Thirty Years After "The Score"

Today at 4 p.m. ET, Central Park's Great Lawn transforms into the stage for the 2026 Global Citizen Festival, a free, advocacy-driven concert now in its 14th year. Hosting for the 12th consecutive year is Hugh Jackman, presiding over a lineup built around a genuinely historic reunion: Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, performing together to mark 30 years since the release of the Fugees' second and final album, "The Score."

An Album That Changed the Genre

Released in 1996, "The Score" became one of the defining albums in hip-hop history, blending rap, soul, and reggae into a sound that crossed over commercially in a way few hip-hop records had managed before. Its centerpiece, a cover of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly with His Song," became inescapable on radio, alongside singles "Ready or Not" and "Fu-Gee-La." The album eventually sold more than 22 million copies worldwide and helped establish Hill and Jean, alongside third member Pras Michel, as one of the most influential groups of the decade. The trio marked the album's 25th anniversary together in 2021, though a planned tour never fully materialized; Michel is not part of today's performance, currently serving a 14-year federal sentence on charges related to illegal lobbying and campaign finance violations.

The Fugees reunion headlines a lineup that also includes Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey, Alicia Keys and friends, Victoria Monét, and K-pop group TOMORROW X TOGETHER, with appearances from Rachel Brosnahan, Gayle King, Bill Nye, and Katie Couric. The festival's structure remains distinctly its own: rather than selling tickets outright, Global Citizen asks attendees to earn admission by taking advocacy actions through its app, tying the day's performances directly to campaigns this year focused on expanding education access for 2 million children, supporting 1.5 million smallholder farmers, and bringing electricity to 2.5 million homes.

Today's timing carries its own logic: the festival has long been scheduled to coincide with the close of the UN General Assembly's high-level meetings, pairing a week of formal diplomacy with a day meant to translate global goals into public, visible action. Thirty years on, "The Score" remains a touchstone precisely because it refused to stay confined to one genre or one audience — and a reunion built around it, on a stage explicitly designed to turn a concert into a call to action, feels very much in keeping with the album's original spirit.