Wyclef Jean
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Wyclef Jean Biography
Lead Fugees rapper and sometime guitarist Wyclef Jean was the
first member of his group to embark on a solo career, and he proved
even more ambitious and eclectic on his own. As the Fugees hung in
limbo, Wyclef also became hip-hop's unofficial multicultural
conscience; a seemingly omnipresent activist, he assembled or
participated in numerous high-profile charity benefit shows for a
variety of causes, including aid for his native Haiti. The utopian
one-world sensibility that fueled Wyclef's political consciousness also
informed his recordings, which fused hip-hop with as many different
styles of music as he could get his hands on (though, given his
Caribbean roots, reggae was a particular favorite). In addition to his
niche as hip-hop's foremost global citizen, Clef was also a noted
producer and remixer who worked with an impressive array of pop,
R&B, and hip-hop talent, including Whitney Houston, Santana, and
Destiny's Child, among many others.
The son of a minister, Nelust Wyclef Jean was born in
Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, on October 17, 1972. When he was nine, his
family moved to the Marlborough projects in Brooklyn, NY; by his
teenage years, Jean had moved to New Jersey, taken up the guitar, and
begun studying jazz through his high school's music department. In
1987, he also joined a rap group with his cousin Prakazrel Michel (aka
Pras) and Michel's high-school classmate Lauryn Hill. Initially calling
themselves the Tranzlator Crew, they evolved into the Fugees, a name
taken from slang for Haitian refugees. The trio signed with Ruffhouse
Records in 1993 and released their debut album, Blunted on Reality, the
following year; it attracted little notice, thanks to an inappropriate
hardcore stance that the group wore like an ill-fitting suit. But the
Fugees hit their stride on the follow-up, The Score, ignoring popular
trends and crafting an eclectic, bohemian masterpiece that sounded like
nothing else on the hip-hop landscape in 1996. Thanks to hit singles
like Fu-Gee-La and Killing Me Softly, The Score became a
chart-topping phenomenon; in fact, with sales of over six million
copies, it still ranks as one of the biggest-selling rap albums of all
time.
Wyclef Jean was the first Fugee to declare plans for a solo project,
setting to work soon after the group completed its supporting tours.
Released in the summer of 1997, The Carnival (full title: Wyclef Jean
Presents the Carnival Featuring the Refugee All-Stars) was even more
musically ambitious than The Score. Its roster of guests included not
only the remainder of the Fugees, but also Jean's siblings (who
performed together in the duo Melky Sedeck), Cuban legend Celia Cruz,
New Orleans funk mainstays the Neville Brothers, and Bob Marley's
female backing vocalists the I Threes. The breadth of his ambition was
further in evidence on the album's two hit singles; We Trying to Stay
Alive recast the Bee Gees' signature disco tune as a ghetto
empowerment anthem, and the Grammy-nominated Gone Till November was
recorded with part of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Those two
songs helped push The Carnival into a Top 20, triple-platinum showing,
and most reviews were naturally quite positive.
In the wake of The Carnival, Wyclef stepped up his outside work for
other artists; over the next few years, he collaborated as a producer,
songwriter, and/or remixer with a typically diverse list of artists:
Destiny's Child ( No No No ), Sublime, Simply Red, Whitney Houston (the
title track of her My Love Is Your Love album), dancehall reggae star
Bounty Killer, Cypress Hill, Michael Jackson, Eric Benet, Mya, Santana
( Maria Maria ), Tevin Campbell, the Black Eyed Peas, Kimberly Scott,
Sinéad O'Connor, Mick Jagger, and Canibus. Clef also served as Canibus'
manager for a short time in 1998; prior to their split, a report
surfaced that Wyclef had pulled a gun on Blaze editor Jesse Washington
over a negative Canibus review the magazine was slated to run (Wyclef
vehemently denied the accusation, and no charges were filed).
By the time Wyclef began work on his second solo album, rumors were
flying about tension between individual Fugees, and despite their
denials, the fact that no follow-up to The Score was in sight seemed to
lend credence to all the speculation. Although Wyclef had previously
announced he would put off his sophomore effort until after the next
Fugees album, he was well into the project by early 2000, giving an
early release the antipolice brutality track Diallo (with guest
vocals from Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour) via the Internet. The
full album, titled The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book, was released toward
the end of the summer and entered the charts at number nine. Besides
N'Dour, guests this time around included Mary J. Blige (on the
Grammy-nominated duet 911 ), Earth, Wind & Fire, Kenny Rogers, and
even wrestling star the Rock ( It Doesn't Matter ); Clef also threw in
a left-field cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. This time
around, some critics suggested that Wyclef's sprawling ambitions were
growing messy, but the record went platinum nonetheless. Shortly after
its release, he also started up his own record label, Yclef.
With no Fugees reunion in sight, Wyclef began preparing his third solo
album, Masquerade, in 2001; he also appeared in the Jamaican gangster
flick Shottas, and, sadly, suffered the death of his father in a home
accident. Masquerade was released in the summer of 2002, and in
addition to the usual worldbeat fusions, it found Wyclef reworking
songs by Bob Dylan and Frankie Valli, and featured guest shots from Tom
Jones and Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari. Masquerade entered the charts
at number six, proving that Wyclef's freewheeling approach still held
quite a bit of appeal. One year later, he returned with The Preacher's
Son, and also released an album of traditional Haitian Creole music,
Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
Written by Steve Huey