But his business acumen was sharp: he’s the one who got them the record deal and was trusted to handle the finances.
His verses are always the shortest, and while he had an ear for pop hits, he could neither sing nor play any instruments. Pras was smart enough to recognize he was the weak link musically. The group managed to balance these three volatile personalities by carving out distinct roles that naturally highlighted their strengths while covering their weaknesses. At the time of its release, there was little else like it. The Fugees found it in music the ’70s R&B and soul of Lauryn’s youth, the rock and pop Pras and Wyclef gravitated to while living with their rap-hating preacher fathers, and the Caribbean-influenced hip-hop they wanted to make themselves. From their perspective, everyone seeks refuge from something their jobs, their families, police, or their own neighborhoods. As “refugees” or even “hip-hoppers” they’d grown accustomed to being othered, but those experiences evoked as many commonalities as they did differences. “Problem with no man, before Black, I’m first human,” Wyclef spits on “How Many Mics,” offering a glimpse into how the Fugees viewed their connection to the world at large. The lyrical themes weren’t that different from their debut, but in the Booga Basement, the Fugees finally sounded like themselves.
He had moved into a bedroom upstairs after being kicked out of his home in Newark by his religious father for creating sinful music. They spent five months in 1995 writing and recording The Score, freed from the ticking clock of rented studio time and the watchful eye of label executives.įor Wyclef, the endeavor was a 24/7 lifestyle.
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They invested the advance in professional studio equipment and founded a creative hub for the constellation of artists in their orbit (including Rah Digga, John Forté, and an extremely young Akon), a home base from which Wyclef and his cousin Jerry Wonda would produce hits that would be heard around the world. Not long after the “Nappy Heads” remix dropped, he played a beat originally made for-and snubbed by-Fat Joe, flipping a Ramsey Lewis sample into a boom-bap film score that inspired Wyclef to spontaneously shout his prophetic opening bar: “We used to be number 10/Now we permanent at one.” It was Lauryn that brought the “La,” riffing on hooks until she landed on Teena Marie’s 1988 hit, christening the ineffable “Fu-Gee-La.” The song would serve as the spiritual center of the new record, and their new sound.Īrmed with a $135,000 advance and complete creative control, Pras, Lauryn, and Wyclef retreated to the Booga Basement, the makeshift studio in Wyclef’s uncle’s house that had become the home base for their Refugee Camp crew. The Score was birthed at those early sessions with Remi. Columbia finally got the hit they had been looking for, and the Fugees got to make another album.
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It quickly caught fire at New York’s Hot 97 (where Remi worked on Funkmaster Flex’s show) and cracked the Billboard 100. Having stripped away the tough guy façade from the album’s original recordings, what remained was a more accurate representation of their energies Wyclef’s goofy charm, Lauryn’s effortless cool, Pras’ precocious wisdom. For the first, “Nappy Heads,” they shed the shouty rapid-fire flows of the original, giving Wyclef and Lauryn Hill’s bars room to breathe, slowing down the tempo and rebuilding the bassline with a jazzy swing. A master at blending the sounds of the Caribbean with breakbeats from the streets, Remi was recruited by Columbia to remix the next two singles in hopes of landing a hit. The 22-year old producer had made his name crafting records for hip-hop OGs like Kurtis Blow and Craig G, and remixing dancehall tracks by Shabba Ranks and Super Cat.
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