Fugees’ The Score was a gigantic moment for music, punctuated by many tiny ones. The album was released globally February 20, 1996, at a time when hip-hop was going through an identity crisis. Jay Z and Nas each dropped classic albums in tandem that year—Jay’s debut Reasonable Doubt arriving in June and Nas’ It Was Written in July—while A Tribe Called Quest brought Beats, Rhymes and Life the same summer. Not two months later, Tupac was killed; six months later, it would be Biggie. Rap lacked a reference point, which would serendipitously be Fugees’ biggest vantage point.
To say that the Fugees’ success was immediate would be a misnomer. Sure, once "Killing Me Softly" hit radio in May 1996, it would propel The Score to a more dominating position; by the following year, the album had gone platinum six times. Their cover of Roberta Flack’s classic was initially supposed to be a much rougher, hip-hop version, but legally and creatively, the bold redux didn’t work out. Sticking to a more traditional formula, however, paid off. The Fugees’ leap to the top of the charts spoke to the power of reinventing a classic for a modern pop audience, led by a vocalist whose tone and texture was reminiscent of artists like Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. Plus she rapped—better than most—and represented the flip side to the then-prevailing belief that female rappers needed to be sexual to resonate.
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. 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. 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. 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.
From 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. 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. Internally, though, it was another story. 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. 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. Specifics remains hazy and have evolved into urban folklore—everyone who touched the project has one story or another. 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. Then there are the stories surrounding The Score's tour, where Hill and Jean briefly reconnected before Lauryn got together with Rohan Marley. 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. Strip the love, the hurt, the bickering—strip it all, and you still have a masterpiece that made history.
Now, as the album turns 20 this month, we’ve gathered players from the project (plus Roberta Flack) to recount moments from its recording that have stuck with them.
Salaam Remi
Producer on "Fu-Gee-La" (The Score’s lead single), "Nappy Heads" remix (from Blunted on Reality), "Vocab," and "Ready or Not" remixes (from Bootleg Versions EP)
"Going into ’95, I was working on music for Spike Lee’s Clockers. I had [the Fugees] come down [where I was working], 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. 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. That song was done, and then they went and got the budget for that second album. Then, they started working on beats. First David Sonenberg [Fugees’ manager] wanted me to produce the whole album along with them, but I wasn’t really with it at the time. So I was like, ‘Come to me if you need some advice and I will chime in here and there.’
"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. With that, Wyclef had his verse, and Lauryn went through singing a lot of different things, from ‘Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer’ [which she would later sing on Common’s 'Retrospect For Life'] to Chaka Khan records to all types of stuff. When she finally hit that ‘ooh la la la,’ that was the hook. During that process, Lauryn probably recorded her 16 bars every day for seven days straight. She came back in every day to redo it, because she’s that level of a perfectionist.
"At one point Lauryn hit me and said she was doing a singing record on the album and wanted me to produce it. But at that time they didn’t really have the budget. So Pras calls me one day like, ‘Yo, let me ask you something. If we wanna do "Killing Me Softly," how would you approach that song?’ I was like, ‘Hmmm, I would kind of do it like "Bonita Applebum."’ He said, ‘Oh, that was the same thing I was thinking. I’ll call you right back.’ And there you go: They literally made ‘Bonita Applebum’ into ‘Killing Me Softly.’
"The combination: Wyclef was very eclectic, Lauryn knew every soul song under the sun—she’s like a jukebox—and then Pras. If you look at that album, it says the executive producer is Pras, co-executive producers are Wyclef and Lauryn. It’s because Pras has the pop ear. From my perspective, a lot of their process during The Score was, ‘What would Salaam tell us to do?’ It’s because we had gotten to that point where I mentored them into now taking their talent and molding it into a record that people liked..."
Roberta Flack
Fugees covered "Killing Me Softly With His Song," the most famous version of which—a No. 1 in 1973—was Flack’s.
"Honestly, I had not [heard of the Fugees prior to 'Killing Me Softly']. The Score came on us like a mighty wind, and I was totally blown away by the power of the group—their musicality, their political message, and their creativity. They wanted to change the lyrics [to 'Killing Me Softly'] to make the song about anti-drugs and anti-poverty. They were all about politics. Given their name and all, the (Re)Fugees, it made sense. It was more Norman [Gimbel] and Charlie [Fox] [the songwriters behind 'Killing Me Softly With His Song'] that wanted their song to not be changed. I feel that the meaning of the song changes depending upon the singer, depending upon the listener. They gave the song a new meaning and exposed it to a new generation. They invented a new version of the song, using some musical ideas from my version. I was surprised they picked that song to be included with the others on that album, as it didn’t have the political emphasis, but then again it depends on the frame of reference from which you listen, right?"
Rah Digga
Part of the Outsidaz and the only other female voice on The Score, rapping alongside Lauryn on "Cowboys"
"Back then with all Jersey artists, most of us rolled in crews, and we were either battling each other or doing songs together. I don’t think anybody really looked at the Fugees as a ‘battle crew’ and at that time Young Zee [from the Outsidaz] was on a promo tour with them. That alliance brought us all together. The crazy thing is we actually all paired off [to write the song] in the same way we do on the record [John Forte was added on later]. I got in this little huddle with Lauryn, and I just remember our goal was to be better than the guys.
"After we did the song, we didn’t think too much else about it. They told us they were shooting a video for it. When we did the video, I was four months pregnant and nobody knew. It still didn’t register that ['Cowboys'] was making the album, until one day I was in the car with Lauryn, and she’s playing the soon-to-be-released album and we’re on it! It was like, ‘Holy crap! Get out of here!’ To be honest, we didn’t know that record was gonna blow to that magnitude. We really thought we were doing one of a hundred songs that we’ve done with any random rappers. Once it started selling and selling and selling though, it was like, ‘Oh wow, this is big.’
"The meeting I ultimately had with Sylvia Rhone [CEO of Elektra at the time]—Q-Tip walked me right into Elektra—that led to my first record deal, and I was eight months pregnant by then. Sylvia walked in an hour late and stayed for about five minutes. She said, ‘Oh okay! You kind of look like Lauryn too. I was just telling Q-Tip we need some fresh blood up in here.’ We drew up the papers and that was it. It was divine timing because I really didn’t know what I was going to do for money with this baby in belly. Then I had this deal. I have to say, it was largely in part to my participation on The Score."
Joe Nicolo
Co-owner and president of Ruffhouse Records, 1986-2000
"The Fugees were finally focused on being this hybrid pop/rap group that they were formulating when they were making the first record. Believe it or not, after they made that first album, Sony was not that interested in recording another Fugees record. At the time, we did about 119,000 copies [of Blunted on Reality], which of course today is quite good. But they were like, ‘You guys don’t wanna make another Fugees record, do you?’ And we were like, ‘We definitely want to make another Fugees record!’ At the very end of that project, they were finally figuring out their voice and their positions in the Fugees. It manifested as what became The Score, which was definitely one of the top hip-hop records of all time.
"My biggest memory was with ‘Killing Me Softly.’ They were all working on ‘Killing Me Softly,’ but I would usually give my critiques to Clef. If you listen to the song, it starts with Lauryn singing amazingly. Then on the second verse, everything drops out and there’s just the beat with nothing underneath it. I was concerned, because from a record company/A&R standpoint, I was like, ‘Clef, you can’t just drop everything out and just leave Lauryn with the beat. You’re losing the energy of the song. You have to bring the bass in or something under Lauryn or else you’re going to lose the energy.’ He said no. I tried to be persistent and he wouldn’t budge on that idea. He said, ‘It’s her and the beat. It has to be that way.’ Obviously he was right."
Diamond D
Guest feature and co-producer on the title track
"I threw that Grammy in the trash can. Bad experience, great LP."