1996 Rewind: Remembering Fugees’ The Score

1996 is one of the most beloved years in hip-hop and R&B, so we’re going to spend all month celebrating its greatness! All 2026, we’re turning the clock back 30 years to review, revisit and relive the most pivotal moments of Black music in that era. And, of course, I’ll be joined by a host of music homies as we debate the best of the best.

Thirty years ago today, we received one of hip-hop’s greatest gifts, even though it’s been lost to time. Wyclef Jean, Pras and Lauryn Hill rebounded from the so-so response of their debut album to drop The Score, one of the most important albums in rap history. But why doesn’t The Score come up in today’s debates? Ronald Grant is back to talk about the Fugees, their magnum opus, and how they changed the course of Black music on February 13, 1996.

Let’s go! Share your thoughts on when you first heard this album.

Ron:  For me at the time, The Score was a distinctive, almost offbeat listen. It was one of the first times I was exposed to hip-hop that prominently tapped elements of ska, reggae, dancehall and dub music, among other genres. Plus, it’s not quite the gritty, guttural NYC boom bap that we had gotten from groups like Wu-Tang and Mobb Deep. It’s not quite the organic, live instrumentation, alternative hip-hop that The Roots were perfecting. And it’s not quite the Native Tongues, heady hip-hop that groups like ATCQ and De La Soul had basically made their own. The Score is an album that took elements from all those styles and infused itself with Caribbean rhythms, acoustic instruments, folk music influences and a bunch of experimental samples (see Enya and The Flamingos) that made me scratch my head but still worked seamlessly. I think one of the biggest reasons I was pulled in by The Score was because its sound was both wide-reaching and grounded. Even with the explosion of regional scenes, experimentation and new sounds coming prior to and during 1996, the Fugees and the album producers used The Score to push hip-hop into new sonic territory that my young ears weren’t truly ready for, but I was still happy to be taken along for what for me was an unconventional, inventive album.

Edd: We often credit 90s hip-hop for its diversity. It was nothing like recent years, where there is one dominant sound and 90% of artists are just carbon copies. As Ron mentioned, we had layers in 1996 – East Coast boom bap, West Coast G-funk, the rising Southern sounds and the looming innovations that were to come from Timbaland and the Neptunes. Despite that, the Fugees felt totally fresh and unique. They weren’t one of those subgenres. They were all of them.

Most of us were already acquainted with Fugees by this point. Songs like “Nappy Heads” and “Vocab” weren’t massive hits but they received decent airplay. They were familiar. And they were … fine. Good, yes, but felt more to me like an extension of De La Soul than something completely new.  But everything changed with The Score. It was a sonic grab bag of hip-hop, R&B, reggae, dancehall – they wrapped their arms around the entire world of music and took it straight to the hood. Add some of the most thought provoking lyricism I’d heard at the time and it didn’t take long for The Score to absolutely captivate me. The Score didn’t just feel like entertainment, it felt like an education.

 If you asked me in 1996, I would have said The Score was one of the best albums ever recorded. Even in 2026, with decades of music knowledge now in locked in my brain, I can still say it’s one of the best ever. But back then? This album was one of those transformative moments in time.

What’s your top song and why?

Ron: “Killing Me Softly”

OK…we all know that this cover helped make the Fugees darlings of Black radio and pushed them even further into the mainstream. And with good reason. It’s candid, rich, warm and felt nostalgic even when it was first released, while adding a hip-hop and new school R&B flare to an already great song. Essentially, I think it did for Fugees what “I Will Always Love You” did for Whitney Houston. But what makes it the best song on The Score is its sincerity. Lauryn’s voice is self-assured yet pleading and vulnerable. She longs to connect with the stranger but makes sure both he and we know she isn’t too pressed. In an album filled with songs of lyrical precision and peculiar artistry, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” both stands apart and is the beating heart of The Score.

Edd: “Killing Me Softly”

Kinda funny that the biggest, and best, song on this project doesn’t resemble most of what surrounds it. Keep it a buck – “Killing Me Softly” was THE star-making vehicle for Lauryn, the breakout performance that would catapult her to superstardom. Most of The Score is a hip-hop tour de force, but Lauryn’s tender rendition of this classic – along with the Fugees’ gritty additions (“ONE TIIIIIIIME”) – resulted in one of the best soul performances of its era. She did Roberta Flack proud.

What’s your pick for best video?

Ron: “Fu-Gee-La”

“Ready Or Not” is the big-budget, Michael Bay-styled video that swung for the fences. “Killing Me Softly With His Song” is the Friday night, fun-loving yet endearing look at young black love, precursor to “Love Jones” video. But “Fu-Gee-La” is easily the most ambitious, most playful, pluckiest and best video of the bunch. It feels like a forgotten B-movie that will go on to be a cult sensation a decade later. The Fugees leaned fully into their influences from all over Haiti and Jamaica with inspiration from the Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come in a video that’s part crime caper, part Jamaican adventure. One moment, we see Wyclef, Lauryn and Pras flipping tables, dipping down ghetto alleyways, evading the police and tossing a briefcase of money over a dock to make their great escape. The next they’re dancing, vibing and letting loose in the middle of what looks like an abandoned mansion that was destroyed in a bloody coup. “Fu-Gee-La” is a video draped in a colorful, lively grittiness that only this particular group and song could pull off.

Edd: “Fu-Gee-La”

Every video from this project is a treat – even the often-overlooked “Cowboys” is a blast – but I gotta agree with Ron, “Fu-Gee-La” hits different because it best captures the spirit of the Refugee Camp. The homage to The Harder They Come and its soundtrack (credited with introducing reggae to mainstream ears) likewise feels like a reintroduction of Fugees, their heritage, and their desire to bring something totally new to hip-hop. It’s one of those classic videos that isn’t spoken about enough today.

This album is filled with lyrical supremacy. Which verse hit hardest?

Ron: Lauryn Hill on “Zealots”

Now, Edd, I unequivocally agree with you that each member of the group was a lyrical forcethroughout this album. But LAURYN??? Sweet tiny infant Jesus! Her swords were supremely sharpened throughout The Score. I had a time deciding and eventually narrowed it down to Lauryn’s verses on “Zealots,” “Family Business” and “The Score.” But I’m gonna give best verse on the entire album to her barson “Zealots.” The way she switches between harmonizing and rhyming is immaculate. She’s relaxed, self-assured and unfazed. There’s a nonchalant swagger in her voice, and at times you would almost swear she’s internally laughing at her competition:

“…Rap rejects, my tape decks, ejects projectile/ Whether Jew or gentile, I rank top percentile/ Many styles, more powerful than gamma rays, My grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays “Black Magic Woman”/So While you fuming, I’m consuming mango juice under Polaris/You just embarrassed, ‘cause it’s your last tango in Paris…”

And, of course, the famous “even after all my logic and my theory” line makes this verse immortal. Lauryn has quotable bars throughout The Score, but this one endures like no other.

Edd: Lauryn Hill on “Manifest”

Real talk, you can pick just about any vesre on this album and I’d probably agree with you. Clef, Pras and L-Boogie are at their lyrical peaks here. Yes, even Pras – he does his thing on “How Many Mics” specifically. I don’t wanna bite Ron and also go with “Zealots” (and Lauryn’s legendary “ignant n****s” line) so let’s go with L-Boogie’s gripping story about self-worth on “Manifest”

Nothing left, he stole the heart beating from my chest
I tried to call the cops, that type of thief, they can’t arrest
Pain suppressed will lead to cardiac arrest
Diamonds deserve diamonds, but he convinced me I was worthless
When my peoples would protest
I told them mind they business, ’cause my s*** was complex
More than just the sex
I was blessed, but couldn’t feel it like when I was caressed
I’d spend nights clutching my breast, overwhelmed by God’s test
I was God’s best, contemplatin’ death with a Gillette
But no man is ever worth the paradise, manifest

And y’all STILL trying to convince me that Lauryn isn’t the best female rapper of all time? PLAYA PLEASE.

Which album cut should have been a single?

Ron: “Zealots”

One of the biggest ironies of The Score is that, beyond the official singles, there aren’t many songs that sound like they would get much airplay. It’s an extremely imaginative album, yet dark, dreary and hella Pan-African in the way it vividly paints a picture of the experience of immigrants and the children of immigrants. That said, my vote goes to “Zealots” as the song that should have been a single. Wyclef, Lauryn, Pras and Te Bass had a very peculiar way as writers and producers of using doo-wop music from the past and updating it for the 90s so it sounded unpolished, yet fresh. I think that the most prominent sample of “I Only Have Eyes For You” could have carried to album even further as a fourth single, maybe even more than “No Woman, No Cry”. It’s lyrical as hell, but you also remember Wyclef’s disarming, sing-songy Haitian riffs on the chorus. I’d also argue that this song set helped set the stage for Lauryn’s smash solo single “Doo Wop (That Thing)” on Miseducation two yeas later. “Zealots” is just one of those songs that’s underrated because it’s just sneaky and quietly provocative in how good it is.

Edd: “The Beast”

The Fugees did an admirable job selecting singles for this project. Everything that SOUNDS like a single most assuredly was a single. I do think “Cowboys” deserved a longer run, but more on that later. But call me crazy – I think “The Beast” could have gotten traction. The production is groovy, the hook is catchy in annoying way (perfect for radio) and the anti-establishment message works on several levels. It certainly wouldn’t hit the levels of “Killing Me Softly” but I could see it landing on the Rap City Saturday morning countdown.

What’s the most underrated song on the project?

Ron: “The Beast”

To this day, I get a similar vibe listening to this song that I do with Goodie Mob’s “Cell Therapy” from a year earlier. Both songs have a deeply post-apocalyptic aura to them, and both are riddled with the language of mistrust and paranoia from hood conspiracy theories that you can go to any barbershop on the block to hear. But “The Beast” is an even more trippy and unhinged, which is why I love it. The short screams and voice manipulations are unnerving. The production creeps and simmers with an almost psychedelic, druggy feel. And once again, all three Fugees lyrically decimate the song. More than that, “The Beast” is a song about police brutality and government overreach that isn’t preachy or looking for solutions, but insteadrevels in sarcasm and bleak humor, which is something both the Fugees and The Score as a body of work should get more credit for.

Edd: “Cowboys”

“Cowboys” by a mile! It was always a treat in the 90s to see two different rap crews combine for a mega posse track, and Fugees and the Outsidaz make perfect dance partners. It’s just six spitters going nuts over a Western motif, and I’m here for every syllable. Yeah, it was a single (thought it got little to no airplay in my area) and, yeah, there was a video (that I only caught a handful of times prior to the YouTube era) but this track deserves way way WAY more love.

Best production goes to…

Ron: “Ready or Not”

This is yet another one where I went back and forth for a while. The production by Diamond D, Jerry Duplessis, Salaam Remi and by the Fugees themselves across The Score gives the album a lively yet dusty, desolate mood. And I was inclined to say that incorporating vocal samples from almost all the songs on the album on the title track made it the best produced song on the album. But in the end, I gotta go with “Ready or Not.” It’s a moody, sweeping, thumping masterpiece with yet another classic drum pattern that allows each member to simultaneously let loose and lay low with their lyrics. Clef, Lauryn and Pras each sound their most relaxed, but also their most potent over the sample of Enya’s “Boadicea” and Lauryn’s Delfonics interpretation. It’s hard to believe that “Ready or Not” is only the third track on the record, but it sets the stage for the rest of the album beautifully.

Edd: “Ready or Not”

This might have been a tough pick for Ron, but not for me. “Ready or Not” is an example of a song’s lyrics and production working in perfect harmony. The Enya sample is effectively creepy and claustrophobic, which is why I was so excited when we learned that the music video was set in a submarine. The production SOUNDS like a submarine traveling the darkest depths of the Atlantic. The mood is heavy yet serene – their confidence was unshakable at this point. When Pras said, “Ready or not, Refugees taking over,” he meant it.

We have so many standout features on this project. Which is best?

Ron: Omega on “Family Business”

Let’s just establish that any feature has a tough time standing out on this album. Not only does The Score feature some of Ms. Lauryn Hill’s most robust and just plain nasty rhymes ever, but all the members of the group were in their lyrical bag (check Clef on “How Many Mics” and Pras on “Zealots”). But Omega went for the jugular in his verse on “Family Business.” When you begin your verse with, “Where I was born, nothin’ is promised/My life is filled with less hope than the prophesies of Nostradamus…,” you and everyone else on the track must know that you’re coming for blood. It’s not a small task to kick off a song with a verse that needs to entertain, teach and give a lyrical alley-oop to Wyclef and Lauryn, but Omega made his presence known and felt in a short but memorable verse filled with visions of war with military-styled police and prophesies developed on the streets of New Jersey. Considering that Clef, Lauryn and John Forte all had strong verses on the same song, I think Omega’s verse deserves even more credit.

Edd: Rah Digga on “Cowboys”

A bit of a cheat, but I’m going with Digga Digga (birth name Rashia) on “Cowboys.” It’s a cheat because, while Rah Digga’s verse is great, it’s made even greater in tandem with Lauryn’s rhymes. I still quote that “bounce with accountants that give me good stock tips” line. Now I’m wishing we got an album with those two.

Are “Killing Me Softly” and “No Woman, No Cry” remakes better than the original recordings?

Ron: I have no problem saying with my whole chest that “Killing Me Softly With His Song” absolutely surpasses both Lori Lieberman’s and Roberta Flack’s versions. Maybe it’s just because I’m a product of my generation, because yes, I was exposed to the Fugees’ cover version first. But Lauryn’s velvety voice, that timeless drumbeat and the “Bonita Applebum” sample turning the song into a modern tale of young, unrequited love is just irresistible. Unfortunately, I can’t go that far with their cover of “No Woman, No Cry”. Full transparency: I’m a major Bob Marley fan/Stan, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. But I can’t quite give it to Wyclef. It’s a good, respectable cover of a classic, but Clef’s best vocal efforts don’t measure up to the way Bob tapped into the pain, suffering and hope that all come with deep poverty on the original. Specifically, the slowed-down, organ-fueled version from the 1975 live album that set the stage for Bob and the Wailers becoming international superstars. But that’s a story for another day. Better than the originals? “Killing Me Softly With His Song” is a resounding yes, but “No Woman, No Cry” is a no for me, dog.

Edd: I often go back and forth on “Killing Me Softly.” But today, in February 2026, I say YES, Lauryn not only does justice to the standard set by Roberta Flack, she surpasses it. The reason is simple – it’s just not a cloned cover. Lauryn captures the spirit of the original but absolutely makes it her own. See Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You” or even Xscape’s “Who Can I Run To” – they’re so great, so distinct, so unique that you kinda forget what came before them. “No Woman No Cry” is good but nah, Clef doesn’t do nearly enough to match the high standard of Bob Marley’s original. Props to Wyclef for trying to put his own spin on it, but that mountain is too steep to climb.

Why is The Score so forgotten discussing the greats of the era?

Ron: Honestly, that’s an entire mystery to me, playa! To be fair, 1996 was a crowded field when it came to stellar hip-hop albums, but The Score sits front and center with the likes of ATLiens, It Was Written, Ironman, Reasonable Doubt, All Eyez on Me, Muddy Waters and more. The wide variety of sounds and styles in hip-hop is what made ’96 so memorable and refreshing, and a big reason for that is The Score. Its mix of alternative and reality-based rhymes, old-school soul, 80s R&B, doo-wop and Caribbean samples and interpretations, Biblical allusions and gangster flick aesthetic coupled with the gargantuan talents of Lauryn, Clef and Pras made it a commercial risk that would eventually turn the album into a pillar of 90s music beyond just hip-hop. I would even argue that The Score is a Top 10 sophomore album in Hip hop history. How such an unforgettable body of work could be forgotten regarding this era of hip-hop is beyond me.

Edd: Two things are working against it – time and legacy. Think about all the albums from 1996 that are still celebrated today – Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt, Outkast’s ATLiens, 2pac’s All Eyez On Me, Nas’ It Was Written – all albums from artists who are highly respected and celebrated today as icons. Even De La Soul, whose legacy was unfairly buried for decades, has seen a resurgence of love.

That’s not the same for Fugees. This was their last solo project – and BETTER than many of those albums I just named – but their names aren’t echoed on those annoying hip-hop podcasts y’all love. Wyclef went on to great solo fame, but his Fugees days are not often remembered. He’s just the SHAKIRA, SHAKIRA guy to the new generation. Lauryn? Despite giving us one of the greatest albums of all time not long after this, she has been relegated to CP Time meme territory. And don’t even bother googling Pras unless you want to be depressed.

I love the Fugees’ but let’s face it – their legacy has faded due to inactivity and scandal. And the more time passes, the more forgotten The Score becomes.

Well, that just depressed me. Next question.

We never got a full Fugees project after this. Was that for the best or were we denied another hit?

Ron: As much as it pains me, I think it’s best that we didn’t get another Fugees project after The Score. Allegedly, there were already a lot of fractures, some disruption and major drama within the group, and both Lauryn and Wyclef’s solo careers were soon to blast off into the stratosphere. I do think a follow-up album could have been a very interesting listen, with even more West Indian and world music excursions mixed with hip-hop. Maybe they would have eventually also delved into Afrobeat. I just don’t think any of their hearts would have been truly in it. We may have been robbed of more music but considering what they were going through personally and as a group, we likely would have gotten songs and albums that paled in comparison to The Score. It’s an album that would cast a huge shadow over any group effort that would have come after it.

Edd: We SHOULD have gotten another project after The Score. In hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t. With everyone going on to solo success immediately after this (yeah, even Pras for a short time) and then imploding almost immediately after that, I just don’t see a timeframe when all three members could have reunited at the top of their games, unless we sacrificed those solo runs, and we’re NOT doing that, no sir. If there WAS a reunion, it would have been after their peak and, sadly, it likely would have ended up a Black Start situation where there just wasn’t enough gas in the tank to reach sky-high expectations. I’d rather the Fugees go out on top than limp to the finish line.

Is The Score a classic?

Ron: Easily. As a body of work, The Score is cinematic in the way that Ready to Die and Enter the Wu-Tang are. Each track tells a separate story but still splashes vibrant colors together to make one message that pieces together various rhythms and styles. It’s honest and eccentric, street smart and academic, nostalgic and black as hell, international and a product of experiences of just being on the block in South or East Orange on a random day of the week shooting the shit. And while we all know it’s the album that made the Fugees superstars, another fact that makes The Score a classic album is that it was made when their backs were against the wall. They had felt the sting of Blunted on Reality not registering with the public and had to go back to the drawing board. And did they ever! Finally, it’s a classic and one of my favorite albums because, at the time and to this day, it both reminds me of albums like Enter the Wu-Tang and Soul Food but still sounds so different from any other album in ’96 or prior. No other trio besides Lauryn, Wyclef and Pras could make that happen.

Edd: No question. Y’all know I have three criteria that must be met before we desginate an album as classic and The Score clears them with ease:

Is it a great album? YES, not only in its decade, among the greatest hip-hop records of all time.

Did it positively impact the artists’ careers? YES. Not only is it the group’s best album, it made all three members individual stars – including making Lauryn THE biggest star in the game for a brief period.

Did it positively impact hip-hop as a whole? YES. The production was groundbreaking. The socially conscious themes were given new life in an era when that element of hip-hop was fading. Lauryn elevated female MC’ing to unprecedented heights.

No question about it – The Score was a game-changer.

Who got it right, Ron or Edd? Let us know in the comments below, and share your memories of The Score.