1996 Fugees: Ready Or Not

For their second number one, Fugees again return to seventies soul for their source material, but unlike the straight 'remake' of 'Killing Me Softly', 'Ready Or Not' takes just the chorus from The Delfonics song of the same title for its hook and augments it with a rap apiece from each of the members in place of the original verses. And instead of the Philly soul of the original, this 'Ready Or Not' is carried on a vocal sampled from Enya to create a ghostly unease that, when combined with the dominant, borderline aggression vocal from Lauryn Hill and the hardcore gangsta raps, makes the repeated "Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide. Gonna find you and make you want me" simultaneously a threat to be feared and a promise to be welcomed. 'Ready Or Not' creates something new out of the sum of its parts, but whilst re-turfing and re-planting old ground can produce its own rewards, there's always a part of me that would prefer to see the obvious talent on display breaking grounds anew.