With that, Wyclef had his verse, and Lauryn went through singing a lot of different things, from ‘Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer’ to Chaka Khan records to all types of stuff. "Basically, the vibe of The Score was based around ‘Fu-Gee-La.’ If you take away ‘Fu-Gee-La’ it’s there, but ‘Fu-Gee-La’ is The Score, so that’s why it ended up being the first single. So I was like, ‘Come to me if you need some advice and I will chime in here and there.’ First David Sonenberg wanted me to produce the whole album along with them, but I wasn’t really with it at the time. That song was done, and then they went and got the budget for that second album. She was like, ‘Look, where’s that Fat Joe beat?’ During that session, I played the beat on her request and Wyclef jumped up and pretty much spit his verse, ‘We used to be number ten, now we’re permanent one…’ What I did was-on my dime and my time-I recorded ‘Fu-Gee-La’ in my studio. I had come down, and we did a song that was supposed to be on The Score but never got on there, called ‘Project Heads.’ During the session for ‘Project Heads,’ which I was also trying to get into Clockers, there was a beat I had made for Fat Joe that Lauryn heard. "Going into ’95, I was working on music for Spike Lee’s Clockers. Strip the love, the hurt, the bickering-strip it all, and you still have a masterpiece that made history. And to this day, fans speculate that Hill’s suicidal thoughts on "Manifest" were because of Clef, but who really knows? What we do know is that the love child of this toxic romance became one of the best-selling hip-hop albums ever. Then there are the stories surrounding The Score's tour, where Hill and Jean briefly reconnected before Lauryn got together with Rohan Marley. Pras recounted one harrowing tale of Wyclef breaking up with Lauryn moments before she entered the booth to record "Ready or Not," Hill crying her eyes out as she sang the hook.
Specifics remains hazy and have evolved into urban folklore-everyone who touched the project has one story or another. L-Boogie would loosely document the affair in her 1998 opus, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, while Wyclef would be more blatant in his 2012 memoir. The tumultuous romantic relationship between a very young Hill and Clef, who was married and six years her senior, reached its peak during the recording of The Score. Internally, though, it was another story. Once the album landed on the Grammys stage in '97, where it took home two awards, it seemed like the Fugees had it all together. Other behind-the-scenes players like Diamond D, John Forte, and the Jersey battle rap outfit Outsidaz contributed to the piecing together of a classic as well.įrom the group to the label to the producers to the guest stars, no one had predicted the impact The Score would have on the music world. A wide range of talents made this possible: There was Wyclef Jean, the artists’ artist, who would push the creative envelope for the band Pras Michel, the businessman with the finely tuned pop ear Jerry Wonda, the project’s most prominent producer Salaam Remi, the confidant and creative paradigm from the Fugees’ 1994 debut, Blunted on Reality, and the producer of "Fu-Gee-La" Joe Nicolo and Chris Schwartz, owners of the Fugees’ imprint Ruffhouse Records, who gave the group room to breathe as they found their voice. Reminding the world that rap music could come to life via instruments was a huge part of their success as well, offering in many cases an alternative to gangsta rap’s harder side. Lauryn Hill’s uncanny ability to volley between singing and rapping was a gift that would afford Fugees simultaneous credibility in pop and rap worlds, but it certainly wasn’t the only factor.
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