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If we are looking at the blatant statement, then we might consider something like Public Enemy, with their 1990 record “Fear of a Black Planet”-a work whose cry for liberation screamed from every verse, every visual.
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There are maybe two main types of political statements in music: the blatant, and the atmospheric. The Triumph and Tragedy of Tupac’s ‘All Eyez on Me’
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Over the next few days and weeks, he continued listening, and was captivated by it even more. It didn’t shy away from unsparing depictions of racism, violent crime, and extreme poverty, each of which was far from anything he or his family had experienced. This Fugees record, he said, was actually very dark. It was only after a few days of listening to the rest of the record that my friend came down the corridor and into my room, somewhat concerned. When my friend listened to the Fugees, he was first captured by the irresistible grooves of “Ready or Not” and “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” That’s not to say I was any smarter than my friend the Fugees had crafted a record from their studio in New Jersey that spoke to people from vastly different backgrounds. When I listened to Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and Pras, I heard people who were talking about the often melancholic road to freedom. Yet, he came to love the Fugees almost as much as I did, which was testament to the genius of this group. One of my best friends at school didn’t know what was coming, maybe because the key theme at the heart of The Score-how to remain resilient, even as you are being violently displaced-was not a feature of his family’s history. Such genius, I believed, could emerge only from a place of pain. This was the music, I thought, of people who had either seen or sustained major trauma. Even though the album contains several moments of lightness and outright hilarity, it had the overall air of a dignified and mournful retreat. This album sounded Old Testament old, as if it could have been the soundtrack for the Jews when they left Egypt, led by Moses and pursued by a vengeful Pharaoh. I was long used to listening to artists who invoked the spirit of previous eras, such as Jay-Z and the Wu-Tang Clan, but the utterly haunting chords and drums on The Score sounded like they had been recorded at the dawn of time. One notable thing about that track and the rest of their seminal second LP, The Score, was that it sounded old. From the opening notes of that song, which would become the anthem of the rest of my youth, I was convinced: This group is about to release classic art. It reminded me immediately of the journey that my own family had taken, having fled a dictatorship in Uganda in the 1970s to resettle in England. It is not often that you encounter music that you know will change the world, but when I first heard “Fu-Gee-La” by the Fugees-sitting in my bedroom at an English boarding school, a 16-year-old listening to late-night radio-I knew what was coming. It’s the natural law that the refugees bring.” It’s the way that we rock when we’re doing our thing. Today, we’re exploring the impact of The Fugees’ The Score.
#Fugees the score have it your way series
The 1996 Rap Yearbook, a recurring series from The Ringer, will explore the landmark releases and moments from a quarter-century ago that redefined how we think of the genre. No year in hip-hop history sticks out quite like 1996: It marked the height of the East Coast–West Coast feud, the debut of several artists who would rule the next few decades, and the last moment before battle lines between “mainstream” and “underground” were fully drawn.