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Sneak attack business >>Wyclef Jean on fame, fate and the Fugees by SCOTT C
After their first album Blunted on Reality faded into obscurity, the Fugees executed an all-out coup with their second effort, The Score. In a truly global fashion, the New York/Haitian combination of Lauren Hill, Pras and Wyclef Jean went on to sell 11 million records worldwide, dominating the airwaves of commercial radio in cities from here to Beijing. How do you follow such enormous endeavours, you may ask? Well, if your name is Wyclef Jean, you make a solo album more daring than The Score, call it The Carnival, and make sure it is overflowing with cultural influences and the necessary remakes. You test the rigid boundaries of hip hop music. And then you tell folks over and over that, no, the Fugees haven't broken up... Mirror: I was talking to someone at the record store today who wouldn't even listen to your album because it was crossover, sellout shit. Is being a household name the kiss of death? Wyclef Jean: (laughs) See, I don't have to deal with that because I'm up in Flatbush, N.Y. and once I record the music, before anyone else in the world hears it, it rolls through every block in my neighbourhood where I grew up. Every jam is street tested and as far as I'm concerned, the Fugees haven't lost any street credibility. M: In hip hop, if you deviate from the straight line, you risk running into some problems. The Carnival has some pretty left-field parts, like "Guantanamera" and "Sa Fezi." Are you trying to stir it up? WJ: Our job in this generation is to represent musicality in hip hop. That's important, because you've got a lot of cats focusing on the sampling thing. So if there's not a balance, it gets boring after a while. Our job is to bring the balance. M: You seem quite concerned with infusing heritage into music... WJ: Just me knowing where I'm from is very important in the style that I use to create music. Being from a poor part of Haiti, I remember being three years old and getting lost in the rhythms and sounds of the carnival, experiencing the gun smoke and the turmoil. I was there until I was nine, and then I landed in Brooklyn. M: Would you consider yourself a Haitian ambassador? WJ: (laughs) Nah... I'm just a kid who grew up around a lot of hustlers and got fortunate. That's it. M: If the whole is only as good as its parts, than how important is it for the Fugees to pursue their own individual projects? WJ: There are a lot of things we're doing right now, like working on Lauren's album. Basically we never want you to know how we're coming, or where we're coming from. We're on some sneak attack business. A unit is the strongest thing, but you need someone in a unit to spearhead into another direction, and I think I represent that. It's a combination of me, Lauren, Pras, you and the garbage man--you understand? Even when we're alone, we're together. M: Could you see any of this happening before now? WJ: Some cats call me Nostradamus. On "Fugee-La," when I said, "We used to be number ten, now we permanent at one...," I was just sayin' it on the bug-out tip, a boast. So when we actually won the lottery, it was much different. If I had foreseen this, it would never have happened. Wyclef Jean and the Refugee All-Stars will be performing at Metropolis on Thursday, Oct.9th, 8pm, $23.50 + t./s.
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Now I don't mean to condescend, but if you're one of those people who is still not familiar with the Fugees, I'd like to personally welcome you back to planet earth and fill you in on what you've missed.