Recently I had the honour of interviewing Wyclef Jean. A Hip Hop artist, a great songwriter, musician and humanitarian. 

Wyclef is a role model to youngsters and adults alike. His constant efforts to engage the youth and spread the word of non-violence and peace with his infectious and positive personality has seen him achieve over a million followers on twitter.

As I said to ‘Clef, The Score was a defining moment for Hip Hop, it broke racial barriers and it was on constant play in my household. I remember when “Fug-ee-la” was being premiered on a show called “Flava” (which used to come on in the early hours of the morning) and because I had school in the morning, I put in a VHS and put the video on timer and watched it before going to school the next morning.

We Used To Be Number 10″  lol

Needless to say, I was super exicted to do the interview. It took place the hallway on a office building. Dictatorphone in hand, connected to my Blackberry (unfortunately Blackberry don’t have a recording facility on their phone’s). The audio wasnt clear enough to post up so I wrote up extracts of the 35 minute conversation.

Lastly I have to give respect to Wyclef because he called me. When have you heard of a artist of the stature ringing a journo/blogger? That’s respect!

“I’m 37 years old and this is no time to back down”

Sumit: With your new mixtape, you’ve had the streets and interwebs buzzing. I’ve heard you talk about going back to your Hip Hop roots but I want to know, why now?

Wyclef: It was important to get to a certain pinnacle where I wanted to go to, to show people that even though we come from Haiti, we come from the heart and was raised in the PJ’s (projects). People are looking at me like an iconic figure. They are like ‘ok, that’s that guy who wrote Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie”, the guy that wrote the same record with Michael Jackson, that’s that guy “Gone Till November”, that’s the “911″ guy, that’s the Carlos Santana guy (”Maria Maria”). It is important before going into my next project and the last one I did, killed them in the States called “A Sweetest Girl”, its important before going on to the next Wyclef Jean album that people understand that I did not forget my tone and my tone meaning, if it wasn’t for Hip Hop, I wouldn’t be where I was at. Keep in mind right, when people usually decide to go back and do a Hip Hop tape, that shit be wack (laughs) and you’d be like ‘oh man this person shouldn’t even come back because they rhyming about scooby doo but with me you gotta understand like I say on my joint “I’m from the battle rap era”. No matter how nice you are in battle rapping you’re not gonna make money, you gotta make sure you got them songs and the instruments cracking. But it was important before going on to the next Wyclef Jean project for kids that are 13,14,15 listening to Drake or Lil Wayne, to them Toussaint Saint Jean is a brand new character, so I find life in the mixtape circuit.

Sumit: On “Streets Pronounce Me Dead” you sound a little annoyed and at the same time defiant. One lyric “last time I remember him was gone to November.

Wyclef: Alright, alright you were paying attention (laughs)

Sumit: “…He say I don’t spit no more, all I do is sing songs. Last time he felt me was when I rhymed with Big Pun” Now going back to what you just said about making yourself relevant for kids today, does it annoy you that people don’t give you more credit?

Wyclef: No…not at all. Because what happened is Hip Hop got amnesia and you got to remind them every three weeks. There some people that feel like you are so big on a pedestal. Like I got the mansion. But like if I got the mansion and I got the yacht and I got all of that, why should I really care about what people say to you? You see the thing about Hip Hop and Rap culture is that it teaches you. You could never back down, once you back down, it can be taken as a sign of weakness. I’m 37 years old, this is not the time to be backing down, if you say something, I’m going to address it. So the song “The Streets Pronounce Me Dead” was basically creating my own funeral through Hip Hop. Its like Nas saying Hip Hop is dead, I just said the Streets pronounce me dead. Sometimes we’d be saying Hip Hop is dead and Hip Hop is not dead, its just changed in different forms.

“Whether you’re a shotta, a crip or a blood, you can gang for whatever you feel but at the end of the day the Warrior movement welcomes you”

Sumit: The Warrior movement on twitter is kinda heavy right now. Tell me about that, how did it start and what you hope to achieve?

Wyclef: Shout out to Samantha, she’s a Warrior and she made this interview happen. We want people to understand how the world is connecting. On my song “Warrior’s Anthem” i said “I’d rather be online selling music to my Warriors because Ive seen killers kill killers, robbing drug dealers”. That’s not the lifestyle I intend for anybody. The Warrior movement started when I left Haiti, I left Haiti when I was 10 and I came to America. When I was 18 I started the Fugees and the Fugees is short for Refugee. When I was 30 I went back to Haiti because the gang violence has escalated on a whole other level, I’m sure you’ve probably seen some of it in the UK. When it comes to Haiti, Haiti is no joke. I am highly respected by everyone out there and I felt it was only right to get on a plane and talk to all the gangs out there. So the whole thing is, as a Warrior you never forget you’re roots and its not about the money. Money cant issue you respect as a Warrior.

The whole idea as a Warrior is you cant take nothing with you. So then when I came back to America, keep in mind that there are gangs on all part of the globe and what we are saying is, what ever gang you are in, whether you’re a shotta, a crip or a blood, you can gang for whatever you feel but at the end of the day the Warrior movement welcomes you. I’m not gonna criticise what you do but what I’m gonna do is tell you is violence is not the way. So if you follow the movement and community, we can create alternatives for you. It’s not about ‘ok man, Wyclef wanna keep getting rich, keep getting wealthy’, its about social entrepreneurship and that’s not gonna happen unless we take the music back in our hands and that’s why Ive done this mixtape so I can start communicating with the thugs and the thugettes.

“There’s alot of phony people acting like they are running stuff, they ain’t running shit because they cant go to any hood and be comfortable” 

So the definition of a Warrior is somebody who rises to the occasion. You know how many times people counted me out of the game? Dudes by like ‘aight man, Clef ain’t in the game no more’ and I’ll come back and slap them in the face with a Shakira record. I rise to the occasion, I am a Warrior because I come from the hut, I went to the projects to the mansion. And just so people get it straight, its not just about you’re from the hood, that’s not what being a Warrior is about. Someone can be at work right now trying to get a job position and is shitted on by everybody else and they rise to the occasion and they get that position, they define it. They are Warriors. When we say “Warrior Music”, we live and breath that.

Sumit: What does it take to be a leader?

Wyclef: To be a leader you have to experience everything so you can talk about it. Like I was shot at 14 years old and knew I didn’t want to be shot again. I was part of a street movement when I was 16 years old. I know what it feels like to go into a grocery store and tell the man “yo listen, give me everything behind the counter”. My mother told me you can take that negative energy and turn it into a positive and get people to follow you. To be a leader, you gotta walk the walk but you got to talk what you walk. At the end of the day, Wyclef is respected as a person before a artist. Dudes be like “yo I respect that dude”. You cant be a leader if you don’t respect people. There’s alot of phony people acting like they are running stuff, they ain’t running shit because they cant go to any hood and be comfortable despite what they have.

Sumit: But why does Hip Hop have such a lack of leaders. We have some but not enough. You said it yourself that Hip Hop teaches us so why do we have a lack of teachers?

Wyclef: Because people are more worried about making money and generate millions of dollars as opposed to worry about the youth, that’s the bottom line to it. All they worry about is how I can make more money, how can I fuck more bitches and the thing is…I’m not telling you I don’t make alot of money and I never told you that I don’t fuck bitches but the reality of it is, you gotta live for something. Can you imagine if Bob Marley didn’t leave that information for us? If Marcus Garvey didn’t leave that information for us? We gotta rise to the occasion and its about time. 

“Keep in mind, no matter how bad you think you have got it, somebody else got it worse”

Sumit: But as a leader, as an artist who has been in the game so long, have you ever doubted yourself, your leadership skills and what do to overcome that?

Wyclef: I’ve been in the game since I was 14, 15 years old and you gotta understand, as a boxer Muhammad Ali will always be Muhammad Ali but there was times when he questioned like “damn am I gonna knock this guy out? But damn I’m still Ali, I’m gonna do it”.

I want your readers to know this, if there is a man or a woman that at times they don’t doubt themselves then they are lying because doubting is a natural instinct.

Keep in mind, no matter how bad you think you have got it, somebody else got it worse.

I’m reading the paper and the guy goes “man Wyclef Jean is washed up, he’ll never come back again in trillion years, he’s done. That shit was wack, that shit was wack”. Now, when he says that right, all I do is close my eyes and I imagine that small village that I was in, in a hut and I see myself riding to school on a donkey and then I remember what a man told me. He’s like “where are you going?” and I said “I’m going to America”. He said, “there’s no way in hell you’ll ever get to America, that will never happen”. And I always refer to that whenever people criticise me. I go back to that same old man when I was riding that donkey.

Sumit: Now I didn’t want to talk about this and I know you have spoken about this a million times but the Fugees….

LINE GOES DEAD

Sumit standing in an office building hallway thinking “yo was Clef really mad I asked about the Fugees???  While I stand there figuring out whether it was the reception or was Clef annoyed, the phone rings again and Wyclef’s number appears on the screen…

Wyclef: (laughing) This interview was going well soon as you mentioned the Fugees and the shit hung up (still laughing)

Sumit: I thought “shit Wyclef hung up on me for talking about the Fugees, what the hell? I grew up on you guys”

Wyclef laughs

Sumit: Nah but for real, I wasn’t sure whether to bring it up because its been done to death…

Wyclef: No no no its cool, we can talk about it because when a fan is talking about it, its important because for a fan they are still trying to figure out what the hell went wrong so I’m hoping I can tell you something I haven’t told anyone else.

Sumit: But I mean do you guys still talk?

Wyclef: I haven’t spoken to Lauryn, last time I spoke to her was Dave Chappelle’s show (Block Party) and I didn’t speak to her because I feel she needs some time, she needed some time to find herself. She’s basically gotta find herself and you know what? This is what I am hoping this whole Warriors movement will spark the energy because I know she loves Hip Hop and its been a while since I didn’t Hip Hop so I’m hoping that when they hear this EP they’ll be like “yo man we need that shit, lets start having fun again”.

Then I became a fan and spoke to ‘Clef about a few things including one of my favourite Hip Hop skits of all time, the skit on The Score before Fu-gee-la (the one in the Chinese resturant).

Wyclef’s latest EP Toussaint Saint Jean is available on iTunes. Buy From iTunes 

Follow Wyclef on Twitter

Thanks to Samantha!