Two of the “family”, Forte and Omega guests on this track as the Fugees handle business. A deep ominous almost Spanish guitar provided by Wyclef smoothes out ‘Family Business’. Lauryn provides the vocal hook covering another oldie “Ooh La La La”. ‘Fu-Gee-La’ was another of the big hits that helped in the resulting success of The Fugees as a group. Man this kung-fu Chinese restaurant skit is funny as hell. This leads into one of the dopest album interludes ever recorded. Here Lauryn displays lyricism at it’s best on her two verses. Government conspiracies and police abuse of power is the topic of the next track ‘The Beast’. Wyclef sheds the light on the efforts that had been perpetrated against The Fugees to dismember the group in his verse, “You can try but you can’t divide the tribe, these cats can’t rap mister author I feel no vibe/ (what you read?) the magazine says the girl should have went solo, the guys should stop rapping vanish like a noodle/ took it to the heart but every actor plays his part, as long as someone was listening I knew it was a start”. A sample of the oldie ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ provides the meat of the beat to ‘Zealots’. The trio does their Refugee thing and trade verses and vocals until you can head nod no more. Come to Timid ma, I’ll help you remember you.Ī haunting Enya sample panning left to right starts off one of the biggest hits that came off of “The Score”, ‘Ready Or Not’. Someone call her and remind her of that, I think she’s forgotten. So pay attention and I won’t have to find you dumb asses, Lauryn Hill is one of the dopest female emcees ever, if not THE dopest. Lauryn can sing, and she sings well but you can’t spit like this and not be an EMCEE.
I must digress, for those of you who think of Lauryn as only a singer, you are WRONG. ‘How Many Mics’ starts the album off with ‘Clef dropping a brief hook that leads into the gorgeous Lauryn Hill dropping a verse that sets the tone for what you are gonna get throughout the rest of the album, amazing shit. “The Score” spoke in positive tone with several tracks speaking on social and political issues. Original beat work and use of non-traditional sounds as well as a selection of samples from classic tunes formed a musically delightful seventy-three minutes and 30 seconds. The production work was different from what was ruling the airwaves at that time. This album was a fresh display of emcee teamwork that was an instant hit and made The Fugees a household name.
Their response to their detractors came in the form of “The Score”, as they had one to settle. The group stuck together based on a friendship they had formed growing up as well as a shared kinship for their fellow Haitian countryman. Labels had set their sights on Lauryn and tried to break the group apart by offering her solo deals. Critics had bashed the two gentlemen and praised emcee songstress. Boogie” Hill, Wyclef Jean, and Prakazrel “Pras” before this album had been teetering on that transition from underground to mainstream. How do I even begin? Absolutely positively, dope from beginning to end. After listening to The Score I see that sampling is an art tweaking, mixing and matching samples to create an original production has to be an art form.Fugees’ “The Score”. The Score contains too much foul language for my liking but the lyrics are cleverly written though. I can say the main attractions of the album are the two aforementioned songs. I had heard songs from The Score like “Killing Me Softly” and “Ready or Not” but not the whole album, until a few days ago. Some examples of the samples used in The Score are artists like Moody Blues, Delfonics, Enya, Modern Jazz Quartet, Headhunters and many more. The use of samples, a characteristic normally found in Hip-Hop, is a main technique used in the production of this album. Violent lyrics is not the main theme in The Score, but is still there, contains social critique lyrics along with covers that, as mentioned above, helped raise popularity due that these are known songs with a twist. The Score, reaching number 1 in the pop charts with 17 million copies sold, made the Fugees the biggest-selling rap group up to that moment. The score managed to break into pop, R&B and Hip-Hp charts thanks to covers like Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” and Mob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry”. The group reinvented rap by mixing different genres in their singles like reggae, folk, rock, soul etc.
The commercial success was with their second and last album The Score. Their first album, Blunted On Reality, was released in 1994 but wasn’t much of a successful album. The Fugees was composed by Lauryn Hill, Michel Prakazrel (Pras) and Jean Wyclef (“Clef”).
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