Word: wyclef
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...Wyclef Jean is supposed to be making like Sting today, but instead he's just making it up. Wyclef (he's primarily known by his first name) is sitting behind a drum kit on the sixth floor of the Hit Factory, a recording studio in Manhattan, tapping out a jazzy rhythm while his cousin and frequent producing partner Jerry Duplessis plays along on bass guitar. The pair, who are here to tape a rendition of the Police song Walking on the Moon for the pilot of an MTV series on musical influences, are indulging in an unscheduled jam. Wyclef...
...That's Wyclef: you can't pin him down, not to one instrument, not to one style, not even to one country. He was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Newark, N.J. He's a rapper and a singer, an entertainer with an ear to the streets and an eye on the top of the charts. He has written and produced hits for Santana and Whitney Houston and has also worked with Destiny's Child and Sinead O'Connor. "He's like a chameleon," says Melky Jean, Wyclef's sister and frequent supporting vocalist...
With the Fugees, whose 1996 record The Score sold more than 5 million copies, on indefinite hiatus, Wyclef has ventured out on his own. His 1997 solo debut, The Carnival, sold almost 2 million copies. Now his new CD, The Ecleftic--2 Sides II a Book (Columbia), is garnering some of the best reviews of any rap release this year. Rolling Stone called it "the most pleasingly direct yet musically adventurous hip-hop long-player you're likely to hear all year." The hip-hop magazine Source gave it 4 1/2 microphones out of 5--half a mike more than...
Fame and fortune could easily have skipped over Wyclef, 29. "I grew up poor," he says, recalling his childhood in Port-au-Prince. "I had two pairs of pants for the whole year, one pair of shoes. Sometimes I'd go to school barefooted." When he was nine, the woman he thought was his mother told him she was actually his aunt and that his real parents, who had left the country when he was four, were ready to take him to the U.S. Instead of feeling betrayed, he was overjoyed. "I always felt I would be in the ghetto...
Artistically, Wyclef is still on the move. His sonic curiosity has broadened since The Carnival, and his songwriting skills have sharpened. He's like a pop-music search engine, filtering through genres, highlighting what's melodious and spirited. For Wyclef, it's important to come up with varied material that showcases his skills as a rapper and a singer. His reasons are personal: "My mom, she's not impressed with any of the rap stuff that I do. She's always, like, 'What songs are you singing...