Music, not politics, made Wyclef Jean a household name in Haiti and a multimillion-record-selling international star who has always proclaimed his Haitian origins. That was before he announced that he would run for president of Haiti.
The musician Wyclef Jean at a New York benefit in January for Haitian earthquake relief.
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From the beginning of his recording career Mr. Jean, 37, has been a champion of Caribbean culture as an extended family, affirming his Haitian roots but also mingling styles from across the Americas. "The future of the world is eclecticism, and it's either you join us, or we swallow you," he told the British magazine Blues & Soul.
His announcement on Wednesday that he would run for president puts him in a crowded field that may also include Raymond Joseph, his uncle, who became Haiti's ambassador to the United States in 2005.
Mr. Jean's music positions him as a cultural unifier, merging pan-American sounds -- particularly hip-hop, Jamaican reggae, Haitian compas and other Caribbean rhythms -- to blend party tunes with political righteousness. At times he has reached for the mantle of the ultimate Caribbean musical hero, Bob Marley. At "America: A Tribute to Heroes," the all-star Madison Square Garden concert that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, he sang Marley's "Redemption Song."
Mr. Jean's 2004 album, "Welcome to Haiti Creole 101," includes a song called "President," timed to the United States presidential election. In it Mr. Jean rapped, "Instead of spending billions on the war/I can use that money so I could feed the poor." He also sang the chorus, "If I was president/ I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday/ Then go back to work on Monday."
Mr. Jean sold millions of albums in the 1990s as a member of the Fugees, the Grammy-winning hip-hop and R&B group that included Lauryn Hill and Mr. Jean's cousin and fellow Haitian, Prakazrel Michel, known as Pras. The Fugees got together in New Jersey, where Mr. Jean grew up after his family emigrated from Haiti to Brooklyn and then to New Jersey. His father was a pastor, and Mr. Jean became the church's choir director.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
