Lauryn Hill Hosts Surprise Six-Song Fugees Reunion at Roots Picnic
Fans at the Roots Picnic this weekend got a huge surprise during Lauryn Hill‘s headlining set on Saturday (June 3) when the singer brought out her former Fugees bandmates Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel for a surprise reunion of the beloved 1990s hip-hop power trio. It was definitely a moment to savor, as there’s a good chance it might be the first, and last, time the group will appear on stage for the foreseeable future in light of Pras’ indictment in April in a long-running campaign finance case.
All that mattered in Philly on Saturday, though, was that the men took the stage with Hill at the end of her set to perform a six-song run of classics after Hill celebrated the 25th anniversary of her debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. “We’re out here doing 25 years of Miseducation,” Hill told the crowd about her Grammy-winning 1998 solo bow, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But there’s another 25 years we didn’t do a couple of years ago because of COVID.”
The latter was a reference to a scotched reunion tour the trio had planned to celebrate the 25-year mark of their 1996 album The Score, which was first postponed, then canceled, citing complications from the COVID-19 pandemic after just one gig. Then, when Michel was found guilty in April on 10 criminal counts in a federal conspiracy trial related to an alleged wide-ranging foreign influence campaign scheme that could keep him behind bars for more than 20 years when he’s sentenced, any chance of a re-reboot became unlikely.
So, on Saturday they did the best they could by running through “The Score,” then “How Many Mics,” “Zealots,” “Ready or Not,” “Killing Me Softly” and “Fu-Gee-La.” The crowd response was reportedly electric for the first show since the Fugees reunited for the first time in 16 years during a gig in New York in 2021, with Hill repeatedly referring to her formerly estranged bandmates as her “brothers.”
Check out footage from the reunion below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
