Looking for the next Shakira. The concept? A Bourdain -esqe show for music. Every week, Wyclef hopes to bring viewers with him on tour around the globe as he delves into different cultures on the search for talent.
It was weird. They were some big hip-hop group in a very traditional style, and we were opening up doing our thing, with all our instruments and all that. We were always about having a band and a DJ because we were so much more than just rappers: we were a group. The live instrumentation sparked our performance, because we were musicians in every way.
Our drummer at the time was a cool cat named Johnny Wise, who is known for how well he plays break beats. That was his main thing; overall his drum skills were pretty unique and not exactly technically perfect. But that was all good to me, because having a nontraditional drummer was important to me.
When Johnny got on the set and started laying it out, L, Pras, and I lit up and we did our thing. I had to feel that shuffle beat he laid down, because I was the Cab Calloway of the Fugees, leading everyone, showing them which way we were going to move. Those German shows were unusual because no one was expecting us. That was an interesting welcome.
Honestly, I had no idea why or how that shit got there. Coming from the States, it made no sense to me. Racism here, and that word specifically, is a product of slavery and American history. But fuck, there it was, on that wall for all to see, in the depths of this country. We were far from home but that same hate was all around us. We opened up and the show went alright, and then these German hip-hop groups played, who were dope and cool, but nothing could really offset that racism vibe that we felt the minute we walked in and saw that word on the wall.
So it was a weird night. I remember thinking how no one at home was going to believe me when I told them that I saw German hip-hop acts who knew what they were doing. I could hardly believe it myself. Our European travels took us to France, Iceland, England — just about every festival going on at the time — and that is how we built our name from the ground up.
We had been opening up for these guys and there was our song coming out of the radio. Apparently it had become one of the most played tracks in the few weeks we were gone and nobody had told us. Our stock had gone up from being in tenth place, playing support slots on European tours, to being the headliner right there in our hometown. That summer we played Jones Beach and I was about ready to lose my mind. No one could take that moment from us, standing there on that stage with the ocean behind us, playing our hearts out to a hometown crowd.
All that rejection, all of that choreography learned in front of that mirror, all of it to go from a room in Germany with racist remarks on the wall to a sold-out crowd at Jones Beach. They knew every single word. The whole time, Lauryn and I were falling into a daring kind of love, while I was already in love with my future wife, Claudinette, across town. I need to rewind the tape a bit to explain all this. I met Claudinette when I was about nineteen, and she is a few years older than me.
This was about the time when I started rehearsing with the Fugees and moved into the Booga and started spending time with Lauryn. I spent all my time with either one or the other of them, you know what I mean?
Lauryn and I were pursuing a dream together, and that goal, as well as our mutual love of music, was the language that brought us together. I mean it when I say I loved them both, because I did. And I think most men in my position would have done the same.
I now know it ended up causing more trouble than anything — for all of us — but at the time that was the last thing on my mind. Lauryn is like that, too, so we connected in every way all those nights under the stars. Not for a second. She was smart and going to school and I had barely graduated high school.
And she believed in me; that made me feel like a million bucks. Actually I used to borrow money from her to go to the clubs because she wanted me to hear what was going on so that I could be better at what I wanted to do. She was mature and supportive — beautiful, driven, and independent.
She came from a good family and she loved me as much as I loved her. She fell in love with the real me: the comedian, the character, the silly, witty kid.
Wyclef puts his hands back around his mouth. No freebies. He smokes a lot of marijuana. In high school, Wyclef thought Hamlet was about a pig. The sleeve of The Ecleftic contains a drawing of Wyclef looming over a poor street, a Bible in one hand, a machete in the other. The sword is death, the book of life is peace. We have to choose. Wyclef stops moving. It was like someone was talking to me.
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They were established. Are these Fergies and Pinks and Adam Levines really the biggest stars the music industry has to offer now? The best singer in this video is Michael Jackson from a quarter-century ago. Die, everyone involved with this, just die. Actually, sure. You know who can sing? Brian Wilson. Almost everyone here seems so self-important. But this new version, even with the same people at the helm, is so self-congratulatory I feel like I need to take a shower.
Seriously, a rap break? Wow, that just kills it. According to Wikipedia, those were written by William, which makes sense. This has all the depth of a Hallmark knockoff or a Lifetime movie. Especially your rapper population? Of course this leads up to Kanye. I feel so terrible for Haiti that they were devastated by an earthquake and everyone in this recording studio gets to live. Otherwise, we might not know this was an emergency. Because his presence and his Creole vocals are the only real acknowledgment that this was supposed to be about Haiti and not about the music industry.
The whole thing was a joke.
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