Songoftheday 3/3/20 - We used to be number ten now we're permanent one, in the battle lost my finger mic became my arm...
from the album The Score (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song of the day comes from the hip-hop trio the Fugees. Leader Wyclef Jean formed the group with cousin Pras and singer Lauryn Hill (the latter two schoolmates in New Jersey), and the name is drawn from a slur against Haitians as "refugees" (Wyclef and Pras being of that heritage). Signed to Columbia Records' Ruffhouse imprint (their rap offshoot which housed Kris Kross and Cypress Hill), the group released their first album Blunted On Reality at the beginning of 1994. After the rough and boisterous lead single "Boof Baf" stiffed, the second release "Nappy Heads" put them on the radio, going to the middle of Billboard magazine's official pop Hot 100 chart at #49, while doing the same at #52 at R&B. The album only scraped the lower reaches of the R&B sales chart (#62), but it did set up exposure for what would happen next.
At the close of 1995 Lauryn, Wyclef, and Pras released the first single from their upcoming second album The Score. Fu-Gee-La, interpolating Teena Marie's "Ooh La La " in the chorus while sampling jazz-soul master Ramsey Lewis, brought a whole new audience to the trio, and scored their first top-40 hit (and only "official" one on the Hot 100)...
"Fu-Gee-La" reached the American pop Top-40 in March of 1996. The song also climbed to #13 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single made the top ten in the Netherlands (#5), Germany (#6), Belgium (#8W/#14F), Switzerland (#9), and Sweden (#10). It also reached the top 40 in New Zealand (#11), Austria (#14), Finland (#16), the UK (#21), and France (#22). At the Grammy Awards in 1997, The Score won a trophy for Best Rap Album. But that success was quickly and decisively overshadowed by a late addition to the album that was a cover of a Roberta Flack classic.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the trio appearing live on MTV in 1996 with a performance of the track...
and at Showtime At The Apollo...
Finally, a clip from Jools Holland in the UK...
Up tomorrow: Female rocker is texting "U Up?" for the 90s.
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