Fugees - Killing Me Softly With His Song

The hip-hop group Fugees covered the Roberta Flack version of the song (titled "Killing Me Softly") on their album, The Score (1996), with Lauryn Hill singing the lead vocals. The Fugees version became an international hit, reaching number one on the U.S. Top 40 chart and number two on the U.S. airplay chart. The song topped the charts in over twenty countries; including the United Kingdom, where it is the best-selling hip hop single by a group, additionally it became the country's best-selling single of 1996, and remains one of the best-selling singles of all time in the United Kingdom. It was also the best-selling single of 1996 in Belgium, Germany, Iceland, and the Netherlands. It has since sold 1.36 million copies in United Kingdom, and has been certified 3x Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. In the United States, the song has been certified 3x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for selling approximately three million units in the U.S. The Fugees recording won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal[42] and their music video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video. This version sampled the 1990 song, "Bonita Applebum" by A Tribe Called Quest from their debut album, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. A Tribe Called Quest had sampled the riff from the song, "Memory Band" from the psychedelic soul band, Rotary Connection, and their 1967 eponymous debut album. The Fugees single was so successful that the track was "deleted", thus no longer being supplied to retailers whilst the track was still in the top 20, in an effort to draw attention to their next single, "Ready or Not". Propelled by the success of the Fugees track, the 1972 recording by Roberta Flack was remixed in 1998 with the vocalist adding some new vocal flourishes: this version topped the Hot Dance Club Play chart. Since then, Flack and Fugees have performed the song together. In 2008, "Killing Me Softly" was ranked number 25 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop and number 44 on its list of the "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s".