Fugees Hits
Greatest Hits
Fugees
Sony / Columbia
Ranking 1/5

The Fugees made ripples in the hip hop game back in 1996 with their amazing sophomore album The Score. The trio of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras made for an all-star cast that remained as a unit long enough to put out two Fugees albums. Although Wyclef and Lauryn have since gone on to star-tinged solo careers, the Fugees' Greatest Hits album is composed entirely of songs from their two group albums.

Greatest Hits is basically a ten-song re-hashing of the best songs off two albums with four remixes thrown in for filler. It old material, and although a Santa Baby meets Nappy Heads remix sounds nice, it's not worthy of Greatest Hits stamina. Additionally, the upbeat Mahogany Mix of the originally smooth and sultry 'The Sweetest Thing' makes for a work of tragedy.

Admittedly, hearing the old Fugees material with tracks such as 'How Many Mics,' 'Fu-Gee-La' and the covers 'No Woman, No Cry,' and 'Killing Me Softly' made me reminisce. The Fugees definitely had a great thing, but to leave off the members' solo material makes the purpose of the Fugees' Greatest Hits album nothing more than to introduce the old Fugees to those not into hip-hop back then. It's a noble gesture, but unfortunately not appealing to me.

Click here to buy the album at sonymusicstore.com

Troy Neilson
This review was written April 17, 2003