From Fugee to felon: how Pras betrayed his country'

"From the moment the Fugees shot to fame in the mid-90s, Prakazrel Pras Michel was discounted as an incidental member of the hip-hop superstars. He was the unremarkable New Jersey rhyme spitter by way of Brooklyn who was lucky enough to be a high school classmate of the mesmerizing Lauryn Hill and a cousin to mercurial Wyclef Jean. On the group's breakout album The Score, Michel's eight-bar features were minor contributions, relative to Hill's adroitness as an emcee and balladeer and Jean's compositional polymathy."

"The Score was a towering success commercially (with 22m units sold) and critically (with two Grammys), but Hill's and Jean's competing ambitions ended up seeing the band separate. Neither missed a beat as solo artists Hill made Grammy history with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and Jean charted with The Carnival before moving on to produce hits for Carlos Santana and Shakira."

Pras Michel founded the Fugees and contributed modest eight-bar features on The Score, while Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean dominated its creative output. The Score sold 22 million units and won two Grammys, but divergent solo ambitions led to the group's breakup. Hill achieved monumental solo success with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Jean released The Carnival before producing for artists like Carlos Santana and Shakira. Michel's solo visibility was limited to the 1998 hit 'Ghetto Supastar' with Mya and Ol' Dirty Bastard. He later produced and starred in a 2006 Skid Row documentary and attended a 2007 Obama rally.

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