Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean are bringing the Fugees back — through a phone line. On Thursday (November 5), the duo launched Fugees Hopeline with the public art platform CIRCA: a hotline offering personal messages from both artists, a first listen to new Fugees music, and an open invitation for fans to record their own stories of hope.
Callers are greeted by Hill’s daughter, Selah Marley, who narrates the experience before playing messages from her mother and Jean. The whole thing is billed as a “collective sonic portrait of life in 2026” — an audio archive built one caller at a time.
Here’s why the timing matters. The hotline went live one day after Hill and Jean opened their U.S. run celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Score at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Wednesday (November 4). And it arrives with a conspicuous absence: Pras Michel, the third member of the original trio, is part of neither the project nor the tour, after previously filing legal action against Hill following a canceled 2024 reunion attempt.
Where to Call, What You’ll Hear, and When It Ends
- Fans in the U.S. can dial +1 (424) 7-FUGEES (738-4337); international callers reach the same line through WhatsApp without long-distance charges.
- Voice contributions are accepted through December 31 — after that, the line stays live as a listening-only archive.
- Selected recordings will appear in an exhibition Hill curates at Miami Beach’s Faena Forum on December 4 and 5, timed to Art Basel.
What You Hear When You Dial 7-FUGEES
The musical preview is short but pointed. As Complex reports, Jean opens with a shout — “No one should be sitting down right about now” — before adding: “They’re coming!” Hill then delivers a rendition of Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Be Where You Are,” and when a classic hip-hop beat enters, Jean takes the first verse: “Behind every strong man, there’s a strong woman.”
Neither artist has said whether this teaser points to a full album, a single, or something in between. What’s confirmed is the format: an exclusive track available only to people who call, not to anyone scrolling a streaming app. In an era when every legacy catalog is one licensing deal away from a playlist, keeping new music off Spotify and inside a phone call is a genuine curveball.
The artists framed the project as a conversation, not a broadcast. In a joint statement quoted by Complex and 105.1 The Bounce, they said:
“We’ve been able to connect with people from around the world through our music. We’ve shared stories from our lives, and visions for the future. With Fugees Hopeline, we want to hear everyone else’s stories. Hope means something different to everyone. Sometimes it’s finding beauty in a difficult moment, sometimes it’s choosing kindness, and sometimes it’s simply knowing that your voice matters.”
The Score at 30: Vegas Tonight, the Bowl on Sunday
The tour rolls on. After Berkeley, the next stop is Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas on Friday (November 6), followed by the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Sunday (November 8) and Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday (November 10). Complex notes more dates are still to come.
Thirty years on, The Score remains the album that turned a Newark-to-Haiti-by-way-of-Jersey trio into global icons — and Hill and Jean are clearly treating the anniversary as more than a nostalgia lap. The Hopeline ties the tour to something participatory: fans who call aren’t just consuming, they’re contributing to a piece that will outlive the trek itself.
Where Pras Michel Isn’t
The third Fugee is the story’s open wound. Pras Michel is absent from both the Hopeline project and the tour, having previously filed legal action against Hill after a canceled 2024 reunion attempt. Neither Hill nor Jean has publicly addressed his exclusion in connection with this project, and Michel has not responded through the sources covering this story.
That leaves a real question hanging over the celebration: a 30th-anniversary tour for a trio is running as a duo, with the missing member on the record as a litigant rather than a bandmate. Whether that changes — through settlement, reconciliation, or a surprise appearance down the routing — is not something any current reporting answers.
£200 to £2,500: The Prints Behind the Phone Line
The Hopeline isn’t audio-only. Hill created three original collages layering typography with archival photography spanning the past three decades, including work by photographers B+ and Jonathan Mannion. The editions are sold exclusively at circa.art/fugees, and the pricing structure runs two tiers deep, as Complex details:
| Edition | Price each | Full set | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| A4, stamp-signed | £200 | £500 | Entry-level tier |
| A2, hand-signed by Hill and Jean | £1,000 | £2,500 | Limited to 500 per design |
WBLS’s report gave the same £200 starting point and the £2,500 top price for a complete set of hand-signed A2 prints; Complex adds the per-print A2 figure of £1,000 and the 500-per-design cap. Either way, the range is deliberately wide — a souvenir for the price of a concert tee, and a collector’s piece for four figures.
From Hotline to Art Basel: Miami on December 4
The archive gets a physical life next month. Selected fan recordings will be presented at the Faena Forum in Miami Beach on December 4 and 5, coinciding with Art Basel, in an exhibition Hill is curating with Saint & Citizen. Artnet, cited by Complex, reports the show will place those contributions alongside artwork and set design from the current tour.
So the arc runs like this: you call a phone number in November, you leave a message about hope, and by the first weekend of December your voice could be hanging in a Miami Beach gallery during the biggest art week in the world. Contributions stay open through December 31; after that, the line remains active for listening only — a permanent archive of what 2026 sounded like to the people living it.
What remains unanswered is the Fugees question itself. “They’re coming!” is all the new music tells us, and the third chair stays empty until someone says otherwise. The line, for now, is open.
