Credit: Fugees

Coming off the back of ‘Killing Me Softly,’ the Fugees’ next single from their second album The Score, ‘Ready Or Not,’ confirmed something: this group was at the forefront of the alternative hip-hop scene in 1996.

Standing in contrast to the misogynistic, gangsta sensibility that was prominent at that time, ‘Ready Or Not’ revealed its makers’ particular talent for melodic, socially conscious hip-hop—but, behind the scenes, all was not well for Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel.

‘Ready Or Not’ is, along with ‘Killing Me Softly,’ one of the Fugees’ signature songs, showcasing everything that made the group great. But its creation almost got them into big trouble, as it featured a sample from, of all people, the Irish singer Enya, known for songs like ‘Orinoco Flow’ and ‘Caribbean Blue.’ She also released a track called ‘Boadicea’ in 1987, which, years later, would form the basis of ‘Ready Or Not’—but the problem is that the Fugees never sought permission to sample it.

Enya was annoyed at not being credited on the Fugees’ song, and she was, in her own words to Forbes in 2016, “On the verge of suing them because of the copyright infringement.” She relented, in the end, when she discovered that the Fugees were not using her music to make gangsta rap—to the contrary, they were critiquing it. She and the group eventually settled out of court, which is something Wyclef has expressed gratitude for.

“Luckily when Enya heard everything, she was like, ‘This is different’ and she gave us a pass—which she don’t even need to do,” he remarked to HipHopDX in 2017. “She so gangsta, she live in a castle. You can’t get more gangsta than that. But then we learned composition is important. We learned the art of publishing is very serious. I always tell kids, get your copyrights right.”

The dispute with Enya was far from the only trouble for the band. The public didn’t know any of this at the time, but it turns out that Hill and the married Jean were having an affair. This, naturally, made things very messy, and it meant that, by the time the recording sessions for ‘Ready Or Not’ were taking place, Hill had had enough.

In an interview with Billboard in 2014, Pras Michel recalled how tense things were. He explained, “[Hill] calls me and says, ‘Listen, I’m going to come down to the studio and I’m going to lay down a reference for you guys, a hook. I give you permission to use my hook, my voice, but I don’t want to be a part of this group anymore… Make sure certain people are not around when I’m there.’ I said, ‘No problem.’ She’s laying the reference for ‘Ready Or Not’ and then she goes into the bridge and she’s crying. I see her crying. She stops and says, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and leaves.”

Hill did rejoin the band as The Score was released, but the situation only got worse. In 1997 she started seeing Rohan Marley, Bob’s son, and she became pregnant with his baby—but Jean believed that Hill tricked him into thinking the baby was his. “In that moment something died between us,” Jean later wrote in his autobiography, Purpose: An Immigrant’s Story. “I was married and Lauryn and I were having an affair, but she led me to believe that the baby was mine, and I couldn’t forgive that.”

Despite the massive success of The Score, driven by its two lead singles ‘Killing Me Softly’ and ‘Ready Or Not,’ a third album never arrived. The Fugees each started their own solo projects, and, over the years, they would reunite here and there, without ever finally making that third record. It seems likely that they never will.