ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT / MUSIC-HAITI: Rapper Invites Caribbean Diaspora to ‘Carnival’

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Jul 29 1997 (IPS) - The peoples of the Caribbean diaspora are so diverse that perhaps only a New Yorker can meld their cultural influences.

That, at least, is the accomplishment of Haitian-born Brooklynite Wyclef Jean, who offers an entrancing mix of rap, compas, reggae, rhumba and Caribbean folk music on hi new album, ‘Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival’ (Ruffhouse/Columbia Records).

Jean, one of the members of the Fugees, a popular rap trio, has tried hard to be a role model for Haitians since his group first became successful last year. This April, Jean brought the Fugees to Port-au-Prince for a successful concert, and he literally wrapped himself in the Haitian flag at a recent U.S. award ceremony.

But ‘The Carnival’ is Jean’s most audacious attempt to reconcile the musical styles and social concerns of the black population in the Caribbean and North America. Where else but here can listeners find Cuban diva Celia Cruz, New Orleans’ soulful Neville Brothers, Bob Marley’s backing singers, the I-Threes, and the London Symphony Orchestra on one album?

Oddly, Jean is able to reconcile all those different talents on an album that focuses mainly on the tough and often violent existence of immigrants living in New York. In songs like ‘Bubblegoose’ and ‘Anything Can Happen,’ Jean combines deceptively soothing music with tales of street kids gone wrong and lives casually destroyed.

But Jean’s album is largely an uplifting one, focusing on Haitians’ struggle to survive outside their land.

The Cuban standard ‘Guantanamera’ is revised here, with Cruz brassily singing the chorus — but Jean’s new lyrics draw attention to the plight of the more recent residents of the now U.S.-occupied Guantanamo Bay: the Haitian and Cuban refugees who were based there, under Coast Guard supervision, earlier this decade.

Similarly, the most miving song, ‘Gone Til November,’ a ballad which Jean wrote and scored especially for the London Symphony Orchestra, is dedicated explicitly to immigrants who have to “make a run” and go abroad for months at a time to earn money for their familes.

“January, February, March and April, May/ I hear you crying, but what else can I say?/ I’ll be gone til November…/ Give a kiss to my mother,” Wyclef sings against a mournful violin backdrop.

Other songs more directly embrace Haitian musical and lyrical styles, with several — most effectively ‘Yele’ and ‘Jaspora’ — sung in Haitian Kreyol, a rarity for any U.S. album. Much of the rest of the time, Jean returns to his traditional, raw-voiced rap style, with some help from fellow Fugees Prakazrel Michel and Lauryn Hill.

Even on more standard material, Jean shows a gift for bringing in insights and musical juxtapositions different from normal rap.

Semi-classical motifs are combined with thumping hip-hop beats in several tunes, while the record’s first radio hit, ‘We Trying to Stay Alive,’ snatches the disco beat and even the chorus of the Bee Gees’ catchy hit ‘Stayin’ Alive’ — all in the service of anti- gangster lyrics.

For all his audaciousness, Jean cannot boast of an entirely successful album. Like many modern rap records, ‘The Carnival’ is weighed down by tough-guy posturing and extremely silly skits interpolated among the actual songs.

To many rappers, the concept of providing value for money often boils down to padding albums with more than an hours’ worth of material, regardless of quality — and the Fugees, even in their popular 1996 album ‘The Score,’ have proved no exception to that rule.

But in its strongest moments, ‘The Carnival’ conjures up an image of the black Caribbean as a lively, joyous mix of cultures, stretching from New York and New Orleans to Kingston, Havana and Port-au-Prince.

Perhaps the most revealing touch was featuring the I-Threes, Bob Marley’s backing trio, behind Jean in one song: Like Marley, Wyclef Jean is fast becoming not merely a musician, but his home country’s main cultural export.