The Score

Fugees, The

album cover

Nudging Hip-Hop a Step or Two Toward Bob Marley Idealism

The Fugees came along during hip-hop's reign of thugs in the mid-'90s, and with the zingy, unapologetically accessible songs on this album offered respite from the steady diet of fantasy confrontations and senseless killings. This was overdue. And, at least to Lauryn Hill, Pras Michael, and Wyclef Jean, vitally important. The three New Jersey rappers saw firsthand the trickle-down effect happening in gangstaland: In songs suffused with sadness, the three imply that hip-hop's glorification of violence led to further waves of real-life violence. With great eloquence, they lament how people—smart young black people who should know better—become dazzled by the glamour of gangsta life, and then, inevitably, find them-selves in too deep.

This cycle of violence is just one topic of The Score, which is built on head-bobbing reggae, chopped-up beatbox syncopations, and unusual island rhythms. The Fugees talk black heritage and African identity, castigate police over racial profiling, and imagine a reasonable urban world where people sit and talk through their differences. Such notions don't sound so far-fetched when delivered by Lauryn Hill, whose trembling and easily outraged voice seems hell-bent on change. Wherever she is in the mix (and at times she's in the background), Hill nudges listeners in the direction of the moral high road, and like her hero Bob Marley (whose "No Woman No Cry" is covered passionately here), helps those prone to violence recognize their brutality.

The Score, which sold over six million copies, didn't change hip-hop. But its success did open up bandwidth for alternative viewpoints, and proved that rap devoted to subjects other than bloodlust could be viable. It helped create a climate in which enlightened ideas about race and education and the issues of urban America could get a hearing. Incredibly, it did this while entertaining people, its diatribes carried by irresistibly danceable music.

Genre: Hip-Hop
Released: 1996, Ruffhouse
Key Tracks: "Fu-Gee-La," "Ready or Not," "The Beast," "Family Business," "No Woman No Cry"
Catalog Choice: Wyclef Jean: Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival. Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Next Stop: The Roots: Rising Down
After That: De La Soul: De La Soul Is Dead
Book Pages: 292–293