Top 40 chart and number two on the U.S. airplay chart. The song topped the charts in over twenty countries. In the United Kingdom it was the best-selling single of 1996, additionally it is the country's biggest hip hop song by a group, 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 3× Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. In the United States, the song has been certified 3× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for selling approximately three million units in the U.S. This version sampled the 1990 song "Bonita Applebum" by A Tribe Called Quest, which itself samples the riff from the song, "Memory Band" from the psychedelic soul band Rotary Connection. 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". The Fugees' recording won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and their music video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B Video. "Killing Me Softly" was hailed it as one of the most essential hip hop songs in history by XXL. VH1 placed it on their '100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop' list. In 2020, the song saw a resurgence in popularity on the social networking app TikTok. The following year, Rolling Stone included it in their revised list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Background "Killing Me Softly" was the last song Fugees recorded for The Score, after member Pras made the suggestion to cover it. They wanted to "see how we can create break beats. And of course, we all love A Tribe Called Quest and we went in like 'Okay, let's cut that sample.'" They then added a bass reggae drop. Initially, Fugees wanted to change the lyrics of the song to make it anti-drugs and anti-poverty but the songwriters, Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, refused. Composition Fugees' version features "percussive rhythms" with "a synth sitar sound, Wyclef's blurted chants, Hill's vocal melisma on the scatted bridge, and a bombastic drum-loop track". Critical reception J.D.