TONIGHT
E-mail a friendWyclef Jean
airdate December 5, 2007
Grammy-winning musician Wyclef Jean is an accomplished composer, arranger and producer. He first hit it big with the groundbreaking Fugees and now enjoys solo success. The Haitian-born artist plays several instruments while rapping in English, Creole, Spanish and Japanese. He's also produced several hits for other artists. His new release, "Carnival II," marks the 10-year anniversary of his solo debut. An activist for many causes, Jean founded Yéle Haiti to raise HIV/AIDS awareness among young Haitians.
Former Fugee describes what Lauryn Hill needs to do before they can talk about reuniting. (2:36)
Wyclef Jean
Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Wyclef Jean back to this program. Hard to believe it's been 10 years since he broke off from the Fugees to launch his own successful solo career. The latest project for the three-time Grammy winner is the sequel to his first CD, "Carnival." "Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant" is getting terrific reviews and is in stores this week. Here now, some of the video for the single "Sweetest Girl."
[Clip]
Tavis: Man, you cleaner than a Sunday chitlin, boy, look at you.
Wyclef Jean: How you doing, how you doing?
Tavis: (Unintelligible) I like them shoes, man.
Jean: Man.
Tavis: I like them shoes.
Jean: I was told I've got to dress my age now. (Laughter) I can't be playing around now.
Tavis: Oh, no, you're looking sharp, man, looking sharp.
Jean: You do too, sir.
Tavis: Thank you. This is rare. I don't know that I've ever - in all the years I've been doing this, I don't know that I've ever talked to anybody who's put out a CD 10 years after the first one, and it's the sequel - you've done, like, five or six CDs in the middle.
Jean: Yes, sir.
Tavis: And this is the sequel to the very first one.
Jean: Yes.
Tavis: Where'd that come from?
Jean: That came from when I did the first CD; it was the inspiration of world music mixed with hip hop, where we had four languages - the English, French, Creole, and Spanish. All of the CDs in between that have been different styles of music. It wasn't till I started going back to Haiti, traveling, going to Brazil, all over, started catching new rhythms. So when I got back to New York, got in the studio, it just felt like I had 32 new rhythms, and it felt like the continuation of the first CD.
Tavis: And part of what makes it when you hear it feel like the continuation of the first CD - and all your music has something to say, but this project really does hearken back to that first CD where it's - how do I want to put this? It's really easy to revel in the humanity that's found in your lyrical content. You're addressing some real issues. Thankfully for you and for us, you can put a good beat to it. But what you're talking about is saying something.
Jean: Definitely. I would say the headspace of, like, Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On?" It's like you look at the world, but in working with younger talent, I would say like Little Wayne and the TIs, I found a way to say it so it's not heavy, where it's easy to swallow but it's still, the message is there.
Tavis: Speaking of easy to swallow, is that hard to say now, working with younger talent? Is that kind of harder to say now?
Jean: Yeah, you noticed I had a big thing in my throat. (Laughter) You know what's funny about it was because I've been in the game since I've been 19 years old, right? And so I see these kids - my daughter, she's two. So every time she wants to tease me she rolls up on me, she goes "Daddy, hey, baby, hey, baby, hey, baby."
And then watching the way like Hurricane Chris and all of these kids who are coming up, when I see these kids, what they say is, "Yo, Clef, when we going to do a joint?" And it shows you, like, they want to do music. And it's like our jobs are filled as older cats in the game as producers is to make sure that we could provide them with the right beats and the right energy for the next level.
Tavis: I think since we're on PBS, I better clarify what he just said.
Jean: Yeah. (Laughs)
Tavis: When he said when we going to do a joint, he didn't mean, like, hitting the chronic. He meant (laughter) do a project, a record together, for all you sixties heads. I don't want you to think, wow, Wyclef got a bowl with that, when we going to do a joint?
Jean: And we didn't mean hitting the joint like we going to be playing at a jukes joint, either.
Tavis: Yeah, exactly, not that either, exactly. You meant do a project.
Jean: Yeah.
Tavis: When you sit down to do a project like this, I'm just trying to get a sense of your process for how, to your earlier point, you hear all these rhythms that you picked up around the world, and how you make this thing - you take all that and make it work.
Jean: Well, amongst the mayhem, my background is jazz. So ever since high school I was a jazz major. If you go back to those old pictures, Wyclef got the upright bass. A train - you must take the A train to go to (unintelligible).
Tavis: Absolutely.
Jean: So what the teacher taught me back in the days is, like, I was rhyming, doing a lot of battle raps, and what made me get into wanting to read sheet music, she was, like, well if you don't learn how to read the sheet music, you're going to be paying somebody $100,000 to write your sheet music. So I started getting into that.
Then I started getting into, like, Miles Davis and also Gershwin. So "Porgy and Bess," the play, is sort of how like this CD is. So it's like Wyclef Jean presents "Memoirs of an Immigrant." So I think of all of this great music, and then I think of what cast that I could pull from Little Wayne all the way to Paul Simon. The good, the bad, the ugly, the hate, the love, the war, the passion. And then it all just comes together in one CD.
Tavis: Who knew? Wyclef Jean and George Gershwin. That's a mouthful right there. And I say that with humor, because I totally get that from listening to your work and following your career over the years, which raises this question for me. How important has it been in your career, musically and quite frankly just for you to distinguish yourself, as you've done so well, from everybody else out there, to have that kind of training, that kind of ability to play an instrument, play many instruments? How important has it been for you to distinguish yourself from everybody out there that all that's a part of your repertoire?
Jean: Well for me, a lot of people have their role models. So one of my role models is Quincy Jones. So every time anybody looking and they used to be, like, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, I'd be like< "Yo, who's the cat doing them rhythms?" And so watching the way Q did his stuff, I always was, like, I always wanted to separate myself.
Because what happens is you'll come and as you get older, there'll be new yous. There'll be like oh, this cat reminds us of Wyclef, that cat reminds - so that means for you to last for 25 to 30 years, you must have a whole body of work and you can't get centered into a box. And I went, even starting with the Fugees, when I came in with the Fugees the whole thing was, like, we will not be in a box.
So till today, so some waves come and I just step back. And, like, I waited for three years for the wave to go, and then after that I came back with the Shakira record "Hips Don't Lie."
Tavis: Pras was here not long ago, and I asked him a questions - I should have just pulled that - I wish I had the clip ready, Neil, to just play, because his answer was so funny I can't even do justice to it. I asked him how likely is it that we would ever see the Fugees get together again, and he gave me some funny, off-the-wall response that I can't even remember now. He was crazy.
And every time we see - my producer Chris McDonald and I were talking before we started the show tonight, and he was just saying that he was watching the VH1 special the other day, three hours of the Fugees, a lot of Wyclef for a couple of hours.
And Chris was saying to me that when he sat and watched that for three hours, it just hit him in his heart because he realized how much he missed having the Fugees on the music scene. So any update at all about whether or not that may be possible at some point, or still right now just not possible?
Jean: The Fugees, the nucleus, is Lauren, which means, like, you see she's in the middle - that's the nucleus, right? (Laughter) And then it's sort of like you don't want to play yourself where you're doing a reality show, you're trying to find a Lauren Hill, where all of these people are doing these crazy reality shows. This was a group that was created by God.
Like it happened, two kids from Haiti, one from Jersey, and we got together. And the time of going back into the studio with Lauren was really excited. Dave Chappelle, Block Party, really excited, we were always excited. But every day that I came into the studio she was a different person, to the point where I reached out to her parents and I said, "Well, this seems like a case of bipolar here," and no one wanted to just go straight up and tell her that she needs medicine.
So I feel for any form of the - I would be happy with a Lauren Hill album, meaning, like, I want to see her just complete a song from beginning to end. Because if she can do that, that's progress to lead toward something. So I think before it even - we could remotely talk about the Fugees, we should just talk about her getting better as a person, I think.
Tavis: So over the least year, it's not what you suggested, it's not a completion of a new song or a new record, but over the last year she did a couple of dates here and there. I've had some friends who caught her on the road in a couple of spots. I didn't see it, but it was, to my knowledge, the first time she'd actually been out performing, even, in a long time. So we'll see what happens with that.
Let me ask very quickly how much of that humanity in your lyric that I referenced earlier has to do with your being from Haiti?
Jean: Well, Haiti is automatic, but a lot of people - it has to do with my father and my mother, really. My dad was a Nazarene preacher who came to America in the seventies. And he had a work visa, you know what I mean? I don't think the Democrats or the Republicans are about to like what I'm about to say. (Laughter) So he came on a work visa, right? So of course the visa expired, and he decided to hideout.
One day my dad, he's in the factory and he's working, and all of a sudden he hears "Immigration." Boom, my dad takes off. (Laughter) He's running, immigration chasing him, and he gets away. And keep in mind, meanwhile, I'm still in Haiti. He left me when I was one. I came to America when I was 10 years old. By then, he had two kids in the States that was able to be citizens. The law was a little different then.
And I would say him raising me in the church, every day, making us get up to pray at a certain time, making us read the good book, I think that sort of like is the way that I have what I have. I can't live and don't give back. Because for you to live for yourself is not to live. To give to others, that's living.
Tavis: Well, I'm glad he gives back in so many ways, most principally with his music. His new CD, Wyclef Jean, that is, "Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant." I don't throw these words around loosely or ill-advised, and the word icon is so over-used. But you're looking at a guy here in Wyclef Jean who is fast becoming an icon, a legend in his own time, because his music is just so all that and then some. Wyclef, good to see you, man.
Jean: You too, brother.
Tavis: Thanks for the new CD (unintelligible).
Jean: All right.
Tavis: Good to see you, my pleasure.
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