FEATURE:
Groovelines
Fugees - Ready or Not
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THE reason I am featuring…
this song in Groovelines is because Fugees have been performing recently. Check out this review of them playing in Manchester. Billed as Ms. Lauryn Hill/Lauryn Hill and Fugees, this is a reunion tour that few thought would ever happen. Alongside Hill is Wycleff Jean. Unfortunately there is no Pras with them. Due to an ongoing beef, it is the two-piece who are playing on stage at the moment. I want to quote this review from The Guardian before moving on:
“Lauryn Hill apparently knows what most people in the room are thinking. Punctuating an amped-up Final Hour, she cocks her head towards the front row and announces: “Lauryn Hill is in Cardiff, it’s real.”
As recently as a week ago, that didn’t seem like a sure thing. This tour was due to bring together Hill and Fugees, the megastar rap trio she co-founded with Wyclef Jean and Pras Michél in the early 90s, in a co-headlining blowout. But a US leg of the tour in August was cancelled, with Hill blaming “media outlets’ penchant for sensationalism and clickbait headlines” for low ticket sales. Then Michél sued Hill for fraud and breach of contract relating to the group’s cancelled 2023 comeback run, claims that Hill has described as “baseless”. So while Wyclef is here, Pras, unsurprisingly, is not in the building.
For fans, this was the latest twist in a narrative that goes back to 1998 and the release of Hill’s era-defining solo album. As the long wait for a follow-up to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill has stretched on, some of the music’s power has perhaps become shrouded in beef and counter-beef, with tours pulled, reports of lateness at shows and a constant sense of uncertainty about who will show up, and when.
So as Hill strides on stage a few minutes after nine, decked out in an oversized pink-on-grey pinstripe suit and platform boots, it feels like seeing a mythical creature in the wild. She instantly lights up Everything Is Everything, the melody malleable in her mouth as its unmistakable chords land like precision jabs.
Throughout, Hill meticulously conducts each movement made by her dozen-strong band. She peels off pitch-perfect vocal runs with undimmed intensity while flicking her wrists in search of a minor adjustment towards a sound she’s chasing. The overall feeling is of seeing something come to life in real time, and it’s thrilling.
Ex-Factor is beefed up with muscular drums but Hill sells its vulnerability, nailing the falsetto and threading trills between a hook that’s held down in equal parts by her backing singers and the crowd. Conversely, she explodes into the verse of Lost Ones, delivering precise, pugnacious bars at high speed while the bass ducks and weaves”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Callum O'Keefe
One of the biggest and most important albums of the 1990s arrived in 1996. Fugees’ second studio album, The Score, is a classic. Following from 1994’s slightly underwhelming Blunted on Reality, their follow-up is a Hip-Hop masterpiece. Standouts from the album include Fu-Gee-La and Killing Me Softly. I will highlight one of the best-loved songs from Fugees, Ready or Not. Released as a single on 2nd September, 1996, I want to go deep with it. A chart-topper in several countries – including the U.S. and U.K. -, Ready or Not features a sample of Enya’s song, Boadicea. It is a wonderful and inspired sample. In fact, the sampling on the song is a standout. A groundbreaking track, Wikipedia collated sources and snippets that discuss the legacy of Ready or Not:
“Philosopher Alison Stone credits "Ready or Not" as one of the earliest examples of a rap song with combined rapped and melodic elements in its vocal parts or with a "straightforwardly melodic" chorus. Lauryn Hill's verse in particular has been noted as precursor for modern melodic rap from singing-rappers like Drake and Young Thug. Hill's verse saw her addressing misogyny in the male dominated hip-hop scene, along with taking aim at gangsta rappers at the height of gangsta rap, while carving out a lane for The Fugees in alternative hip-hop. Journalist William E. Ketchum of Billboard, proclaimed that Hill "is largely considered as the greatest woman rapper of all time", and added that her verse on the song showcases "her bars on full display". Complex named it one of the best rap songs of 1996, and wrote "Like much of the East Coast hip-hop from the '90s, "Ready or Not" was rough around the edges, informed by the harsh realities of life in the ghetto. But instead of relying on fictitious tough talk, the song harnessed that energy for positive, referencing the strength of Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali, and Haitian refugees passing through Guantanamo Bay."
IN THIS PHOTO: Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill and Pras of the Fugees on 16th August, 1996 in Chicago, Il./PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Natkin/WireImage
"Ready or Not" has often received praise for its strategic use of sampling. The song's use of the sampling the Enya song "Boadicea" from the Stephen King movie Sleepwalkers (1992), marked one of the earliest rap songs to sample from a horror movie soundtrack. "Ready or Not" also aided in further exposing music from Enya and The Delfonics to a generation of hip hop audiences through sampling, with the song "Boadicea" being sampled numerous times by other artists following the release of "Ready or Not". Chris Tart of HotNewHipHop wrote "Most hip-hop songs derived from something from the parent generation, and this one is no exception. The creative juice that melted the Delfonics, Enya and some Brooklyn-based refugees is very much a cause for celebration. "Ready or Not "; is one of the greatest moments in rap history”.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included Ready or Not in their list of Songs that Shaped Rock. When marking twenty years of The Score in 2016, Billboard provided a track-by-track guide. This is what they said about Ready or Not: “Ready or Not”: Built around an ice-cold Enya sample, this U.K. chart-topper and one-time favorite song of presidential hopeful Barack Obama is another example of the Fugees going the divide-and-conquer route. Clef and Pras bookend the track with relatively unfocused verses, leaving L-Boogie to once again attack whack MCs and deliver the finest lines. Her best is viciously witty and a little vulgar: “So while you’re imitating Al Capone, I’ll be Nina Simone / And defecating on your microphone”. Scandalously little has been written about one of the best and most important Rap songs ever. I hope this tour from Ms. Lauryn Hill and Fugees shines new light on The Score and Ready or Not. A young generation should know about this truly iconic song. I want to introduce words from this blog and what they wrote about Ready or Not earlier in the year:
“I tried to claim that The Fugees earlier cover of ‘Killing Me Softly’ was hip-hop’s big arrival as a chart force. But actually, this is the moment. This is no funky cover of a seventies classic; this is uncompromising rap. (Though it is built around a very distinctive, very haunting sample from Enya, so I suppose it does have some mum-friendly credentials.) Like Peter Andre’s ‘Flava’, which was a particularly modern sounding pop song, this is modern rap – East Coast rap, apparently, though I’m not qualified to clarify what that actually means – and could have been a credible chart-topper anytime between 1996 and now.
It still makes use of Lauryn Hill’s amazing voice, in the chorus, but while she sang angelically on ‘Killing Me Softly’, her voice now drips with deadpan attitude. Ready or not, Here I come, You can’t hide… Around this, each of the three MCs take turns telling us how the Fugees are poised for world domination. I like Hill’s alliterative voodoo line, as well as: While you’re imitating Al Capone, I’ll be Nina Simone, And defecating on your microphone… But perhaps the most important verse is Pras Michel’s, which focuses on the group’s immigrant background: I refugee from Guantanamo Bay, Dance around the border like Cassius Clay… (the band name is, after all, short for ‘Refugees’).
Although uncompromising, this isn’t gangsta rap. Hill’s verse even calls out stereotypical rappers: Frontin’ n*ggas give me heebeejeebees… Enya threatened to sue the trio for sampling ‘Boadicea’ before she realised that the lyrics went deeper than just guns and pimping. (Although, while there’s no swearing, there is the above-mentioned debut appearance of the n-word in a UK #1.) Meanwhile, though it isn’t strictly a sample, the chorus is heavily based around the Delfonic’s ‘Ready or Not Here I Come (Can’t Hide from Love)’, a minor hit in 1969.
In calling this a ‘shadow #1’, I don’t mean to suggest that this doesn’t have musical merit. The verses are impressive both lyrically and in the way they are delivered, while the use of ‘Boadicea’ is one of the all-time great samples (so effective that this won’t be its only appearance in a number one single…) There was also the small matter of a multi-million dollar video featuring submarines, sharks and helicopters to promote it. But no, all that aside, this is an impressive and important song, and I say that as someone with a fairly low tolerance for rap”.
I have been thinking about Fugees as they – well, two-thirds of them! – are on stage and have been wowing audiences around the U.K. When thinking about their finest songs, the amazing Ready or Not sprung straight to my mind. I think it is that perfect fusion of the trio’s individual strengths, together with this incredibly well-chosen sampling and amazing production. It all fuses together into a song that will live through the ages. Ready or not, here they came! This incredible musical force whose legacy will live on, there is denying the fact that The Score’s third single is a diamond! Go and play it now and appreciate just how compelled and confident it is. For me, the standout is Ms. Lauryn Hill’s vocal and writing. You could tell she was this star who would break away and have her own career. With only one solo studio album to her name, 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, we all hope there will be a second album someday. As she has proved on stage recently, the years cannot diminish…
HER staggering talent and relevance.