DC Capitol Beltway, caught up in
the mundaneness of typical radio, it was
like a ton of bricks hit all of a sudden. It
was the dead of winter, yet you couldn’t
help but roll your windows down blasting
this song at high capacity for the world to
hear. I hadn’t heard anything like it, aside
from the fact that it sampled a few of my
favorite songs from long ago. The flows
were hard and on point, and the song was
full of melody & rhythm. As I heard Lauryn
Hill singing “Oooh la la la”, I was infected
by her soulfulness, and couldn’t help but
bob my head to the rhythm. For many
people, it was their first real introduction
to the Fugees, and the start of something
that would be held onto forever. The
Fugees were more than just your typical
group for most people. They represented the unity that you don’t really see in a
lot of groups. They were telling stories of
what they saw not only in their respective
neighborhoods, but around the world.
Their influence would be wider than they
could ever imagine as time progressed.
As the lead single to their second LP,
“The Score”, “Fu-Gee-La” alone opened
them up to a much larger audience than
they had ever seen with their debut album. Sampling Ramsey Lewis’ “If Loving
You is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right”,
and containing elements of Teena Marie’s
“Oooh La La La”, “Fu-Gee-La” became
their highest selling single, and played a
major part in their album selling more than
15,000,000 units. In terms of singles, the
hits kept coming with “Killing me Softly”
“Ready or Not”, “How Many Mics”, and “No
Woman, No Cry”. While “The Score” would
be the last physical album that we would
get from Lauryn, Pras, and Wyclef as a
group, it surely wouldn’t be the last we
would hear of them. They obviously went
on to do many huge things, establishing
themse lves as the refugee camp, and their
respective careers as solo artists soared
even higher than that within the group. In
this special feature, in honor of their 20th
anniversary which was just this past February, we will revisit the magic that embodied this album, and allowed them to make
history in the music world. The impact they
made is insurmountable. While fans are
clear that a lasting reunion will likely never
How Many Mics: Right out the gate, this
would resonate as one of the albums
dopest tracks for many. Sampling Ramsey
Lewis’ “Dreams” and Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night”, the smoothness of the
track allowed Lauryn, Wyclef, and Pras
to bounce seamlessly off each other’s
flows. Lauryn, especially, was at her best,
spitting “if only they knew that it was you
who was irregular, sold your soul for some
secular muzak, that’s wack, plus you use
that loop over and over, claiming’ that you
got a new style, your attempts are futile,
ooh child…”. As her rhymes suggested,
she indeed was sweet like licorice, but
dangerous like syphillis. Wyclef follows
with ‘I used to be underrated, now I take
iron, makes my shit constipated, I’m more
concentrated, so on my day off with David
Sonenberg I play golf, run through Crown
Heights screaming out Mazel tov!
Ready or Not: It was nice to hear the
eclecticism in the music of The Fugees.
Honestly, they had some of the dopest
samples, and they touched stuff that most
other rappers wouldn’t even think about.
In all, the group sampled four different
artists with Ready or Not [Kurtis Blow,
Enya, The Delfonics, and Bob Marley and
The Wailers]. It was definitely nice to here
how it all blended together in bringing
this classic to life. As always, Lauryn killed
the vocals, single “You can’t run away,
from these styles I got oh baby, hey baby,
cause I got a lot oh yea, any way you go,
my whole crew gonna know, oh baby, hey
baby, you can’t hide from the block, no
no…”
Zealots: As a self-professed old soul, I had
a special appreciation for the fact they
chose to sample The Flamingos’ “I Only
Have Eyes for You”. It was always a favorite of mine, so it make “Zealots” that much
better for me. The tune also featured a
sample of “Armagideon Time” by Willie
Williams
The Beast: They couldn’t get any more
political than with this track on the album.
The Beast hit hard for many, and for others
was one of the more low key tunes featured. The track sampled The Headhunters’ God Made Me Funky which featured
The Pointer Sisters.