Fugees

With inventive arrangements, engaging eccentricity and the emotional vocals of Lauryn Hill, The Fugees did much to bring hip hop to the masses; making it palatable to international audiences with distinctive hits like Fu-Gee La, Killing Me Softly and Ready Or Not, and enhanced by a strikingly edgy image inferring danger and a street ethos. Both Haitian Americans, rappers Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel took the name Fugees as an abbreviation of "refugees" and linked up with singer Lauryn Hill to bring an invigoratingly fresh and infectious approach to hip hop. They released their first album Blunted On Reality in 1994, building an underground following that erupted in spectacular fashion with the release of The Score album in 1996. It sold over 18 million copies and introduced hip hop to mainstream audiences via a string of unusual covers - including Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry, the Delfonics' Ready Or Not and Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly, which was characterised by Wyclef Jean's trademark "one time, two time" repeated incantation. The Score went to Number 1 all over the world but the Fugees bizarrely didn't record together again (despite brief live reunions in 2004 and 2006); and Lauryn Hill launched a solo career, Pras Michel concentrated on production and Wyclef collaborated with numerous other artists.

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