The Score is released

Why it matters

The Score came out on Ruffhouse/Columbia on February 13, 1996, the same day as All Eyez on Me. The Fugees were three: Wyclef Jean, Pras Michel, and Lauryn Hill. They had had a moderately successful debut in 1994 (Blunted on Reality) that almost nobody had heard. The Score was the album where they figured out who they were. The album sold seven million copies in the United States and made Lauryn Hill into the most-watched MC in popular music. The Roberta Flack cover, "Killing Me Softly," went to #1 on the Billboard charts in basically every English-speaking country. "Ready or Not," "Fu-Gee-La," "How Many Mics," "The Mask." The Fugees production blended live instruments with samples in a way most American rap groups of 1996 were not attempting; Wyclef's Haitian musical background and the group's collective comfort with reggae, soul, and Latin music made the record audibly broader than the East-Coast lyricism of its contemporaries. The Score is one of the most globally influential rap albums ever made. It is also the album that broke the group apart inside two years. You can hear the chemistry on it. You should hear it.