Fugees Artistfacts

1992-1997, 2004-2006, 2021-
Lauryn Hill
Pras Michel
Wyclef Jean
Lauryn Hill met Prakazrel "Pras" Michel through her brother at Columbia High School. Hill, Michel, and another girl formed a group called the Fugees-Tranzlator Crew. Later Michel's cousin Wyclef Jean joined and the other girl quit. The trio called themselves Fugees - a shortened version of Refugees (inspired by Wyclef and Pras' Haitian backgrounds). They rapped in five different languages and felt they were translating the music of Haiti for America.
Their 1996 album The Score is a hip-hop landmark highlighted with their inventive cover of the '70s hit "Killing Me Softly With His Song." It was their second album, and also their last. A year later, The Fugees broke up and began working on solo projects. In 1998, Lauryn Hill released her first (and only) album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which was the big winner at the Grammy Awards and went on to sell over 10 million copies in America.
After a short-lived reunion in 2004, The Fugees were about to record "Hips Don't Lie," but that song ended up pushing them apart, at least according to Pras, who explained in an interview with US Magazine: "I don't know what happened; I just remember that Wyclef and I were working on 'Hips Don't Lie.' That was a Fugees record; that would've been magic if we'd did that record. I think our version was 'Lips Don't Lie,' or something like that... but Lauryn didn't like it. And then Charlie Walk called me that night, he used to be the president of Epic, and he says, 'I got to do a remix for Shakira. What you doing.' I said, 'You not going to believe this man, I'm depressed. Lauryn Hill walked out the studio. The Fugees is done.'"
Lauryn Hill has given birth to five children with Rohan Marley, the fourth son of reggae musician Bob Marley. Hill previously had a long relationship with Wyclef Jean.
Pras Michel blamed the disbanding of Fugees on Lauryn Hill's self-imposed exile and inability to cope with publicity. He told allhiphop.com, "Before I work with Lauryn Hill again, you will have a better chance of seeing Osama Bin Laden and Bush in Starbucks having a latte, discussing foreign policies, before there will be a Fugees reunion. At this point I really think it will take an act of God to change her, because she is that far out there."

Lauryn Hill gave a sort of explanation in an interview with USA Today, when she said: "The Fugees was a conspiracy to control, to manipulate and to encourage dependence. I took a lot of abuse that many people would not have taken in these circumstances."
Pras Michel was found guilty on April 26, 2023, of conspiring to violate US campaign finance laws and launder money. Prosecutors said he received more than $100 million from Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho and funneled part of that money through straw donors into Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign while hiding the foreign source of the funds. He was also accused of laundering money through shell companies and bank accounts in the United States and Switzerland. In November 2025, Pras was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his role in these schemes.
The only new music Fugees made since their breakup in 1997 was a song called "Take It Easy," released in 2005. Wyclef has been the most active member musically, releasing a series of solo albums and doing lots of collaborations with the likes of Carlos Santana, Naughty Boy and Shakira.
Fugees tried another reunion in 2021, but it fell into turmoil and never happened. They did tour in 2023, but it was billed as a Lauryn Hill tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

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