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 second and last album The Score, released in 1996, has been one of the best-selling hip-hop albums of all time with over 18 million copies sold worldwide. A year later, The Fugees broke up and began working on solo projects.
After a short-lived reunion in 2004, The Fugees were about to record "Hips Don't Lie," but that song turned out to be a factor contributing to their disbanding again. Pras 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.

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