Wyclef Jean Goes Back To School

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hearing the Fuji's second album, The Score, is the first time I remember not just liking music but loving it. Fuji Law killing Me Softly, Ready or Not would come on the radio and I'd get goosebumps. I still get goosebumps. Here and Lauren Hill sing that hook. There's something absolutely timeless about the music. Why Cleff created with Lauren and Praze as the fujis same as the Beatles, same as Stevie Wonder. That's how high I rate this music. So when white Cliff Jean pulled up to the studio we recorded this interview, I was nervous. I mean, I was bugging. But lucky for me, Why Cleff is one of the coolest people ever. I'll put it like this. Why Cleff is supposed to bring his guitar to the interview. Somehow the message never got to him. Instead of throwing a fit or bailing on the interview, he said, just find a guitar, I'll play it. I can play any guitar. Sure enough, we found the most jankie guitar in a nearby office. It's one of those guitars you'd buy it for a kid who says you want to play guitar, but you're not sure they're gonna stick with it one of those, but he was happy to play it. This is the dude who wrote a hit song for Carlos Santana, remember Maria Maria. And here he is miraculously tuning this junkie guitar which he plays during this episode. This is Broken Record season three liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes. For licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right, enjoy the episode. All right? Even my first instrum, what's the person's right, I'll right bass? First, up the bass man. If I picked up the bass, picked up a bass early high school. But first time I played the bass I was fourteen fourteen. I played the bass. First time I played first instrument ever was a trumbone. You know. I started with the horn instrument because my dad, he played like a little bit of saxophone. So I was digging like some of the horn instruments in the beginning, and so you grew up and hate without your mom and dad to start. So your parents were already in the States. Yeah, well, my dad, he he gotta work visa to come preach in America because it was for Church of the Nazarene. And at the time he was just like a brilliant minister, and it was like, Yo, we're gonna get you a visa and we're gonna bring you to America so you can help bring more Caribbean people to the faith. You know what I'm saying, right, because you know, sometimes being the church is like a basketball team. They just be recruiting, you know what I mean. So they like NBA draft picked My daddy and he came and he left me and hat at one years old. My mama was pregnant mother, bro, and you know it's it's the real immigrant story. He left in search of a life. And at the time, you know the immigration laws, Bro. When your visa done ran out, Bro, there was no joke. Yeah, so you have to go back because if your visa runs out, you gotta go back. At the time, my daddy visa run out and he goes. Luck, man, if I go back to the island, right now, I'll never get my kids up here. It'll never happen. So he was like, Yo, this must be a sign of God. And dude went underground. Just folks like when you're moving underground, it's like you're moving m grant like hardcore, like those that understand at the time when you are illegal. What used to happen was the factories had these deals, like the knitting factories. So my dad also was a tailor, so you know, at night they could bring like two three hundred immigrants and they're having you do crazy like sweatshop work. You know what I'm saying to you. Oh yeah, this was America, dog, This this was my daddy. And my daddy was working and he heard immigration and my dad said, bro, he took off like a cheetah man, like yeah. So somehow he got my mama up here and I'm still there eighty wow. And he had a they had a Brooklyn and they had a child. And so at the time, once again with those Gracian laws, you had a children in the United States. Now you could apply for citizenship. So you know, that's why I'm like real sensitive when it comes to like immigration policy, like mad sensitive because It's like I could have fallen like within the depending on what generation, I could have been a doctor baby, you know, depends on the generation. So so he had two kids in Brooklyn and they they got their citizenship because once you had the kids in the state at the time, they automatically became Americans. Then they came to Haiti. Man. I don't know if anybody you ever seen that movie slum Dog Millionaire. Yeah, that's me and my little brother bro. Like we up in the deep village until you were about like nine too, right, Yeah, we lived in a village. So was nine man, dirt poor like it's yo. By the time I got to the project in Brooklyn, I ain't know what they was talking about when they was talking about they were poor, because I didn't get it, you know what I mean. I'm like, yo, So we to to to go to the bathroom. We usual it's called a ivene, you know, and the ivene is like it ain't no bathroom. It's literally like you go something like they built in the back. If anybody's seen the movie Slump Dog Millionaire, literally that's what're using. The bathroom ain't no electricity, you feel me? Like, so you're relying on candles or a lamp. You know what I'm saying. Wow, And then you have what's called the oil for the lamp. You know what I mean. That's right, that's right, bro, the oil. And we live right around there was a big cemetery. So literally we lived our playground, you know how like dudes, you're like, yo, we you know, we're in the hood. Let's go to the park. Like we'd be like, yo, let's go to the cemetery. You know what I'm saying. What were you doing in the cemetery man playing? Wow? We would kids. Man, that was a playground for us, just an open space to man. Listen, bro, we was having a great time in the cemetery. We used to play this game. The game was called I'm going to America. So bring they bring the donkey around and I get in on the donkey and all the kids crowd around, and you know, it's mad crayol. You know what I'm saying. It in English and it's all Crayol at the time, and they're like, Yo, where you going? And I said, y'all know where I'm going. I'm going to America. And I said, okay, everybody tell me what y'all want, you know, and you know, so it's like, yo, bring me back diamonds. Dudes, like, bring me back food. Not keep in mind while this game is going on, we probably ain't eat for like three days, you feel me? Wow? Yeah? So you know imagination man, people be like, yo, how did you escape part of you? I said, through imagination. So I'm like real sensitive when people be putting. Uh when in Geo's put they go to these villages and then they film like these kids like you could see, like they film Haitian kids, African kids are and then they come back and they'd be like, yo, you know we you know, give us some money for these kids. And I was one of those post boys. I didn't need no money from nobody. It was like all I needed was an opportunity. So like the cry of the villagers, the kids are crying for opportunity, not for anything else, Like no one really demands a handout. That's really how we was brought up. So no matter how crazy it was, we still was happy. You know what I mean. I mean when you consider that you came here you were nine ten, yeah, and you get you become successful with the fujis like not even that much later. So it's like it wasn't even succept Like the real White Cleft story is even crazier. The foojiesus that like the very last chapter of the start of the White Cleft career, right. Because I came at nine, I was a hustler by the time I'm fourteen years old, Bailly fifteen years old, I'm in the studio with Curtis Blow. Yeah, Curtis Blow when you see him. I was Billy fifteen. Curtis Blow was producing my first crew. It was called Exact Change. So this was like so for me. And the way that that happened was through our school in Jersey because we used to go back and forth Brooklyn, New Jersey. So in Jersey they had a program where you can get an internship in the summertime, and we had got an internship for CBS Records, you feel me, So it's like you get that summer internship. It was a program for urban communities. And when I tell you, Bro, I was rapping and my father never knew what I did. Like the word rap a hip hop and my daddy's home Caribbean home church home bro like late eighties, early nineties, this is like dog, it's forbidden. So you have to understand, I'm living a double life, Like you know what I mean, Like when when you be seeing like them dudes, I'd be watching them old like tapes of like the aretas Otis and all of them. And then so when you in the church, it's still the same thing, like you got two circuits. Like so they'd be like, yo, you can't do that kind of music. So literally you're sneaking to do it without the church knowing. You feel that. That's how that was my hip hop. And and then in the church every Sunday is is you're pounding on church music. So my dad thought he was strict, but we had a manage a manager teacher Slash, and that's what helped me get into that program. And then she was like yo, we met Curtis, and I think from there he noticed like how I was in the studio as a kid, because I just always would ask questions like I'd be like, yo, why does the board move like that? And then I see like it's a knave board with all them keys in and I'm like yo, But my brain was like yo, if you learned to operate one, you can operate all you feel me. So then then I met Quincy Jones. This is all dog, this is We're not even talking food. Ji's yet, That's what I'm saying, like the real teenager. I'm a teenager. Look, Quincy Jones came to a play I did. It was an off Broadway play. It was called The Twelfth Night, and we was trying to get this is how crazy I was. So Twelfth Nights is Shakespeare. So you have these characters move Malvolio, Sebastian, the Duke and all of that. So it was like, what happens if we take this play and we put in an urban setting. So we Shakespeare and we put it in an urban setting. I did the entire score for the play, and from the play, I blew up. Mc light was in the play. Lisa Carson was in the play. Lauren Hill was in the play. Darren Madeline was Darren's last name, the big choreographer. Huh Darren, Darren Hansen, you know Darren. He was a crazy choreographer. Then he went on to choreograph for in Sync. So everybody was blowing up playing from Yeah, but as kids like it was just like you know, it was like a super talent. So for me, you know, going from there and loving the culture. I was a big fan of rock Kim right, So now now I'm like seventeen. My man coming, He say, yo, Rock Kim is shooting a video in Long Island, and I was like, Yo, come on, let's go. We're gonna get in the video. I ain't never mean know Rock Kim. I just was like a stand you know what I'm saying, like, Yo, I'm a fan. I gotta get there so I'll never forget. And my man was like, what's the treatment. I was like, I don't care what the treatment is. We're getting in the music video. So we took the train from Jersey. I took my upright bass, a big gass, upright bass dog on the train. My man took his drums dog, and we get there bro and they got the big bodyguards at the door. You know, it's like the big movie scene, you know what I mean, from the hood, and dudes like, can I help y'all? And I'm like, what you mean, Kim, can you help us? We're the band, We're here for the video. And he says, go set up by the pool. So now we set up by the pool, I set up my upright, my man set up his drum, and I'm wink. I'm like, yo, just go with this till the guard get here. So now Rock Kim is late, so the director starts to bring all the girls out and he gotta do these shots so rock him and they ain't there yet, so guess who he starts to shoot us. So now if you go online and you watch Eric B and Rock Kim, don't sweat the technique. I'm the kid with the upright bass man the technique video. Yes, the kid with the upright bass That's what I'm telling you. So it's like that's what I was saying, like, you know, before we talk about Fuji's I always want kids to understand like the grind to even get to because it's almost like you can see the glamor and the lights, but it's like for a dude, a kid to come from Haiti and you know, we barely talking about seventeen eighteen. So so I always tell extras when I go onto videos and I'm like, yo, don't sleep like yo do the bet, like, don't think you an extra. And I even was showing the extras like how you could steal a shot from the celebrities, you know, because I did it all in that rock Him video. Like you'll see I'll be like, yo, this is how you still shot one on one extra. So this was the culture. And then now I'm eighteen going on nineteen. I always remember this because this was the day that there was freeing Nelson Mandela. Wow. Right, And what's crazy about this story? I'm giving like I'm giving you. It's sort of like when people this will help people understand like why they love to score so much, like when they hear why it's so much like heart into it. So Mandela was getting out of prison just the day Mandela and I'm in Jersey and my man said, Yo, there's a label in New York called Easy Street, Big Beat Records, you know, and they have an instrumental and they're looking for somebody to write some music to it and do some vocals and you know it's paying like I think like two hundred fifty dollars. So I was like, yo, a man, you know, that's like a pair of pooma is the whole outfit, broh. So and you could get the brush to clean off your pooma, somebody step on it. So I go and I'm so excited because I know the story of Nelson Mandela, so I'm inspired that day. It's house music, and so my first record that I ever recorded was Bigbie Records, Atlantic and the records called out of the Jungle. Now when you go back to listen to this, it's a funny story with it. So I'm vibing these lyrics, man, because and everything I'm saying, I'm feeling it because I'm so excited about Mandela out of prison, and I'm so excited. After I do the vocals, I just I take the money. I don't sign a form or nothing. I leave. I'm gone, bro. So when I'm gone, this record comes out, my man, and it's called out of the Jungle. So when you listen to it, So it was a time when hip hop and house music was on the same level because we always going to the club and we literally was dancing to both because it was a big dance culture. So it was like you were either he was breaking the hip hop and at the same time, house music was like the Gully, you know, it was like the gully underground sound, but it was like forbidden also and it was a little deeper than hip hop because house. Your parents don't want you to get involved a house because you know, the house is a little deeper. Now you're getting you know, that's when the acid starts it. It's a different yeacause with the hip hop, you know you with the weed, anything safe, you feel sad at the time. Yeah, you dip into the house. They're like, yo. So the record comes out and it explodes in the underground. It's called out of the Jungle. Can you pull it up? Do you have it? Do you have You could pull it? You could pull it up, And I'm gonna tell you what's gonna bug you out. So years later, man a DJ I know called DJ Flex, not Flex from Hot ninety seven, my other man Flex who plays e DM. He goes, yo, man, did you have a twin in the nineties? And I'm gonna tell you why you can't find the record yet? And I'm gonna tell you how you're gonna find it and you're gonna die laughing. He goes, yo, did you have a twin in the nineties? And I said no. He said, yo, dog, I'd be spinning this record. This dude sound just like you, but he not you. His name is Africalli. Right, I'm like what he said, Nah, this dude sound he probably probably from Africa somewhere, but this dude sound just like you. So if you go online and you punch up Africalli out of the Jungle. So I left the studio. Dudes didn't know my name, and they're like, Yo, this mother fucking sound Africans. So let's give him a name. Motherfucker's just called me Africalli. They just they just gave me a name. Dude just turned the brown and traded me like a slave bra and was like, Yo, this is your name. So yo. Can you imagine like years later when I blow up and I see those same people and I'm like they're like, well, White Cleff, I'm like, no Africa. If you check the sleeve on Paradise Presents Africalli's Out of the Jungle, you'll actually see dedicated to the Freedom of Vandella. We'll be back with more from White Clef after the break. We're back with more from White Cleft. After the Africai incident, he finally connects with Prize and Lauren Hill to form the Fujis. So Prize hit me up and Prize, you know, Prize from Prizes like, uh, we call I used to you know, like you in the hood and you you make friends with. So Prize, I had a church band and remember I telling you in the church, and Prize wanted to come and be part of our church man. So he came and was like, Yo, what do you do? He said he played trumpet, and he pulled the trumpet out and started playing, was making us laugh. So I was like, yo, so we connected. So but Prize always had a hustle too. He always had a hustle. So Prize was serious. So Prize hit me up and was like, Yo, I'm in the studio with two girls and I need a reggae hook. That's what he told me. So you know, I'm like, what his prize up to now? Right? So so I go to the studio and the producers man our calis beyond from cooling the Gang. He's like the mastermind behind cooling the Gang. So everything we hit, I sell up bray Good all that stuff. He the one who did that. So I was just amazed to be in the studio. So I went and then I did my little vocals and so you know, I was on my one of my favorite movies. Was the five Heartbeats. Yeah, classic, classic. So I was on my Eddie Kane ship minus the drugs, you know what I'm saying. Still played the poker and everything, right, so you know, I see the pretty girls, you know I'm going there and I'm gonna smash this jack. So I did my part and I came out and and the girls was like, and you wrote the part? Like yeah, of course I improvised. There was a record called The Enforcer. The Enforcer the worst Fouji record ever, but it was yeah. So we were going and so Colie Benest like, Yo, do y'all hear that? I was like, no, he said, Yo, there's something going on with the four y'all. It was four people. It wasn't three. It was Lauren and another girl named Marcy, and Marcy sounded like Mariah Carey, and then Lauren had the Nina Simone vibe, right, So it was four people and the sonics and the way the vocals were sounding. This dude was like, Yo, this sounds like a group. And so Callise and his mind, who has created Cooling the Gang. What you think we're gonna tell this guy? No, I mean, he knows exactly what it is he got Grammys, he's sitting on it. So he bought us in to start recording, and then we started recording what became blunted on reality, not even the score yet. So while we was but Dude from Cooling the Gang was the Fuji's first producer and the real producer of the Fuji's, the first real producer of the Fuji's was Kalise Beyond from cool In the Gang, the Mad one of the like mastermind behind Cooling the Gang, Jungle Boogie, all of that. He was one of my senses, sadness, all that, yeah, some yo, some of madness. That's his whole brain. That's his brain. So you understand now he takes me in as an understud student because I'm always asking questions, you feel me? So he's so this is this was the birth of the Fuji's. So we struggling. So the girl Marcy parents says, look, this this group thing ain't gonna work for you. You have to go to school, Like you have a chance to go to college, you gotta go. And then she leaves the group and then she goes head to college I think in Boston, and then us three we stayed. We rehearsed every day, and we didn't just like rehearse like it was like we was clear like we wanted to be a band, not a group. Like we wasn't trying to just have mics and then turn. No, we wanted to come out with the guitar, you had the drums, the base, the whole put a band together. So every day we would rehearse. But where did that come from? Because that's like who else was doing this? Maybe the roots were probably maybe keep in mind my background was from the church, so as a mayastro already I had the idea of saying, you know, I played, so I was like, Yo, there's no way we're not gonna play, So we have to be a band. But like how does it even like because like sets a sonic the root. But I mean like it's not like a real thing to be like I'm gonna do when Yeah, but it was a natural thing for us, like we're not thinking. It's almost like every record today a kid sings yeah right, and it's natural to him, like he ain't thinking, he don't even know like acts these you know, these young little rappers today, like you'd be like, yo, they are singing naturally, right. But then you would have a young thug who has a song called why Cleft Young. Now, when you talk to him, you'd be like, yeah, that's my guy, like cleft. He'd be singing, he'd be to them. That's just natural. But it's natural because you guys like did it. Yeah. But what I'm telling you is when we was doing it in our brain, it was just like the way the kids are doing it today. So we wasn't thinking like somebody can't tell me, oh, if you sing going to November, you know, or Lauren singing killing me softly? Oh, y'all. Now we're more gangster than you, you understand, Like yo, Like we gangster than you because we are gonna say on the record that we're gonna pop you, and then we're gonna pull a certain gun out on you, and then we're gonna put the crack vowels in our hands. We're gonna know. But then, now, let's check the facts. I'm from Marlboro Projects in Brooklyn in the late eighties. You haven't looked up that project. It's one of the worst projects in the world. So for me, when I look at authors, it was just natural to us. I was like, yo, we all are gonna tell this story. But what made the Fuji's unique was you had three perspectives, right, So you had like Lauren that was on that, Nina Simone, you know that Donnie had the way things like she clearly was on that and was on some like black power vibes like like some you know, she would study all this stuff like POC like Tupac Loren would study like she had a clear understanding. If you want to understand the depth of black history with the Fujis, all you have to do is go to the first album, Blooded on Reality and play the first song. It ain't a song, it's a poem to the clues cut Klan. So this is the depth of the kind of chord that you're dealing with. So you had that, Then you had Prize, you know who, literally Prize would be listening to anything that was rock. Prize knew it. So if it was Guns n' Roses, if it was Metallica, if it was you know, so Prize was moving like a punk rock kid, you know what I mean, like and he had the ear like that. Then you had why Cleff, you know what I mean, a kid from the village. You know what I'm saying to you that that somehow became a weird jazz musician. So you put this kind of fusion thing together and it exploded into so so so to your point, it was natural, like it was like when people it was like, yo, I remember man driving my card, you know. And then this is like New Jersey drive style. So going back and where where we were racing too a Biggie Smallest concert. Why could we open en up for Biggie right? So and then so we're playing with Biggie. We in La. I remember we being in La and the show ice Cube. Everybody's there. My conception on everyone you could think of his dead. We get on what it's real. It's love because we come from that s And then keep in mind, so I wasn't even really listening to East Coast music, even though I was in the East Coast. Now, it's another weird thing about the fujires. I was listening to hieroglyphics like damn man, Yeah, that was more you know. So even when you hear the fujis, the way they rhyme, the whole style just sounded different. It was so it was a combination of all of that that was going on. So for us, hip hop wasn't just about that versus like even like like Dayla or Tribe, which are kind of or jungle brothers, they were more melodic. I could relate to them like they was doing like what I was doing, like they were doing it like you could hear they go from a rhyming to a melody. You know what I'm saying to you. And then what was my man that flip there I go, there I go, theren I go. It was a hip hop kid who did that too. He was from out here, I gotta think. But and then you had sous a mischief, you know, all of that like so, and in the production, I found it fascinating because it was a lot of jazz samples going on, you know what I mean. So so once again that that's the core when you from that kind of core, you know, because you got two kinds of people. You got the public. Who a kid who's from the hood, from really from the ghetto, from the projects. When he here ready or not, you think like he's he already knows the code. When I say now that I escaped sleepwalk away, those that that he knows, that's equivalent to a Biggie Smalls record. He know which Biggie record? He know the talk you know. So at the end of the day, we was ignoring what everyone was saying because critics were trashing us, right, remember the blunting reality, blunting on reality. Even like the respect we should have got when we did the score. It was like we was blowing up and it was crazy big. The score got respect, but the respect that it should have got it got afterwards, it seems like, though, but it got more respect weirdly from like the kind of like white sort of like the Rolling Stones or like the Village Voice like or like you know what I mean, like those type of one trillion quick trillion percent that's right, right, but like the source site was, you know, it's like, yeah, the once again And I came from Haiti, so I didn't. I didn't When I saw Bob Marley, that's the manager. The manager's phone is ringing. When I saw manager, he's a manager. Yo. When I saw Bob Marley, I saw Rolling Stones. I saw the Beatles. I'm saying like on VCR tape. I saw Michael Jackson, I saw the Temptations, I saw the Fuji's like I was like, we're gonna be big. So at the end of the day, I knew that a lot of those editors at the time they would not get what we was doing at the time, but it wasn't really for them, right because now we're thirty years in right. So imagine when I'm chilling and a nineteen year old kid comes up to me and he's reciting every lyric from the Score, the Carnival to a cleftic even all the way the Sweetest Girl. He's telling you how he found these records. It just makes you understand. All you gotta do is keep going, you know what I mean, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no scores, but I mean that, I mean you must hear it all the time, the scores, like for a lot of people. I mean that was That's one of the first music outside of like you know, I probably like maybe Summertime, Fresh Prince of Jazzy Jeff, Yeah, the Fresh Prince of Jazzy Jeff or something like that. But I mean, it feel like the Score is like the first music that I'm really cognizant of in my life. Like it was like just on repeat in my mom's car, Like just like all those hits, Man all those and it feels like every record on there could have been a hit. This really was only like four or five singles, but feels like every when you listen to we couldn't even put them out. We couldn't even put singles out no more. The label is like man like y'all could literally put a single out for each one of these songs. You know what, But I want to back up a little bit. I mean, so what were you playing at the time, Like you like you play like you say you go now without a guitar, Like I just saw you tune like the worst guitar you probably you know, you probably played in a while. Like what was it you were listening to before you got with the Fujis that you felt like you could kind of merge with what Prize and Lauren were doing? Like, well, I came up. I mean my brother we was in the hood. There was listening to like Pink, Floyd uh Sting, Synchronicity, the Police, Michael Hedges. That was my little brothers. Like one of my brothers was into that. So he would give me the music and now I would share the music back with him. You know, I was listening to like the loneliest monk like Miles Davis are Blakey the way the drum all row and then I would give him some of that music. You know what I'm saying, that's what you're listening. Yeah, all that and then and then uh and of course hip hop. We all my other brother Literally we would sneak because we had to hit the cassette and let it run, you see what I'm saying, and then get the tape and then listen back to that like the next day. So the ill thing is like if you know the Red Alert show, someone's taping it because you can't listen into it at the house. And then you leave, Man, you're throwing your headphones. You hit that Sony walk man bro and it was heaven. So for me, very eclectic at a young age, I loved back and they always used this. I was weird because I would watch movies so like I'm a movie buff, you know. My dad like would have VCR and different things. But they would see me watching films silently and then so like Once upon a Time in America classic and like before The Godfather the original, and then I would watch it but silent with no voice or whatever it said. Yo, what's you're doing? And I'm like, Yo, I could hear the score. I could hear the music that's supposed to be on this. So then when I go back and watch it, I put it on and match it with to see if what's in my head you feel what I'm saying to you? You test yourself kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah, And then it was crazy because years later, the first person who gave me my shot at scoring a movie is Brian Grazier, big, big producer, like he did like some of the biggest movies ever in Hollywood. But he was like they was like, yo, did this kid ever score anything? He said, no, but he's gonna score this one. And and you know what. The movie was Life Eddie Murphy and mart Lawrence. Yeah. I did the score for that. Amazing. Yeah, it was your first movie. That was my first score. Then from there I did Hotel Rwanda the theme song for that. So people started saying, Yo, this this cat. So the scoring is another life for me, Like I love I love that kind of stuff that I guess that's that discipline from like the jazz and the classical background, you know. So like, but what were you like, what like what were you playing on guitar at the time that you felt like you could turn into like I don't know if you could, kid you if you could play something like that? Was an example, like a riff that you were playing that you would hear that be like I could hear this, being like I could I could turn this into something with the fujis So anyone who's listening the way that I the guitar as a very annoythodox style. I consider myself a hip hop guitarist because when I play, you literally can hear diffusion of the drum inside your head and at the same time. But what made me crazy was I was a battle rapper and it used to throw people off because I would play instruments so they would underestimate bars because they would see the guitar in my hand. We're back with more from White Cleft. After the break, We're back with more White Clef. What were you listening to like in Haiti and Haiti? You know we have the music of the village, you know what I mean? Like you come up. I guess that's why I learned how to you know, like you see how I pick up an instrument and just the acoustic you know you're singing with the village. The ladies. You know, they got their hair tied down, they just and white. They're praying. Sometimes they're dressed in red. You know, they're worshiping, and they singing these songs, bro s, these hems. It's like it's very spiritual and very very like put you in trans vibe makes you feel a certain way. And I guess the same vibe I heard them singing when I was like seven or eight years later when I went to Lagos in Africa, samet vibe. Man, it's like just the music of the village. Man, would you getting like Funk records some of the states or like records? Nothing? I never heard no R and B, No nothing. The person who put me up on like R and B like like, say, yo, you ever heard Nina someone? I was like, No, that was Lauren. She's like check this out, you know. Then I heard Nina smone you ever heard four times? No? What's that? You know what I mean? Like I haven't heard of that. I was more like into like Theloneious Monk, like Miles Davis and that side of it. You know what I'm saying to you. But she put me up on that and Haiti. It was like just listening to folks like we call it. I've seen roots music Africana, you know what I mean, the core like till today. Like when I hear that, I could run through a brick wall and won't get hurt, you know what I'm saying. And were you playing along of that stuff too as a kid, singing, singing along? Yeah, you're singing along and you're doing like these crazy harmonies along with it. You know what I mean. You're treating them. It's more like really using the voice as an instrument. You were. Your voice is an instrument, but your voice is a warrior, like you know what I'm saying to you. So in my village, you know, if you come in, we can announce you. You know how Pavarotti projects. You know what I'm saying to you. So you could be a mile away and I'm like, like you are going to hear me. You know what I'm saying. It's like the call little while like it's really yo, these Africans is coming for real, Like so so all of that kind of stuff is real, you know what I'm saying. All of that is instilled in me, you know what I'm saying, you just put out a record in twenty seventeen. It was the first time in eight years, You've done something nine years? Yeah, and did you come? Did you? Did you put something out again? Because you started feeling like maybe things. I finally caught up to what I was doing. Well. I after I did Hipstone Live for Shakira. I mean that broke every record possible to mankind. So a hundred million records were for work and once again here we go. My brain is just different. I was like, I'm not gonna leave this earth, and knowing that I got this opportunity through the guards and then in the next lifetime they're gonna be like, yo, what did you really do with it? Yeah? Yeah, man, you know, y'all got me out this village, you know, and I doesn't you know, helped everybody out y'all. Y'all never heard of Beyonce? Yeah, I gave her a first say yeah, you heard of Whitney Houston. They look at me like, dog, really, what did you do with your life? So at the end of the day, I went back to my land. Man, I went back to Haiti, and I ran because I wanted to become president of my country. So I have a very militant side about me, and it's the realest side when it comes to ye cleft like Barb Marley, it's real for me. So if anybody go online, I mean you could see from assassination plot to on down, it's real where I come from. But the idea of a guy saying, you know, I'm gonna go back to my country, you could see, like when you leave in the space of music, in the politics, how vicious it gets. You know what I'm saying to you. You go from being loved overnight, they just turned you into a minute you know, if you notice they just parted Marcus Garvey, you know what I'm saying to you, after they'd done set up and framed up so many of us, you know. So I felt like I was a patsy caught up in a biggest situation in Haiti where real people was trying to steal billions and billions of dollars. And now when you look back at it, where did all that money really go to? So at the end of the day, I ran for president because I wanted to change all that. They took me out the race. I made my man become the president and then after that, I left the country and I went to Sweden, and I was spending time with a VICI and and me and a Vici'd be like, yo, why did you go to Sweden. I'm like, Yo, that's just one of them places I just feel good at. And then our children, and I was just getting my mind back because the music had changed. It went from hardware to software. So I liked the record Wake Me Up, and I like what Tim was doing. So I went and spent some time time and when I got back there was a small label called Heads Music, or all female label. That's the CEO right there, Madeline Nelson. I loved what they was doing with artist development because it looked like there wasn't chasing the check right because as a producer, think as a football coach, right, like, you could be a great coach, but when the players are in rhythm, that's a different kind of game. So every great coach with rings for them to get excited, you have to get these players with rhythm. So when I saw what Heads was doing, and then you know, they came. She came and was like, yo, Cleff, we want you to partner up with our label and we want you to do the same thing you did for Lauren, for Beyonce, for all of them. But we have a slew of kids that arranged from eighteen to like twenty five, twenty six. I was like, you'll bring them in, and these kids just gave me that energy. And of course it's natural. Quincy Jones ain't do Michael Jackson until he was fifty four. I'm forty nine, So all I could do is tell you that I'm just getting started. So when I came back, the first record I did right coming back was a record called Hendricks Record. Man. It was a tribute to Hendricks. And then I wanted to tell myself, was that a big influence? Like yeah, Jimmy Hendricks was a big influence, like hey Joe and all of that coming up. So the record when I said, yo, when my cousin got his first tech, I was playing Jimmy Hendricks in the basement. So I wanted to reintroduce myself right to now a kid that was nineteen that is in that frequency. And then it's so crazy because that record literally reinvented me to like the kids kids, you know, and to them, they was like yo. Then they went back and listen to gone to November. What was he talking about and all of that. So once again, I don't do music just because I want to do music. I don't know what that is. I gotta feel it. So I felt it and I got the bug back. So with this new project that I'm putting out, the new epiphanies that I have, White Cleff goes back to White Cleff goes back to school. So when you hear Value one, like the first record we have put out was Bye Bye and then Bye, there's a poet that comes at the end. He goes to NYU And I put this right after I did my DNA test. Hold on, we should say though real quick. I mean, so, White Cleff goes back to school. So when you put out the last record, the Carnival three twenty seventeen, you went around to different schools to talk to I guess as you saying, reintroduce yourself to young folks, college age kids, the young artists and and and you started collaborating with some of these kids, collaborating with them and made a record with like I don't know how dinfferent kids with it's like what fifteen tracks on them. Yeah. Yeah, the tour was going great success, but I was like, Yo, we need to go into the schools. I want to do like this Battle of the Bands, but with no no reality show, no TV, no, just let's do it with the music programs and let me just see the kids. Like when I was in college and I was in the dorm informed a little band and came out. I was like, this is where the magic's gonna come. So I was just looking for the talent and from there as a producer, now what I'm doing is now when you listen to Wild Clef Goes Back to School, you might everybody you hear on there, You're gonna be like, is this nah that ain't a dell? Who is it? You know what I'm saying to you? Literally gonna be You're gonna be like, yo, it's this most nah that ain't most deafl you know it's And then you're gonna have these moments all the time. And those are the moments that as a producer that I love best. Now let's go to the score. Seventy percent of the people on the score blew up from the score. Nobody knew who they were. The outsiders, A con was on the score. Omega goes on and on. So why Cleff goes back to school. I'm bringing you my curation of the future. So at the end of the day, I want when people listen to this, if you remember who Ericabadou was, Piers a twenty year old. She's twenty years old, but she sounds like Ericabadou. She ain't trying to be Ericabado, but she was influenced by Ericabadou the same way they say, I sound like Barb Marley. I ain't ever meet Barb Marley, but I was influenced by Barb Marley. And how did it work with most of the kids. It wasn't like you wrote a track that they kind of added to. Did they write the true I mean? Or was it? Was it like a true collaboration? You sit down and yeah, I did it the same way I produced everyone else. Mary Jay Whitney, you I didn't approach it different. So I have a vision, I have a song, and let's talk about something. You have chords, and yeah, I have chords, I have a beat. I have a So we could take one song here. Let's do a song called Faded Butterfly. The topics Faded Butterfly, get the guitar, catch a vibe so faded. Butterfly is just she ods, you know what I'm saying. So, how are we gonna write the perspective of she just had too much of the lean and she had to go, you know what I mean? And then so what does the party night feel like that night in college? You know? So I ain't gonna write that verse He or she knows what they want to say. It's them, you see what I'm saying. Now, I'm going to paint this this sonics picture around it to make you want to play over and over again. So for me, I come up with the vibes, but it's so ill. The most interesting thing about why Cleft goes back to School is if I do a beat, I put a hook and I say send back sixteen bars. Yo. Man, the stuff the kids are saying, bra, it's almost like a completely new language. But are you writing it the same way as you would before? I mean, are you? So? The whole idea with this I wanted to be like electronics, software driven against the acoustic. So what I did was I was experimenting with a lot of software, a lot of software plugins. Do that, you see what I'm saying? Because I wanted it to be about the why Cleft goes back to school. This is what I've learned. Each track you could see what I've learned and where we're taking it, you know, and then with each student. You know. But the guitar our record, though you know it's coming, do you want to you want to try to play some of some of it? Like I always say, man so so if anybody didn't get the so White Cleft goes back to school, I would just show up at the school and I catch a vibe with the kids. You know what I'm saying to you. Donald Trump, he won the COMPETI shun, Hilary Clinton. She put up a compete, T shun. I was smoking weed with Bernie Sanders. He should have one. Need compete, t shun. Y'all should have voted for me. Yeah, vote for me. Yeah, White Cleft for president. Oh high word to Day Chappelle. If I was president, I'll get elected on Friday. Assassin Day did don't shut the day every dawn Sunday. Then on Monday, everybody goes back to working like nothing happened. It's just an ordered every day. But I could be the president, and then you could be the president and then she could be the president. If I was presidentee, if I go, who's the preside? Yeah, A man say he gonna build the wall, have Mexico pay for it. All. I called up my Mexican friends. They said, white cleft, we ain't gonna pay for ship. There's a riot every week and the people on the street, everyone is living on the edge. You could be the next If I was presidentee, I'll get elected on Friday. That's that's a nigga. Shut the day every dawn Sunday. Then on mondayybody going back to working like nothing happening. It's just in all and every day. Vote for me. Yeah, I vote for me. Yeah, white cleft up president day. So what I'm excited about is that I could just be cleft, you know what I'm saying to you, and I could absorb a lot of that material. It's almost like when you open arms, you get so much materials. So in the next three to four years, I know exactly where I'm going. And it's like the truth reinvention I learned it's from Michael Jackson, is not about you reinvent yourself. You can't when people be like yo, they reinvented themselves. No, the general ration has to reinvent you. And in order for them to reinvent you, they have to feel you, and they got to just feel like you come in like raw, like this is who I am, Like I'm not trying to be. You accept me for who I am, you know what I mean. So that's the kind of love. That's why I'm excited. Man. Thanks to Watch with John for coming through Broken Record. We really appreciate it. Man, Here's a lot going on, including an animated series based on his childhood and Haiti coming to Netflix soon. Follow him on Twitter at wyclef to stay up to date, and you can check out some of this music that we put together in a playlist at broken Record podcast dot com. And while you're there, sign up for a behind the scenes newsletter. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell and Mea Lobelle. Our theme music is like Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for next week's episode with Rex Orange County Court a vibe. Man, you sure y'all recorded this? I just felt like I was having a conversation with my cousin