The Fugees

The New Jersey group's first album, Blunted on Reality, appeared in 1994. Nappy Heads and Vocab introduced the contrasting voices inside a more forceful hip-hop setting than the later breakthrough sometimes suggests. The remixed Nappy Heads helped reveal another balance, giving the group's melodic and rhythmic individuality more space around the beat.

The three performers supplied different kinds of movement. Hill could shift between a tightly controlled rap verse and a full sung line; Jean brought another vocal texture and a broad musical imagination; Pras provided a further rhythmic and verbal presence. Their strongest work made those differences part of the arrangement rather than treating them as separate solo turns placed next to one another.

The Score followed in 1996, including Fu-Gee-La, Ready or Not and a version of Killing Me Softly with His Song. Hill's singing on the latter placed an already familiar song inside a new group setting, with the production and vocal responses making it recognisably a Fugees recording. No Woman, No Cry gave the album another connection to an older musical language.

The record's continuity comes from the way the parts speak to one another: a sample, a sung response, a change in lead voice or a small rhythmic interruption can make the next verse feel newly framed. The members' later solo careers expanded the story in different directions, but The Score remains a particularly complete account of what the combination could achieve before those individual identities became much larger public subjects.