Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean delighted fans with a surprise performance in Piccadilly Circus this week, and have hinted that new music might be on the way.
The pair reunited in London ahead of their headline show at Diaspora Calling! By Ms Lauryn Hill, a music and arts festival in Milton Keynes on Friday 7 August.
Hill, 51, and Jean, 56, sang an a capella version their hit song Ready Or Not to fans who listened to the Killing Me Softly singer’s address about the premiere of a film by Los Angeles artist Lauren Halsey of the same name as the festival.
The film was presented across the huge screens in Piccadilly, turning “one of the world’s most recognisable public screens into a celebration of music, visual art, community, cultural memory, and the global African diaspora”.
Hill and Jean were members of the Fugees alongside Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, but the band separated in 1997, about a year after they released their last album, The Score.
Since then, each musician have had their solo careers but have reunited several times to perform together since and even went on a reunion tour in 2005.
Hill and Jean told the BBC that there would “absolutely” be the possibility of “music in the future” for the Fugees.
Jean told the broadcaster: “All I can tell you is, man, we're in God's hands,”, and then sang: “I’m back with my bandmate!
“So we're in an amazing place. I think the energy is very important.”
He added that they would continue “projecting that love” to the world.
”There was an incredible healing process that happened with us as a band and as bandmates, and as you said we just want to showcase that and give some of that energy to the world as well,” Hill added.
However, they did not address how their former bandmate Michel, 53, would be involved as he is currently serving his 14-year jail sentence for illegal lobbying in the US.
Last November, the Grammy Award winner was sentenced to prison after he was found guilty of corruption, as well as several other charges including witness tampering in 2023.
He had been accused of bringing “secret, illegal, foreign influence to bear” between 2012 and 2017, and a court in Washington DC fond him guilty of campaign finance violations and deceiving banks.
Nevertheless, Hill and Jean are set to forge ahead with their headline performance at Diaspora Calling!, where they will be joined by other performances by Erykah Badu, Giggs, Fireboy DML, YG Marley, and Zion Marley.
Comedian Dave Chappelle will be hosting the one-day festival, which is making its UK debut 10 years after Hill first launched it in the US.
Jean told the broadcaster that the Fugees had never just been about music and said: “I remember saying from a very young age, we're not going to do music, we're going to be a movement.
“When you talk about the idea of refugees, look where we are today. We were saying these things 30 years ago. It was never just about us – it was always about the movement.”
Hill said of the festival represents how “our different places of origin came together to unite culture, reflect culture and show people how beautiful, powerful and resourceful that culture is”.
