Pras Michél to face 22 years in prison, says he's "done" with Fugees

Fugees founder Pras Michél announced that he was done with the hip-hop band in his first post-conviction interview.

The 52-year-old MC was convicted on 10 counts last April of illegal lobbying, where the rapper was found guilty of money laundering, including the $4.5 billion looting of a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund known as 1MDB and violating campaign finance laws during Obama's 2012 re-election bid.

“I don’t know if subconsciously it was a bit exciting for me too,” Michél recalls in his first public post-conviction interview with Variety. “I like spy movies but I never wanted to be a spy. I don’t think that’s sexy. But a part of it felt like that.”

In the same breath, the rapper revealed that he has no plans to work with the Fugees in the future.

Michél, who filed a lawsuit against bandmate Lauryn Hill in October, accused her of defrauding him of proceeds from the group's foreshortened 2023 reunion tour and "gross mismanagement" after Hill canceled the North American leg of the follow-up 2024 tour.

The rapper revealed that he wouldn't join Hill and Wyclef Jean on the remaining stops, even if they were to happen:

"I’m done with that. They’re going to Europe [to tour]. I can’t go, so… It’s what it is. You can’t give people that kind of energy. So you could be frustrated, you could be disappointed, but I really believe in my path and in my journey, and I believe what’s mine, no one’s going to be able to take it away from me. So it’s better that you have a small group of people who really believe in you and believe in what you’re doing than to have 100 people around you, and the minute something happens — boom. People just disappear."

Hill has called the rapper's claims against her "baseless" and "full of false claims and unwarranted attacks," adding that she intentionally included Fugees in the tour because “Pras was in trouble and would need money to aid his legal defense."

Nancy Jiang

Brooklyn, NY

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