Mr. Fugee

Wyclef Jean hosts his own Carnival

by Franklin Soults

Last year the Fugees rode out of the commercial doldrums of "alternative rap" and into the pop-history books with the astounding success of their aptly titled second release, The Score (Ruffhouse/Columbia). It was an album of straight pop covers, easygoing raps, and hardheaded politics that defied every law in the hip-hop marketplace by crossing over without being widely denounced as a sellout. For this achievement alone, The Score was arguably the most important release in hip-hop since Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg instituted hardcore's reign with Dre's The Chronic.

That triumph under his belt, the Fugees' 26-year-old senior member, Wyclef Jean, could easily have coasted for a couple years before organizing a follow-up effort. But in between the incessant touring, interview giving, and high-life living that followed the Fugees' success, "Clef" somehow found time to record his first album under his own name, Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival Featuring Refugee Allstars (Ruffhouse/Columbia). For me, at least, the move was a bit of a stunner. It instantly struck me as a bad sign.

"This is the first time kids get to hear Clef -- you know Clef standing by himself as Clef," Wyclef Jean intoned in the initial press release for his solo disc. But I had to wonder whether maybe it was the critics, not the kids, who made him do it. Although The Score placed well on numerous year-end polls, it was commonly voiced that the group's only major talent was Clef's junior partner, the beautiful 20-year-old singer and rapper Lauryn Hill. Of course, even a cursory glance at the credits made Clef's contribution obvious -- he co-wrote most tracks, co-produced them in his home studio, and played guitar throughout the album -- but perhaps his bruised ego demanded more respect. Certainly that ego has gotten more noticeable each time I've caught the Fugees live or on TV. (When I first saw them, in March of '96, Clef was only a genial tease. By the Grammys a year later he had become an outright ham.)

Whatever his motivation, this solo move could have destroyed, or at least tarnished, The Score's rarefied achievement. After all, the Fugees aren't a multipartite incarnation of one brilliant producer's musical vision, the way the Wu-Tang Clan are under the RZA. Their combination of artistic innovation and pop assurance depends not only on their individual skills but on their gender equality, their multinational solidarity (Clef and the Fugees' third member, Prakazrel Michel, both came over from Haiti as children), and a willingness to put community before individual expression.

Against all odds, that's exactly what Clef's wide-ranging, loose-limbed, thoroughly virtuosic solo project offers up as well. Recorded mostly on the road, the album captures the inclusive mood that the Fugees rode so triumphantly last summer on the Smokin' Grooves tour. On the new album -- inviting along everyone from New Orleans institution the Neville Brothers and former Bob Marley backers the I-Threes to the golden-voiced Lauryn Hill and salsa queen Celia Cruz -- Clef not only gives his guests room to shine, he treats the whole project with a relaxed, joky air you could almost take for humility. It isn't quite the tour de force that The Score is, but it leaps confidently through the breach created by that album as if it were really that easy.

In a way, it is. "Clef standing by himself as Clef" turns out to mean Clef standing as a child of exodus, a first-generation immigrant whose perspective takes in a huge span of Pan-American music. His scope includes reggae (the perfect Marley rip, "Gunpowder"), soul (the lovely "Mona Lisa," performed with the Nevilles), old-time disco (the rocking Bee Gees tribute "We Trying To Stay Alive"), and funky Latin folk (a lowdown version of "Guantanamera"). For the hell of it, he even tries his hand at whiteboy classical music with the sampled opera hook to "Apocalypse" and the lush orchestration provided by members of the New York Philharmonic on the haunting "Gone yill November."

Last but not least, there's Wyclef's claim to all brands of Haitian music. The Score featured snatches of Haitian Creole thrown out here and there; The Carnival includes a full suite of Creole songs, including the rap "Sang FŽzi" (set to "The House of the Rising Sun"), the lilting folk ballad "Jaspora" (which I think is about boat people), and the upbeat compas number "YelŽ," all composed by Clef standing by himself as Clef, but also standing shoulder to shoulder with the entire world. Rarely has ego tripping been such a selfless way to go.