Fugees

As far as U.S. hip hop goes, you usually have to die to take on iconic status when you only got around to releasing two records. Thankfully, all three members of the Fugees - Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill and Pras Michel - are still with us, and yet they continue to stand amongst the genuine titans of the genre, especially where the nineties are concerned; the rap and soul crossover they pioneered on 1994’s Blunted on Reality and then perfected with their classic The Score in 1996 sounds as thrillingly inventive today as it did two decades ago. Their cover of ‘Killing Me Softly’ remains their biggest hit, but ‘Ready or Not’ and ‘Fu-Gee-La’ also vie for prominence as all-time classic cuts. In 2005, Fugees toured the UK as part of a comeback European jaunt that would go on to receive mixed reviews amid accusations of the trio being under-rehearsed. Afterwards, they’d go on to play just one more show, in Hollywood the following year, before splitting, despite a new track, ‘Foxy’, appearing online. Later, Hill’s eccentric behaviour would be blamed by both Jean and Michel as the reason for dissolution of the group; Jean, a man who ran for the Haitian presidency for the purpose of little more than an ego trick, called Hill’s psychological state into question, which suggest rifts deep enough that we’re unlikely to see the Fugees back on stage any time soon.