'Clef, Unmasked

05/28/2002 8:00 PM, LAUNCH
Jeff Lorez

"The headline will be, 'Wyclef Dies From Allergy Attack After Interview,'" jokes dread-locked musician/songwriter/producer Wyclef Jean between sneezes and sniffles, his handkerchief on constant standby. It's mid-April and an unbelievable 92 degrees in New York--the city weather seems to have jumped straight from winter to summer, skipping over spring entirely--but if it weren't for the onset of his allergies, it could be any time of the year for Wyclef. He's hardly left the confines of his newly purchased midtown recording studio during the last three months, as he's been hard at work on his third solo album, Masquerade.

Indeed, while his former Fugees cohorts Lauryn Hill and Pras have been conspicuous in their absence from the charts in recent years, Jean has continued on his musical mission with almost Prince-like dedication. According to him, though, the decision to record Masquerade was personal rather than professional. "I had to make this album. It was my therapy after losing my dad," he says solemnly, referring to a fatal freak accident in which his father was crushed by a car in his garage last year. "If I didn't have music, I'd probably be strung-out somewhere."

Incredibly, Jean's father never saw his son perform onstage until shortly before his passing. "He came to my concert at Carnegie Hall for the first time. He never came to any of my shows. He said [affects Haitian accent], 'Huh, see. Looks like you made something of yourself now, boy. You're successful now, look. You've got black, folks, white folks, Asian folks.' He said, 'The reason I was giving you a hard time is because you're from Haiti, just like me, the village where there's only 200 people. For you to come to America and look at me in the eyes and tell me you want to become some singer, I'll look at you like you better go to school and get a law degree, boy.'"

Thankfully, Wyclef feels he got the closure with his father that he needed in order to move forward. "I felt that I told him everything before he passed," he says. "Me and my father went through a war period where we wasn't talking. He's a minister, and I was into what I was doing. He wanted me to go to theology school--I didn't want to go. I wanted to do music. I told him I was a minister through music. I grew up in a Caribbean family household, so the parents are always right. My father smacked me up 'til I was 20. It was a strict household." The father and son became closer later in life, however. "He spent two years traveling with me, which was better than performing for people, because all of the money didn't really mean anything to me, 'cause I had no peace with him. It felt so good to say to him, 'Dad, man, jump on the Concorde. Meet me in Paris!' That was the best feeling...So the last two years with my dad were the closest. I didn't know why. It was because he was going to pass. If we hadn't done that, I'd be f--ked up.'"

Wyclef has always been an interesting character--occasionally brilliant (the Fugees' output, Destiny's Child's career-making "No No No," "Gone 'Til November," "911," Carlos Santana's "Maria, Maria") but sometimes guilty of crowding his albums with mere hardcore hip-hop album filler. There's no doubt that he's a gifted musician and songwriter, but his desire to keep it real for the 'hood can often be his weak link. As with Wyclef's sophomore set, The Ecleftic, Masquerade only soars after its seventh track, when his musicality takes centerstage and his indistinguishable hip-hop is finally set aside.

Wyclef has clearly proven himself, so why the constant need to court the respect in the hip-hop market, which he openly admits is fickle? Keeping it real is one thing, but at times it seems as if Jean has deliberately sabotaged what could have been a really great album. "I realized you always have to go back to the roots," he says in his defense. "My vibe for this album was basically here [Manhattan], Brooklyn, and Jersey. I hadn't been traveling. No matter how far you go, if you can't go back to the essence, you're not sayin' nothin'. The essence for me is hip-hop. But the hip-hop community I came up in isn't a loyal community. The way I sequenced the album is [tracks] 1 through 7 is for the knuckleheads. Then the other side of 'Clef comes out...the more creative side."

And it's that side--featuring such songs as "Two Wrongs" with Claudette Ortiz from City High (the first single, and a natural successor to "911"), the fluid "Thug Like Me," an emotive tribute to his father entitled "Daddy," and an Marley-fied remake of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"--that takes the honors. But of course, it wouldn't be a Wyclef album without a massive swing from the sublime to the ridiculous, as evidenced by covers of the Four Seasons' "Oh What A Night" and a sampling of Tom Jones on "Pussycat."

"When I have to make records for people and records for myself, it's two different approaches," states 'Clef, explaining his hugely eclectic projects. "When I'm working with other people, I know they come to me to get them to pop off. Me, though, I'm not a pop-off artist, I'm an artiste. Wyclef or the Fugees are not those type of [pop] artists. It just goes, 'pop!'--but that's not how we think. If we started thinking in those terms, it would be the death of me. Even when someone comes to me and says, 'I need a hit,' I tell them, 'I don't know what that is, but I know what a hot song is.' When it comes down to myself, it's always a fight with my creativity. I know 'Two Wrongs' from my album is blazing and it's the next level of '911'; I flipped 'Pussycat' and 'Oh What A Night.'"

Explaining the method to his madness, he continues: "I sequenced the album like a radio station. Around midday, you'll hear more of the commercial hip-hop stuff. When the nighttime comes, you'll hear more of the depth of the records, when the beat stops and we get into the culture and the conscious vibe and the reggae." And what does his label make of an album that draws from folk, reggae, hip-hop, '60's pop, and even classic Vegas? "The record company is happy, because they feel they have things that they can play. I'm happy because I feel I have enough records to bump in the street and in the dancehall with the reggae, so I'm cool with that. It's always a fight, though."

Driving Wyclef is his story--that of a poor immigrant from Haiti, born to a strict minister father, raised in the unforgiving streets of Brooklyn and New Jersey. As much of a rebel as Jean can appear to be, it's his conservative upbringing that has served him well in the face of the bling-bling generation. While others of flaunt their wealth, the public persona of 'Clef is hardly the Bentley/Rolex/diamond-encrusted jewelry type. "I'm cheap, and I'm proud of it!" he declares. "When the Fugees were big, we made a whole lot of money and what happened was that I saved my money and never spent it. Pras, my partner, was coming around with watches, cars, Ferraris--and people would see me walking and be shocked! I remember we did a show with Jay-Z when he was opening for us once and I had a little gold cross on, and either Jay-Z or [Jay-Z's manager/partner] Damon Dash said, 'Yo man, all this money you making, and you wearing a little gold cross!'"

Wyclef's longtime struggle to bridge the gap between his classically conservative Caribbean upbringing and the wild environment that surrounds him in New York is also why he can effortlessly flit between musical genres, working with the kind of artists many of his Timberland-wearing contemporaries would balk at--Mick Jagger, Kenny Rogers, Tom Jones. Personally, Wyclef is also a paradox: a hip-hop renegade who happens to be the son of a preacher, a married man and who's also a playboy. Jean's philandering has been well-documented (his romance with Lauryn Hill and roving eye are rumored to have played a part in the Fugees' breakup), but has the onset of his 30s mellowed his libido at all?

"I'm definitely more mature. In the beginning I had women problems, 'cause you know, I represent for the guys," he confesses. "But I was actin' a fool, whilin' out. I'm not sayin' I don't while out anymore. I'm not gonna lie to you. But what happens is that you get to a point when you say, 'What the f--k am I doin'? Who am I gonna spend the rest of my life with?' You be in a club with these girls and they're looking at you, giving you play, but you don't want no play, because you realize the next week Jay-Z comes into town and it's the exact same thing. If you value your life, you're not gonna be doing that type of thing."

Has this newfound maturation helped heal old Fugees wounds? Will there ever be another Fugees album, or is that just an urban myth? It might happen one day, but judging from Wyclef's answer, probably not any time soon. "I've been communicating with the Fugees and it feels a lot better now than it did three or four years ago," he says tentatively. "The thing is with the Fugees is that it's a mysterious band. Bands break up and no one gives a f--k, but with the Fugees, the consistency of how we stayed around in the scene...people hear rumors. They know what's going on. But if the Fugees come out and the sh-t is wack. I'll feel like I took 100 steps back.

"Right now, I've got the lead in what I'm doing," he continues, happily focused on his solo career. "For me, I'm in the best position. No one expects me to come in at number one, and I'm not concerned with it either. Let me come in at number 20, I'll be happy. When I come in, I'm not going away fast; I've been around for a while, and plan to be around for a while more."