Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Wyclef Jean Goes Back To School

Transcript

Wyclef Jean Goes Back To School · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:08
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hearing the Fuji's second album, The Score, is the
0:13
Speaker 1: first time I remember not just liking music but loving it.
0:17
Speaker 1: Fuji Law killing Me Softly, Ready or Not would come
0:20
Speaker 1: on the radio and I'd get goosebumps. I still get goosebumps.
0:24
Speaker 1: Here and Lauren Hill sing that hook. There's something absolutely
0:26
Speaker 1: timeless about the music. Why Cleff created with Lauren and
0:29
Speaker 1: Praze as the fujis same as the Beatles, same as
0:32
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder. That's how high I rate this music. So
0:35
Speaker 1: when white Cliff Jean pulled up to the studio we
0:37
Speaker 1: recorded this interview, I was nervous. I mean, I was bugging.
0:41
Speaker 1: But lucky for me, Why Cleff is one of the
0:42
Speaker 1: coolest people ever. I'll put it like this. Why Cleff
0:45
Speaker 1: is supposed to bring his guitar to the interview. Somehow
0:47
Speaker 1: the message never got to him. Instead of throwing a
0:50
Speaker 1: fit or bailing on the interview, he said, just find
0:52
Speaker 1: a guitar, I'll play it. I can play any guitar.
0:55
Speaker 1: Sure enough, we found the most jankie guitar in a
0:57
Speaker 1: nearby office. It's one of those guitars you'd buy it
0:59
Speaker 1: for a kid who says you want to play guitar,
1:00
Speaker 1: but you're not sure they're gonna stick with it one
1:02
Speaker 1: of those, but he was happy to play it. This
1:06
Speaker 1: is the dude who wrote a hit song for Carlos Santana,
1:08
Speaker 1: remember Maria Maria. And here he is miraculously tuning this
1:12
Speaker 1: junkie guitar which he plays during this episode. This is
1:19
Speaker 1: Broken Record season three liner notes for the Digital Age.
1:23
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond. Just a quick note here. You can
1:29
Speaker 1: listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode
1:32
Speaker 1: on our playlist, which you can find a link to
1:34
Speaker 1: in the show notes. For licensing reasons, each time a
1:38
Speaker 1: song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect.
1:43
Speaker 1: All right, enjoy the episode. All right? Even my first instrum,
1:48
Speaker 1: what's the person's right, I'll right bass? First, up the
1:55
Speaker 1: bass man. If I picked up the bass, picked up
1:59
Speaker 1: a bass early high school. But first time I played
2:01
Speaker 1: the bass I was fourteen fourteen. I played the bass.
2:06
Speaker 1: First time I played first instrument ever was a trumbone.
2:13
Speaker 1: You know. I started with the horn instrument because my dad,
2:15
Speaker 1: he played like a little bit of saxophone. So I
2:19
Speaker 1: was digging like some of the horn instruments in the beginning,
2:22
Speaker 1: and so you grew up and hate without your mom
2:25
Speaker 1: and dad to start. So your parents were already in
2:28
Speaker 1: the States. Yeah, well, my dad, he he gotta work
2:32
Speaker 1: visa to come preach in America because it was for
2:38
Speaker 1: Church of the Nazarene. And at the time he was
2:43
Speaker 1: just like a brilliant minister, and it was like, Yo,
2:46
Speaker 1: we're gonna get you a visa and we're gonna bring
2:48
Speaker 1: you to America so you can help bring more Caribbean
2:53
Speaker 1: people to the faith. You know what I'm saying, right,
2:55
Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes being the church is like a
2:57
Speaker 1: basketball team. They just be recruiting, you know what I mean.
3:00
Speaker 1: So they like NBA draft picked My daddy and he
3:04
Speaker 1: came and he left me and hat at one years old.
3:08
Speaker 1: My mama was pregnant mother, bro, and you know it's
3:12
Speaker 1: it's the real immigrant story. He left in search of
3:15
Speaker 1: a life. And at the time, you know the immigration laws, Bro.
3:23
Speaker 1: When your visa done ran out, Bro, there was no joke. Yeah,
3:28
Speaker 1: so you have to go back because if your visa
3:31
Speaker 1: runs out, you gotta go back. At the time, my
3:35
Speaker 1: daddy visa run out and he goes. Luck, man, if
3:39
Speaker 1: I go back to the island, right now, I'll never
3:44
Speaker 1: get my kids up here. It'll never happen. So he
3:48
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, this must be a sign of God.
3:52
Speaker 1: And dude went underground. Just folks like when you're moving underground,
3:58
Speaker 1: it's like you're moving m grant like hardcore, like those
4:02
Speaker 1: that understand at the time when you are illegal. What
4:09
Speaker 1: used to happen was the factories had these deals, like
4:14
Speaker 1: the knitting factories. So my dad also was a tailor,
4:19
Speaker 1: so you know, at night they could bring like two
4:23
Speaker 1: three hundred immigrants and they're having you do crazy like
4:26
Speaker 1: sweatshop work. You know what I'm saying to you. Oh yeah,
4:29
Speaker 1: this was America, dog, This this was my daddy. And
4:32
Speaker 1: my daddy was working and he heard immigration and my
4:37
Speaker 1: dad said, bro, he took off like a cheetah man,
4:41
Speaker 1: like yeah. So somehow he got my mama up here
4:47
Speaker 1: and I'm still there eighty wow. And he had a
4:53
Speaker 1: they had a Brooklyn and they had a child. And
4:57
Speaker 1: so at the time, once again with those Gracian laws,
5:01
Speaker 1: you had a children in the United States. Now you
5:05
Speaker 1: could apply for citizenship. So you know, that's why I'm
5:08
Speaker 1: like real sensitive when it comes to like immigration policy,
5:12
Speaker 1: like mad sensitive because It's like I could have fallen
5:17
Speaker 1: like within the depending on what generation, I could have
5:19
Speaker 1: been a doctor baby, you know, depends on the generation.
5:22
Speaker 1: So so he had two kids in Brooklyn and they
5:28
Speaker 1: they got their citizenship because once you had the kids
5:33
Speaker 1: in the state at the time, they automatically became Americans.
5:36
Speaker 1: Then they came to Haiti. Man. I don't know if
5:38
Speaker 1: anybody you ever seen that movie slum Dog Millionaire. Yeah,
5:41
Speaker 1: that's me and my little brother bro. Like we up
5:44
Speaker 1: in the deep village until you were about like nine too, right, Yeah,
5:51
Speaker 1: we lived in a village. So was nine man, dirt
5:55
Speaker 1: poor like it's yo. By the time I got to
5:59
Speaker 1: the project in Brooklyn, I ain't know what they was
6:02
Speaker 1: talking about when they was talking about they were poor,
6:04
Speaker 1: because I didn't get it, you know what I mean.
6:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, So we to to to go to
6:11
Speaker 1: the bathroom. We usual it's called a ivene, you know,
6:14
Speaker 1: and the ivene is like it ain't no bathroom. It's
6:17
Speaker 1: literally like you go something like they built in the back.
6:21
Speaker 1: If anybody's seen the movie Slump Dog Millionaire, literally that's
6:24
Speaker 1: what're using. The bathroom ain't no electricity, you feel me? Like,
6:29
Speaker 1: so you're relying on candles or a lamp. You know
6:34
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Wow, And then you have what's called
6:36
Speaker 1: the oil for the lamp. You know what I mean.
6:39
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, bro, the oil. And we live
6:42
Speaker 1: right around there was a big cemetery. So literally we
6:45
Speaker 1: lived our playground, you know how like dudes, you're like, yo,
6:49
Speaker 1: we you know, we're in the hood. Let's go to
6:50
Speaker 1: the park. Like we'd be like, yo, let's go to
6:53
Speaker 1: the cemetery. You know what I'm saying. What were you
6:57
Speaker 1: doing in the cemetery man playing? Wow? We would kids. Man,
7:00
Speaker 1: that was a playground for us, just an open space
7:03
Speaker 1: to man. Listen, bro, we was having a great time
7:06
Speaker 1: in the cemetery. We used to play this game. The
7:09
Speaker 1: game was called I'm going to America. So bring they
7:13
Speaker 1: bring the donkey around and I get in on the
7:16
Speaker 1: donkey and all the kids crowd around, and you know,
7:19
Speaker 1: it's mad crayol. You know what I'm saying. It in
7:20
Speaker 1: English and it's all Crayol at the time, and they're like, Yo,
7:24
Speaker 1: where you going? And I said, y'all know where I'm going.
7:26
Speaker 1: I'm going to America. And I said, okay, everybody tell
7:30
Speaker 1: me what y'all want, you know, and you know, so
7:32
Speaker 1: it's like, yo, bring me back diamonds. Dudes, like, bring
7:34
Speaker 1: me back food. Not keep in mind while this game
7:37
Speaker 1: is going on, we probably ain't eat for like three days,
7:40
Speaker 1: you feel me? Wow? Yeah? So you know imagination man,
7:45
Speaker 1: people be like, yo, how did you escape part of you?
7:47
Speaker 1: I said, through imagination. So I'm like real sensitive when
7:51
Speaker 1: people be putting. Uh when in Geo's put they go
7:56
Speaker 1: to these villages and then they film like these kids
8:00
Speaker 1: like you could see, like they film Haitian kids, African
8:03
Speaker 1: kids are and then they come back and they'd be like, yo,
8:06
Speaker 1: you know we you know, give us some money for
8:10
Speaker 1: these kids. And I was one of those post boys.
8:13
Speaker 1: I didn't need no money from nobody. It was like
8:18
Speaker 1: all I needed was an opportunity. So like the cry
8:21
Speaker 1: of the villagers, the kids are crying for opportunity, not
8:25
Speaker 1: for anything else, Like no one really demands a handout.
8:29
Speaker 1: That's really how we was brought up. So no matter
8:32
Speaker 1: how crazy it was, we still was happy. You know
8:36
Speaker 1: what I mean. I mean when you consider that you
8:38
Speaker 1: came here you were nine ten, yeah, and you get
8:42
Speaker 1: you become successful with the fujis like not even that
8:45
Speaker 1: much later. So it's like it wasn't even succept Like
8:48
Speaker 1: the real White Cleft story is even crazier. The foojiesus
8:53
Speaker 1: that like the very last chapter of the start of
8:59
Speaker 1: the White Cleft career, right. Because I came at nine,
9:03
Speaker 1: I was a hustler by the time I'm fourteen years old,
9:09
Speaker 1: Bailly fifteen years old, I'm in the studio with Curtis Blow. Yeah,
9:17
Speaker 1: Curtis Blow when you see him. I was Billy fifteen.
9:20
Speaker 1: Curtis Blow was producing my first crew. It was called
9:24
Speaker 1: Exact Change. So this was like so for me. And
9:28
Speaker 1: the way that that happened was through our school in
9:33
Speaker 1: Jersey because we used to go back and forth Brooklyn,
9:36
Speaker 1: New Jersey. So in Jersey they had a program where
9:39
Speaker 1: you can get an internship in the summertime, and we
9:43
Speaker 1: had got an internship for CBS Records, you feel me,
9:48
Speaker 1: So it's like you get that summer internship. It was
9:50
Speaker 1: a program for urban communities. And when I tell you, Bro,
9:55
Speaker 1: I was rapping and my father never knew what I did.
10:00
Speaker 1: Like the word rap a hip hop and my daddy's
10:04
Speaker 1: home Caribbean home church home bro like late eighties, early nineties,
10:10
Speaker 1: this is like dog, it's forbidden. So you have to understand,
10:15
Speaker 1: I'm living a double life, Like you know what I mean,
10:18
Speaker 1: Like when when you be seeing like them dudes, I'd
10:21
Speaker 1: be watching them old like tapes of like the aretas
10:25
Speaker 1: Otis and all of them. And then so when you
10:28
Speaker 1: in the church, it's still the same thing, like you
10:30
Speaker 1: got two circuits. Like so they'd be like, yo, you
10:33
Speaker 1: can't do that kind of music. So literally you're sneaking
10:36
Speaker 1: to do it without the church knowing. You feel that.
10:39
Speaker 1: That's how that was my hip hop. And and then
10:43
Speaker 1: in the church every Sunday is is you're pounding on
10:45
Speaker 1: church music. So my dad thought he was strict, but
10:48
Speaker 1: we had a manage a manager teacher Slash, and that's
10:52
Speaker 1: what helped me get into that program. And then she
10:55
Speaker 1: was like yo, we met Curtis, and I think from
11:00
Speaker 1: there he noticed like how I was in the studio
11:03
Speaker 1: as a kid, because I just always would ask questions
11:07
Speaker 1: like I'd be like, yo, why does the board move
11:10
Speaker 1: like that? And then I see like it's a knave
11:14
Speaker 1: board with all them keys in and I'm like yo,
11:16
Speaker 1: But my brain was like yo, if you learned to
11:18
Speaker 1: operate one, you can operate all you feel me. So
11:21
Speaker 1: then then I met Quincy Jones. This is all dog,
11:26
Speaker 1: this is We're not even talking food. Ji's yet, That's
11:29
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like the real teenager. I'm a teenager. Look,
11:33
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones came to a play I did. It was
11:37
Speaker 1: an off Broadway play. It was called The Twelfth Night,
11:42
Speaker 1: and we was trying to get this is how crazy
11:45
Speaker 1: I was. So Twelfth Nights is Shakespeare. So you have
11:49
Speaker 1: these characters move Malvolio, Sebastian, the Duke and all of that.
11:54
Speaker 1: So it was like, what happens if we take this
11:56
Speaker 1: play and we put in an urban setting. So we
12:00
Speaker 1: Shakespeare and we put it in an urban setting. I
12:03
Speaker 1: did the entire score for the play, and from the play,
12:07
Speaker 1: I blew up. Mc light was in the play. Lisa
12:12
Speaker 1: Carson was in the play. Lauren Hill was in the play.
12:15
Speaker 1: Darren Madeline was Darren's last name, the big choreographer. Huh Darren,
12:21
Speaker 1: Darren Hansen, you know Darren. He was a crazy choreographer.
12:24
Speaker 1: Then he went on to choreograph for in Sync. So
12:27
Speaker 1: everybody was blowing up playing from Yeah, but as kids
12:32
Speaker 1: like it was just like you know, it was like
12:34
Speaker 1: a super talent. So for me, you know, going from
12:38
Speaker 1: there and loving the culture. I was a big fan
12:41
Speaker 1: of rock Kim right, So now now I'm like seventeen.
12:47
Speaker 1: My man coming, He say, yo, Rock Kim is shooting
12:51
Speaker 1: a video in Long Island, and I was like, Yo,
12:55
Speaker 1: come on, let's go. We're gonna get in the video.
12:58
Speaker 1: I ain't never mean know Rock Kim. I just was
13:01
Speaker 1: like a stand you know what I'm saying, like, Yo,
13:03
Speaker 1: I'm a fan. I gotta get there so I'll never forget.
13:07
Speaker 1: And my man was like, what's the treatment. I was like,
13:09
Speaker 1: I don't care what the treatment is. We're getting in
13:12
Speaker 1: the music video. So we took the train from Jersey.
13:16
Speaker 1: I took my upright bass, a big gass, upright bass
13:21
Speaker 1: dog on the train. My man took his drums dog,
13:25
Speaker 1: and we get there bro and they got the big
13:28
Speaker 1: bodyguards at the door. You know, it's like the big
13:30
Speaker 1: movie scene, you know what I mean, from the hood,
13:33
Speaker 1: and dudes like, can I help y'all? And I'm like,
13:36
Speaker 1: what you mean, Kim, can you help us? We're the band,
13:38
Speaker 1: We're here for the video. And he says, go set
13:41
Speaker 1: up by the pool. So now we set up by
13:44
Speaker 1: the pool, I set up my upright, my man set
13:47
Speaker 1: up his drum, and I'm wink. I'm like, yo, just
13:49
Speaker 1: go with this till the guard get here. So now
13:53
Speaker 1: Rock Kim is late, so the director starts to bring
13:58
Speaker 1: all the girls out and he gotta do these shots
14:02
Speaker 1: so rock him and they ain't there yet, so guess
14:05
Speaker 1: who he starts to shoot us. So now if you
14:08
Speaker 1: go online and you watch Eric B and Rock Kim,
14:11
Speaker 1: don't sweat the technique. I'm the kid with the upright
14:14
Speaker 1: bass man the technique video. Yes, the kid with the
14:17
Speaker 1: upright bass That's what I'm telling you. So it's like
14:21
Speaker 1: that's what I was saying, like, you know, before we
14:23
Speaker 1: talk about Fuji's I always want kids to understand like
14:27
Speaker 1: the grind to even get to because it's almost like
14:31
Speaker 1: you can see the glamor and the lights, but it's
14:33
Speaker 1: like for a dude, a kid to come from Haiti
14:37
Speaker 1: and you know, we barely talking about seventeen eighteen. So
14:41
Speaker 1: so I always tell extras when I go onto videos
14:44
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yo, don't sleep like yo do the bet, like,
14:48
Speaker 1: don't think you an extra. And I even was showing
14:51
Speaker 1: the extras like how you could steal a shot from
14:53
Speaker 1: the celebrities, you know, because I did it all in
14:56
Speaker 1: that rock Him video. Like you'll see I'll be like, yo,
14:59
Speaker 1: this is how you still shot one on one extra.
15:04
Speaker 1: So this was the culture. And then now I'm eighteen
15:11
Speaker 1: going on nineteen. I always remember this because this was
15:16
Speaker 1: the day that there was freeing Nelson Mandela. Wow. Right,
15:21
Speaker 1: And what's crazy about this story? I'm giving like I'm
15:24
Speaker 1: giving you. It's sort of like when people this will
15:28
Speaker 1: help people understand like why they love to score so much,
15:31
Speaker 1: like when they hear why it's so much like heart
15:33
Speaker 1: into it. So Mandela was getting out of prison just
15:38
Speaker 1: the day Mandela and I'm in Jersey and my man said, Yo,
15:43
Speaker 1: there's a label in New York called Easy Street, Big
15:47
Speaker 1: Beat Records, you know, and they have an instrumental and
15:52
Speaker 1: they're looking for somebody to write some music to it
15:55
Speaker 1: and do some vocals and you know it's paying like
15:59
Speaker 1: I think like two hundred fifty dollars. So I was like, yo,
16:01
Speaker 1: a man, you know, that's like a pair of pooma
16:03
Speaker 1: is the whole outfit, broh. So and you could get
16:06
Speaker 1: the brush to clean off your pooma, somebody step on it.
16:09
Speaker 1: So I go and I'm so excited because I know
16:15
Speaker 1: the story of Nelson Mandela, so I'm inspired that day.
16:19
Speaker 1: It's house music, and so my first record that I
16:24
Speaker 1: ever recorded was Bigbie Records, Atlantic and the records called
16:29
Speaker 1: out of the Jungle. Now when you go back to
16:33
Speaker 1: listen to this, it's a funny story with it. So
16:37
Speaker 1: I'm vibing these lyrics, man, because and everything I'm saying,
16:41
Speaker 1: I'm feeling it because I'm so excited about Mandela out
16:45
Speaker 1: of prison, and I'm so excited. After I do the vocals,
16:50
Speaker 1: I just I take the money. I don't sign a
16:53
Speaker 1: form or nothing. I leave. I'm gone, bro. So when
16:58
Speaker 1: I'm gone, this record comes out, my man, and it's
17:04
Speaker 1: called out of the Jungle. So when you listen to it,
17:06
Speaker 1: So it was a time when hip hop and house
17:09
Speaker 1: music was on the same level because we always going
17:13
Speaker 1: to the club and we literally was dancing to both
17:17
Speaker 1: because it was a big dance culture. So it was
17:19
Speaker 1: like you were either he was breaking the hip hop
17:22
Speaker 1: and at the same time, house music was like the Gully,
17:26
Speaker 1: you know, it was like the gully underground sound, but
17:28
Speaker 1: it was like forbidden also and it was a little
17:32
Speaker 1: deeper than hip hop because house. Your parents don't want
17:36
Speaker 1: you to get involved a house because you know, the
17:38
Speaker 1: house is a little deeper. Now you're getting you know,
17:41
Speaker 1: that's when the acid starts it. It's a different yeacause
17:44
Speaker 1: with the hip hop, you know you with the weed,
17:46
Speaker 1: anything safe, you feel sad at the time. Yeah, you
17:49
Speaker 1: dip into the house. They're like, yo. So the record
17:55
Speaker 1: comes out and it explodes in the underground. It's called
17:58
Speaker 1: out of the Jungle. Can you pull it up? Do
18:00
Speaker 1: you have it? Do you have You could pull it?
18:03
Speaker 1: You could pull it up, And I'm gonna tell you
18:04
Speaker 1: what's gonna bug you out. So years later, man a
18:10
Speaker 1: DJ I know called DJ Flex, not Flex from Hot
18:13
Speaker 1: ninety seven, my other man Flex who plays e DM.
18:17
Speaker 1: He goes, yo, man, did you have a twin in
18:21
Speaker 1: the nineties? And I'm gonna tell you why you can't
18:23
Speaker 1: find the record yet? And I'm gonna tell you how
18:24
Speaker 1: you're gonna find it and you're gonna die laughing. He goes, yo,
18:27
Speaker 1: did you have a twin in the nineties? And I
18:29
Speaker 1: said no. He said, yo, dog, I'd be spinning this record.
18:34
Speaker 1: This dude sound just like you, but he not you.
18:38
Speaker 1: His name is Africalli. Right, I'm like what he said, Nah,
18:43
Speaker 1: this dude sound he probably probably from Africa somewhere, but
18:46
Speaker 1: this dude sound just like you. So if you go
18:50
Speaker 1: online and you punch up Africalli out of the Jungle.
18:55
Speaker 1: So I left the studio. Dudes didn't know my name,
18:58
Speaker 1: and they're like, Yo, this mother fucking sound Africans. So
19:01
Speaker 1: let's give him a name. Motherfucker's just called me Africalli.
19:04
Speaker 1: They just they just gave me a name. Dude just
19:07
Speaker 1: turned the brown and traded me like a slave bra
19:10
Speaker 1: and was like, Yo, this is your name. So yo.
19:16
Speaker 1: Can you imagine like years later when I blow up
19:19
Speaker 1: and I see those same people and I'm like they're like, well,
19:21
Speaker 1: White Cleff, I'm like, no Africa. If you check the
19:27
Speaker 1: sleeve on Paradise Presents Africalli's Out of the Jungle, you'll
19:30
Speaker 1: actually see dedicated to the Freedom of Vandella. We'll be
19:34
Speaker 1: back with more from White Clef after the break. We're
19:41
Speaker 1: back with more from White Cleft. After the Africai incident,
19:44
Speaker 1: he finally connects with Prize and Lauren Hill to form
19:46
Speaker 1: the Fujis. So Prize hit me up and Prize, you know,
19:50
Speaker 1: Prize from Prizes like, uh, we call I used to
19:53
Speaker 1: you know, like you in the hood and you you
19:55
Speaker 1: make friends with. So Prize, I had a church band
19:58
Speaker 1: and remember I telling you in the church, and Prize
20:00
Speaker 1: wanted to come and be part of our church man.
20:04
Speaker 1: So he came and was like, Yo, what do you do?
20:06
Speaker 1: He said he played trumpet, and he pulled the trumpet
20:08
Speaker 1: out and started playing, was making us laugh. So I
20:13
Speaker 1: was like, yo, so we connected. So but Prize always
20:16
Speaker 1: had a hustle too. He always had a hustle. So
20:20
Speaker 1: Prize was serious. So Prize hit me up and was like, Yo,
20:25
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio with two girls and I need
20:28
Speaker 1: a reggae hook. That's what he told me. So you know,
20:31
Speaker 1: I'm like, what his prize up to now? Right? So
20:35
Speaker 1: so I go to the studio and the producers man
20:40
Speaker 1: our calis beyond from cooling the Gang. He's like the
20:44
Speaker 1: mastermind behind cooling the Gang. So everything we hit, I
20:47
Speaker 1: sell up bray Good all that stuff. He the one
20:50
Speaker 1: who did that. So I was just amazed to be
20:52
Speaker 1: in the studio. So I went and then I did
20:55
Speaker 1: my little vocals and so you know, I was on
20:58
Speaker 1: my one of my favorite movies. Was the five Heartbeats. Yeah, classic, classic.
21:04
Speaker 1: So I was on my Eddie Kane ship minus the drugs,
21:07
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Still played the poker and everything, right,
21:11
Speaker 1: so you know, I see the pretty girls, you know
21:13
Speaker 1: I'm going there and I'm gonna smash this jack. So
21:17
Speaker 1: I did my part and I came out and and
21:20
Speaker 1: the girls was like, and you wrote the part? Like yeah,
21:23
Speaker 1: of course I improvised. There was a record called The Enforcer.
21:30
Speaker 1: The Enforcer the worst Fouji record ever, but it was yeah.
21:36
Speaker 1: So we were going and so Colie Benest like, Yo,
21:41
Speaker 1: do y'all hear that? I was like, no, he said, Yo,
21:44
Speaker 1: there's something going on with the four y'all. It was
21:47
Speaker 1: four people. It wasn't three. It was Lauren and another
21:51
Speaker 1: girl named Marcy, and Marcy sounded like Mariah Carey, and
21:56
Speaker 1: then Lauren had the Nina Simone vibe, right, So it
22:00
Speaker 1: was four people and the sonics and the way the
22:04
Speaker 1: vocals were sounding. This dude was like, Yo, this sounds
22:07
Speaker 1: like a group. And so Callise and his mind, who
22:12
Speaker 1: has created Cooling the Gang. What you think we're gonna
22:14
Speaker 1: tell this guy? No, I mean, he knows exactly what
22:17
Speaker 1: it is he got Grammys, he's sitting on it. So
22:20
Speaker 1: he bought us in to start recording, and then we
22:23
Speaker 1: started recording what became blunted on reality, not even the
22:28
Speaker 1: score yet. So while we was but Dude from Cooling
22:32
Speaker 1: the Gang was the Fuji's first producer and the real
22:36
Speaker 1: producer of the Fuji's, the first real producer of the
22:40
Speaker 1: Fuji's was Kalise Beyond from cool In the Gang, the
22:43
Speaker 1: Mad one of the like mastermind behind Cooling the Gang,
22:47
Speaker 1: Jungle Boogie, all of that. He was one of my senses, sadness,
22:51
Speaker 1: all that, yeah, some yo, some of madness. That's his
22:54
Speaker 1: whole brain. That's his brain. So you understand now he
22:58
Speaker 1: takes me in as an understud student because I'm always
23:03
Speaker 1: asking questions, you feel me? So he's so this is
23:07
Speaker 1: this was the birth of the Fuji's. So we struggling.
23:11
Speaker 1: So the girl Marcy parents says, look, this this group
23:15
Speaker 1: thing ain't gonna work for you. You have to go
23:17
Speaker 1: to school, Like you have a chance to go to college,
23:20
Speaker 1: you gotta go. And then she leaves the group and
23:23
Speaker 1: then she goes head to college I think in Boston,
23:26
Speaker 1: and then us three we stayed. We rehearsed every day,
23:31
Speaker 1: and we didn't just like rehearse like it was like
23:35
Speaker 1: we was clear like we wanted to be a band,
23:37
Speaker 1: not a group. Like we wasn't trying to just have
23:39
Speaker 1: mics and then turn. No, we wanted to come out
23:42
Speaker 1: with the guitar, you had the drums, the base, the
23:44
Speaker 1: whole put a band together. So every day we would rehearse.
23:47
Speaker 1: But where did that come from? Because that's like who
23:50
Speaker 1: else was doing this? Maybe the roots were probably maybe
23:52
Speaker 1: keep in mind my background was from the church, so
23:56
Speaker 1: as a mayastro already I had the idea of saying,
24:01
Speaker 1: you know, I played, so I was like, Yo, there's
24:03
Speaker 1: no way we're not gonna play, So we have to
24:05
Speaker 1: be a band. But like how does it even like
24:07
Speaker 1: because like sets a sonic the root. But I mean
24:09
Speaker 1: like it's not like a real thing to be like
24:11
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do when Yeah, but it was a natural
24:15
Speaker 1: thing for us, like we're not thinking. It's almost like
24:19
Speaker 1: every record today a kid sings yeah right, and it's
24:23
Speaker 1: natural to him, like he ain't thinking, he don't even
24:26
Speaker 1: know like acts these you know, these young little rappers today,
24:30
Speaker 1: like you'd be like, yo, they are singing naturally, right.
24:34
Speaker 1: But then you would have a young thug who has
24:36
Speaker 1: a song called why Cleft Young. Now, when you talk
24:39
Speaker 1: to him, you'd be like, yeah, that's my guy, like cleft.
24:41
Speaker 1: He'd be singing, he'd be to them. That's just natural.
24:45
Speaker 1: But it's natural because you guys like did it. Yeah.
24:47
Speaker 1: But what I'm telling you is when we was doing
24:50
Speaker 1: it in our brain, it was just like the way
24:52
Speaker 1: the kids are doing it today. So we wasn't thinking
24:55
Speaker 1: like somebody can't tell me, oh, if you sing going
25:00
Speaker 1: to November, you know, or Lauren singing killing me softly? Oh, y'all.
25:07
Speaker 1: Now we're more gangster than you, you understand, Like yo,
25:10
Speaker 1: Like we gangster than you because we are gonna say
25:14
Speaker 1: on the record that we're gonna pop you, and then
25:17
Speaker 1: we're gonna pull a certain gun out on you, and
25:19
Speaker 1: then we're gonna put the crack vowels in our hands.
25:21
Speaker 1: We're gonna know. But then, now, let's check the facts.
25:25
Speaker 1: I'm from Marlboro Projects in Brooklyn in the late eighties.
25:30
Speaker 1: You haven't looked up that project. It's one of the
25:32
Speaker 1: worst projects in the world. So for me, when I
25:37
Speaker 1: look at authors, it was just natural to us. I
25:40
Speaker 1: was like, yo, we all are gonna tell this story.
25:42
Speaker 1: But what made the Fuji's unique was you had three perspectives, right,
25:47
Speaker 1: So you had like Lauren that was on that, Nina Simone,
25:52
Speaker 1: you know that Donnie had the way things like she
25:54
Speaker 1: clearly was on that and was on some like black
26:00
Speaker 1: power vibes like like some you know, she would study
26:04
Speaker 1: all this stuff like POC like Tupac Loren would study
26:07
Speaker 1: like she had a clear understanding. If you want to
26:11
Speaker 1: understand the depth of black history with the Fujis, all
26:15
Speaker 1: you have to do is go to the first album,
26:18
Speaker 1: Blooded on Reality and play the first song. It ain't
26:21
Speaker 1: a song, it's a poem to the clues cut Klan.
26:24
Speaker 1: So this is the depth of the kind of chord
26:26
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with. So you had that, Then you
26:29
Speaker 1: had Prize, you know who, literally Prize would be listening
26:33
Speaker 1: to anything that was rock. Prize knew it. So if
26:36
Speaker 1: it was Guns n' Roses, if it was Metallica, if
26:39
Speaker 1: it was you know, so Prize was moving like a
26:41
Speaker 1: punk rock kid, you know what I mean, like and
26:44
Speaker 1: he had the ear like that. Then you had why Cleff,
26:47
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, a kid from the village.
26:49
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying to you that that somehow
26:52
Speaker 1: became a weird jazz musician. So you put this kind
26:56
Speaker 1: of fusion thing together and it exploded into so so
27:03
Speaker 1: so to your point, it was natural, like it was
27:06
Speaker 1: like when people it was like, yo, I remember man
27:10
Speaker 1: driving my card, you know. And then this is like
27:13
Speaker 1: New Jersey drive style. So going back and where where
27:17
Speaker 1: we were racing too a Biggie Smallest concert. Why could
27:21
Speaker 1: we open en up for Biggie right? So and then
27:24
Speaker 1: so we're playing with Biggie. We in La. I remember
27:28
Speaker 1: we being in La and the show ice Cube. Everybody's there.
27:33
Speaker 1: My conception on everyone you could think of his dead.
27:36
Speaker 1: We get on what it's real. It's love because we
27:40
Speaker 1: come from that s And then keep in mind, so
27:43
Speaker 1: I wasn't even really listening to East Coast music, even
27:46
Speaker 1: though I was in the East Coast. Now, it's another
27:47
Speaker 1: weird thing about the fujires. I was listening to hieroglyphics
27:52
Speaker 1: like damn man, Yeah, that was more you know. So
27:55
Speaker 1: even when you hear the fujis, the way they rhyme,
27:58
Speaker 1: the whole style just sounded different. It was so it
28:02
Speaker 1: was a combination of all of that that was going on.
28:05
Speaker 1: So for us, hip hop wasn't just about that versus
28:09
Speaker 1: like even like like Dayla or Tribe, which are kind
28:11
Speaker 1: of or jungle brothers, they were more melodic. I could
28:16
Speaker 1: relate to them like they was doing like what I
28:18
Speaker 1: was doing, like they were doing it like you could
28:21
Speaker 1: hear they go from a rhyming to a melody. You
28:25
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying to you. And then what was
28:27
Speaker 1: my man that flip there I go, there I go,
28:29
Speaker 1: theren I go. It was a hip hop kid who
28:31
Speaker 1: did that too. He was from out here, I gotta think.
28:35
Speaker 1: But and then you had sous a mischief, you know,
28:37
Speaker 1: all of that like so, and in the production, I
28:41
Speaker 1: found it fascinating because it was a lot of jazz
28:45
Speaker 1: samples going on, you know what I mean. So so
28:48
Speaker 1: once again that that's the core when you from that
28:52
Speaker 1: kind of core, you know, because you got two kinds
28:56
Speaker 1: of people. You got the public. Who a kid who's
28:59
Speaker 1: from the hood, from really from the ghetto, from the projects.
29:03
Speaker 1: When he here ready or not, you think like he's
29:07
Speaker 1: he already knows the code. When I say now that
29:09
Speaker 1: I escaped sleepwalk away, those that that he knows, that's
29:14
Speaker 1: equivalent to a Biggie Smalls record. He know which Biggie record?
29:17
Speaker 1: He know the talk you know. So at the end
29:20
Speaker 1: of the day, we was ignoring what everyone was saying
29:22
Speaker 1: because critics were trashing us, right, remember the blunting reality,
29:26
Speaker 1: blunting on reality. Even like the respect we should have
29:30
Speaker 1: got when we did the score. It was like we
29:32
Speaker 1: was blowing up and it was crazy big. The score
29:35
Speaker 1: got respect, but the respect that it should have got
29:39
Speaker 1: it got afterwards, it seems like, though, but it got
29:41
Speaker 1: more respect weirdly from like the kind of like white
29:45
Speaker 1: sort of like the Rolling Stones or like the Village
29:48
Speaker 1: Voice like or like you know what I mean, like
29:50
Speaker 1: those type of one trillion quick trillion percent that's right, right,
29:54
Speaker 1: but like the source site was, you know, it's like, yeah,
29:58
Speaker 1: the once again And I came from Haiti, so I didn't.
30:04
Speaker 1: I didn't When I saw Bob Marley, that's the manager.
30:09
Speaker 1: The manager's phone is ringing. When I saw manager, he's
30:14
Speaker 1: a manager. Yo. When I saw Bob Marley, I saw
30:18
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones. I saw the Beatles. I'm saying like on
30:22
Speaker 1: VCR tape. I saw Michael Jackson, I saw the Temptations,
30:27
Speaker 1: I saw the Fuji's like I was like, we're gonna
30:30
Speaker 1: be big. So at the end of the day, I
30:32
Speaker 1: knew that a lot of those editors at the time
30:36
Speaker 1: they would not get what we was doing at the time,
30:38
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really for them, right because now we're
30:42
Speaker 1: thirty years in right. So imagine when I'm chilling and
30:47
Speaker 1: a nineteen year old kid comes up to me and
30:50
Speaker 1: he's reciting every lyric from the Score, the Carnival to
30:54
Speaker 1: a cleftic even all the way the Sweetest Girl. He's
30:57
Speaker 1: telling you how he found these records. It just makes
31:00
Speaker 1: you understand. All you gotta do is keep going, you
31:03
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no scores, but
31:05
Speaker 1: I mean that, I mean you must hear it all
31:07
Speaker 1: the time, the scores, like for a lot of people.
31:09
Speaker 1: I mean that was That's one of the first music
31:11
Speaker 1: outside of like you know, I probably like maybe Summertime,
31:16
Speaker 1: Fresh Prince of Jazzy Jeff, Yeah, the Fresh Prince of
31:19
Speaker 1: Jazzy Jeff or something like that. But I mean, it
31:21
Speaker 1: feel like the Score is like the first music that
31:23
Speaker 1: I'm really cognizant of in my life. Like it was
31:25
Speaker 1: like just on repeat in my mom's car, Like just
31:28
Speaker 1: like all those hits, Man all those and it feels
31:30
Speaker 1: like every record on there could have been a hit.
31:31
Speaker 1: This really was only like four or five singles, but
31:34
Speaker 1: feels like every when you listen to we couldn't even
31:37
Speaker 1: put them out. We couldn't even put singles out no more.
31:40
Speaker 1: The label is like man like y'all could literally put
31:42
Speaker 1: a single out for each one of these songs. You
31:44
Speaker 1: know what, But I want to back up a little bit.
31:47
Speaker 1: I mean, so what were you playing at the time,
31:50
Speaker 1: Like you like you play like you say you go
31:52
Speaker 1: now without a guitar, Like I just saw you tune
31:55
Speaker 1: like the worst guitar you probably you know, you probably
31:57
Speaker 1: played in a while. Like what was it you were
32:00
Speaker 1: listening to before you got with the Fujis that you
32:03
Speaker 1: felt like you could kind of merge with what Prize
32:06
Speaker 1: and Lauren were doing? Like, well, I came up. I
32:09
Speaker 1: mean my brother we was in the hood. There was
32:11
Speaker 1: listening to like Pink, Floyd uh Sting, Synchronicity, the Police,
32:18
Speaker 1: Michael Hedges. That was my little brothers. Like one of
32:22
Speaker 1: my brothers was into that. So he would give me
32:24
Speaker 1: the music and now I would share the music back
32:27
Speaker 1: with him. You know, I was listening to like the
32:30
Speaker 1: loneliest monk like Miles Davis are Blakey the way the
32:33
Speaker 1: drum all row and then I would give him some
32:35
Speaker 1: of that music. You know what I'm saying, that's what
32:37
Speaker 1: you're listening. Yeah, all that and then and then uh
32:40
Speaker 1: and of course hip hop. We all my other brother
32:44
Speaker 1: Literally we would sneak because we had to hit the
32:47
Speaker 1: cassette and let it run, you see what I'm saying,
32:50
Speaker 1: and then get the tape and then listen back to
32:52
Speaker 1: that like the next day. So the ill thing is
32:54
Speaker 1: like if you know the Red Alert show, someone's taping
32:57
Speaker 1: it because you can't listen into it at the house.
33:00
Speaker 1: And then you leave, Man, you're throwing your headphones. You
33:03
Speaker 1: hit that Sony walk man bro and it was heaven.
33:07
Speaker 1: So for me, very eclectic at a young age, I
33:11
Speaker 1: loved back and they always used this. I was weird
33:14
Speaker 1: because I would watch movies so like I'm a movie buff,
33:20
Speaker 1: you know. My dad like would have VCR and different things.
33:23
Speaker 1: But they would see me watching films silently and then
33:27
Speaker 1: so like Once upon a Time in America classic and
33:31
Speaker 1: like before The Godfather the original, and then I would
33:34
Speaker 1: watch it but silent with no voice or whatever it said. Yo,
33:38
Speaker 1: what's you're doing? And I'm like, Yo, I could hear
33:41
Speaker 1: the score. I could hear the music that's supposed to
33:44
Speaker 1: be on this. So then when I go back and
33:48
Speaker 1: watch it, I put it on and match it with
33:50
Speaker 1: to see if what's in my head you feel what
33:52
Speaker 1: I'm saying to you? You test yourself kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah,
33:55
Speaker 1: And then it was crazy because years later, the first
33:59
Speaker 1: person who gave me my shot at scoring a movie
34:02
Speaker 1: is Brian Grazier, big, big producer, like he did like
34:07
Speaker 1: some of the biggest movies ever in Hollywood. But he
34:10
Speaker 1: was like they was like, yo, did this kid ever
34:13
Speaker 1: score anything? He said, no, but he's gonna score this one.
34:16
Speaker 1: And and you know what. The movie was Life Eddie
34:19
Speaker 1: Murphy and mart Lawrence. Yeah. I did the score for that. Amazing. Yeah,
34:23
Speaker 1: it was your first movie. That was my first score.
34:26
Speaker 1: Then from there I did Hotel Rwanda the theme song
34:29
Speaker 1: for that. So people started saying, Yo, this this cat.
34:32
Speaker 1: So the scoring is another life for me, Like I
34:35
Speaker 1: love I love that kind of stuff that I guess
34:37
Speaker 1: that's that discipline from like the jazz and the classical background,
34:41
Speaker 1: you know. So like, but what were you like, what
34:43
Speaker 1: like what were you playing on guitar at the time
34:44
Speaker 1: that you felt like you could turn into like I
34:46
Speaker 1: don't know if you could, kid you if you could
34:47
Speaker 1: play something like that? Was an example, like a riff
34:49
Speaker 1: that you were playing that you would hear that be
34:51
Speaker 1: like I could hear this, being like I could I
34:53
Speaker 1: could turn this into something with the fujis So anyone
34:57
Speaker 1: who's listening the way that I the guitar as a
35:01
Speaker 1: very annoythodox style. I consider myself a hip hop guitarist
35:05
Speaker 1: because when I play, you literally can hear diffusion of
35:09
Speaker 1: the drum inside your head and at the same time.
35:13
Speaker 1: But what made me crazy was I was a battle
35:16
Speaker 1: rapper and it used to throw people off because I
35:20
Speaker 1: would play instruments so they would underestimate bars because they
35:25
Speaker 1: would see the guitar in my hand. We're back with
35:28
Speaker 1: more from White Cleft. After the break, We're back with
35:35
Speaker 1: more White Clef. What were you listening to like in
35:38
Speaker 1: Haiti and Haiti? You know we have the music of
35:41
Speaker 1: the village, you know what I mean? Like you come up.
35:44
Speaker 1: I guess that's why I learned how to you know,
35:47
Speaker 1: like you see how I pick up an instrument and
35:49
Speaker 1: just the acoustic you know you're singing with the village.
35:54
Speaker 1: The ladies. You know, they got their hair tied down,
35:59
Speaker 1: they just and white. They're praying. Sometimes they're dressed in red.
36:04
Speaker 1: You know, they're worshiping, and they singing these songs, bro s,
36:09
Speaker 1: these hems. It's like it's very spiritual and very very
36:16
Speaker 1: like put you in trans vibe makes you feel a
36:20
Speaker 1: certain way. And I guess the same vibe I heard
36:25
Speaker 1: them singing when I was like seven or eight years
36:28
Speaker 1: later when I went to Lagos in Africa, samet vibe. Man,
36:33
Speaker 1: it's like just the music of the village. Man, would
36:36
Speaker 1: you getting like Funk records some of the states or
36:38
Speaker 1: like records? Nothing? I never heard no R and B,
36:42
Speaker 1: No nothing. The person who put me up on like
36:45
Speaker 1: R and B like like, say, yo, you ever heard
36:47
Speaker 1: Nina someone? I was like, No, that was Lauren. She's
36:50
Speaker 1: like check this out, you know. Then I heard Nina
36:53
Speaker 1: smone you ever heard four times? No? What's that? You
36:57
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like I haven't heard of that.
36:59
Speaker 1: I was more like into like Theloneious Monk, like Miles
37:05
Speaker 1: Davis and that side of it. You know what I'm
37:07
Speaker 1: saying to you. But she put me up on that
37:10
Speaker 1: and Haiti. It was like just listening to folks like
37:14
Speaker 1: we call it. I've seen roots music Africana, you know
37:18
Speaker 1: what I mean, the core like till today. Like when
37:21
Speaker 1: I hear that, I could run through a brick wall
37:24
Speaker 1: and won't get hurt, you know what I'm saying. And
37:27
Speaker 1: were you playing along of that stuff too as a kid, singing,
37:29
Speaker 1: singing along? Yeah, you're singing along and you're doing like
37:31
Speaker 1: these crazy harmonies along with it. You know what I mean.
37:35
Speaker 1: You're treating them. It's more like really using the voice
37:37
Speaker 1: as an instrument. You were. Your voice is an instrument,
37:39
Speaker 1: but your voice is a warrior, like you know what
37:42
Speaker 1: I'm saying to you. So in my village, you know,
37:44
Speaker 1: if you come in, we can announce you. You know
37:47
Speaker 1: how Pavarotti projects. You know what I'm saying to you.
37:50
Speaker 1: So you could be a mile away and I'm like,
37:55
Speaker 1: like you are going to hear me. You know what
37:57
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's like the call little while like it's
38:01
Speaker 1: really yo, these Africans is coming for real, Like so
38:05
Speaker 1: so all of that kind of stuff is real, you
38:07
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. All of that is instilled in me,
38:10
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, you just put out a
38:13
Speaker 1: record in twenty seventeen. It was the first time in
38:17
Speaker 1: eight years, You've done something nine years? Yeah, and did
38:22
Speaker 1: you come? Did you? Did you put something out again?
38:24
Speaker 1: Because you started feeling like maybe things. I finally caught
38:26
Speaker 1: up to what I was doing. Well. I after I
38:28
Speaker 1: did Hipstone Live for Shakira. I mean that broke every
38:32
Speaker 1: record possible to mankind. So a hundred million records were
38:37
Speaker 1: for work and once again here we go. My brain
38:42
Speaker 1: is just different. I was like, I'm not gonna leave
38:45
Speaker 1: this earth, and knowing that I got this opportunity through
38:52
Speaker 1: the guards and then in the next lifetime they're gonna
38:56
Speaker 1: be like, yo, what did you really do with it? Yeah? Yeah, man,
39:00
Speaker 1: you know, y'all got me out this village, you know,
39:02
Speaker 1: and I doesn't you know, helped everybody out y'all. Y'all
39:06
Speaker 1: never heard of Beyonce? Yeah, I gave her a first
39:08
Speaker 1: say yeah, you heard of Whitney Houston. They look at
39:11
Speaker 1: me like, dog, really, what did you do with your life?
39:14
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, I went back
39:16
Speaker 1: to my land. Man, I went back to Haiti, and
39:19
Speaker 1: I ran because I wanted to become president of my country.
39:23
Speaker 1: So I have a very militant side about me, and
39:29
Speaker 1: it's the realest side when it comes to ye cleft
39:33
Speaker 1: like Barb Marley, it's real for me. So if anybody
39:36
Speaker 1: go online, I mean you could see from assassination plot
39:39
Speaker 1: to on down, it's real where I come from. But
39:43
Speaker 1: the idea of a guy saying, you know, I'm gonna
39:47
Speaker 1: go back to my country, you could see, like when
39:53
Speaker 1: you leave in the space of music, in the politics,
39:55
Speaker 1: how vicious it gets. You know what I'm saying to you.
39:58
Speaker 1: You go from being loved overnight, they just turned you
40:01
Speaker 1: into a minute you know, if you notice they just
40:03
Speaker 1: parted Marcus Garvey, you know what I'm saying to you,
40:06
Speaker 1: after they'd done set up and framed up so many
40:09
Speaker 1: of us, you know. So I felt like I was
40:11
Speaker 1: a patsy caught up in a biggest situation in Haiti
40:15
Speaker 1: where real people was trying to steal billions and billions
40:20
Speaker 1: of dollars. And now when you look back at it,
40:22
Speaker 1: where did all that money really go to? So at
40:24
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I ran for president because
40:27
Speaker 1: I wanted to change all that. They took me out
40:30
Speaker 1: the race. I made my man become the president and
40:33
Speaker 1: then after that, I left the country and I went
40:36
Speaker 1: to Sweden, and I was spending time with a VICI
40:40
Speaker 1: and and me and a Vici'd be like, yo, why
40:42
Speaker 1: did you go to Sweden. I'm like, Yo, that's just
40:44
Speaker 1: one of them places I just feel good at. And
40:47
Speaker 1: then our children, and I was just getting my mind
40:50
Speaker 1: back because the music had changed. It went from hardware
40:54
Speaker 1: to software. So I liked the record Wake Me Up,
40:57
Speaker 1: and I like what Tim was doing. So I went
40:59
Speaker 1: and spent some time time and when I got back
41:02
Speaker 1: there was a small label called Heads Music, or all
41:04
Speaker 1: female label. That's the CEO right there, Madeline Nelson. I
41:08
Speaker 1: loved what they was doing with artist development because it
41:12
Speaker 1: looked like there wasn't chasing the check right because as
41:17
Speaker 1: a producer, think as a football coach, right, like, you
41:24
Speaker 1: could be a great coach, but when the players are
41:27
Speaker 1: in rhythm, that's a different kind of game. So every
41:31
Speaker 1: great coach with rings for them to get excited, you
41:35
Speaker 1: have to get these players with rhythm. So when I
41:37
Speaker 1: saw what Heads was doing, and then you know, they came.
41:40
Speaker 1: She came and was like, yo, Cleff, we want you
41:44
Speaker 1: to partner up with our label and we want you
41:47
Speaker 1: to do the same thing you did for Lauren, for Beyonce,
41:50
Speaker 1: for all of them. But we have a slew of
41:53
Speaker 1: kids that arranged from eighteen to like twenty five, twenty six.
41:58
Speaker 1: I was like, you'll bring them in, and these kids
42:02
Speaker 1: just gave me that energy. And of course it's natural.
42:06
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones ain't do Michael Jackson until he was fifty four.
42:09
Speaker 1: I'm forty nine, So all I could do is tell
42:12
Speaker 1: you that I'm just getting started. So when I came back,
42:17
Speaker 1: the first record I did right coming back was a
42:21
Speaker 1: record called Hendricks Record. Man. It was a tribute to Hendricks.
42:26
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to tell myself, was that a
42:28
Speaker 1: big influence? Like yeah, Jimmy Hendricks was a big influence,
42:31
Speaker 1: like hey Joe and all of that coming up. So
42:35
Speaker 1: the record when I said, yo, when my cousin got
42:37
Speaker 1: his first tech, I was playing Jimmy Hendricks in the basement.
42:40
Speaker 1: So I wanted to reintroduce myself right to now a
42:44
Speaker 1: kid that was nineteen that is in that frequency. And
42:49
Speaker 1: then it's so crazy because that record literally reinvented me
42:55
Speaker 1: to like the kids kids, you know, and to them,
42:58
Speaker 1: they was like yo. Then they went back and listen
42:59
Speaker 1: to gone to November. What was he talking about and
43:01
Speaker 1: all of that. So once again, I don't do music
43:05
Speaker 1: just because I want to do music. I don't know
43:08
Speaker 1: what that is. I gotta feel it. So I felt
43:12
Speaker 1: it and I got the bug back. So with this
43:16
Speaker 1: new project that I'm putting out, the new epiphanies that
43:20
Speaker 1: I have, White Cleff goes back to White Cleff goes
43:22
Speaker 1: back to school. So when you hear Value one, like
43:27
Speaker 1: the first record we have put out was Bye Bye
43:30
Speaker 1: and then Bye, there's a poet that comes at the end.
43:33
Speaker 1: He goes to NYU And I put this right after
43:36
Speaker 1: I did my DNA test. Hold on, we should say
43:39
Speaker 1: though real quick. I mean, so, White Cleff goes back
43:42
Speaker 1: to school. So when you put out the last record,
43:44
Speaker 1: the Carnival three twenty seventeen, you went around to different
43:47
Speaker 1: schools to talk to I guess as you saying, reintroduce
43:51
Speaker 1: yourself to young folks, college age kids, the young artists
43:55
Speaker 1: and and and you started collaborating with some of these kids,
43:58
Speaker 1: collaborating with them and made a record with like I
44:02
Speaker 1: don't know how dinfferent kids with it's like what fifteen
44:03
Speaker 1: tracks on them. Yeah. Yeah, the tour was going great success,
44:07
Speaker 1: but I was like, Yo, we need to go into
44:09
Speaker 1: the schools. I want to do like this Battle of
44:12
Speaker 1: the Bands, but with no no reality show, no TV, no,
44:17
Speaker 1: just let's do it with the music programs and let
44:20
Speaker 1: me just see the kids. Like when I was in
44:23
Speaker 1: college and I was in the dorm informed a little
44:26
Speaker 1: band and came out. I was like, this is where
44:27
Speaker 1: the magic's gonna come. So I was just looking for
44:30
Speaker 1: the talent and from there as a producer, now what
44:35
Speaker 1: I'm doing is now when you listen to Wild Clef
44:39
Speaker 1: Goes Back to School, you might everybody you hear on there,
44:45
Speaker 1: You're gonna be like, is this nah that ain't a dell?
44:49
Speaker 1: Who is it? You know what I'm saying to you?
44:52
Speaker 1: Literally gonna be You're gonna be like, yo, it's this
44:54
Speaker 1: most nah that ain't most deafl you know it's And
44:58
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have these moments all the time. And
45:02
Speaker 1: those are the moments that as a producer that I
45:06
Speaker 1: love best. Now let's go to the score. Seventy percent
45:10
Speaker 1: of the people on the score blew up from the score.
45:13
Speaker 1: Nobody knew who they were. The outsiders, A con was
45:17
Speaker 1: on the score. Omega goes on and on. So why
45:21
Speaker 1: Cleff goes back to school. I'm bringing you my curation
45:27
Speaker 1: of the future. So at the end of the day,
45:30
Speaker 1: I want when people listen to this, if you remember
45:33
Speaker 1: who Ericabadou was, Piers a twenty year old. She's twenty
45:39
Speaker 1: years old, but she sounds like Ericabadou. She ain't trying
45:44
Speaker 1: to be Ericabado, but she was influenced by Ericabadou the
45:47
Speaker 1: same way they say, I sound like Barb Marley. I
45:50
Speaker 1: ain't ever meet Barb Marley, but I was influenced by
45:54
Speaker 1: Barb Marley. And how did it work with most of
45:56
Speaker 1: the kids. It wasn't like you wrote a track that
45:58
Speaker 1: they kind of added to. Did they write the true
46:01
Speaker 1: I mean? Or was it? Was it like a true collaboration?
46:03
Speaker 1: You sit down and yeah, I did it the same
46:07
Speaker 1: way I produced everyone else. Mary Jay Whitney, you I
46:11
Speaker 1: didn't approach it different. So I have a vision, I
46:15
Speaker 1: have a song, and let's talk about something. You have chords,
46:20
Speaker 1: and yeah, I have chords, I have a beat. I
46:22
Speaker 1: have a So we could take one song here. Let's
46:25
Speaker 1: do a song called Faded Butterfly. The topics Faded Butterfly,
46:29
Speaker 1: get the guitar, catch a vibe so faded. Butterfly is
46:33
Speaker 1: just she ods, you know what I'm saying. So, how
46:35
Speaker 1: are we gonna write the perspective of she just had
46:38
Speaker 1: too much of the lean and she had to go,
46:40
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And then so what does
46:42
Speaker 1: the party night feel like that night in college? You know?
46:46
Speaker 1: So I ain't gonna write that verse He or she
46:53
Speaker 1: knows what they want to say. It's them, you see
46:56
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Now, I'm going to paint this this
46:58
Speaker 1: sonics picture around it to make you want to play
47:01
Speaker 1: over and over again. So for me, I come up
47:05
Speaker 1: with the vibes, but it's so ill. The most interesting
47:08
Speaker 1: thing about why Cleft goes back to School is if
47:11
Speaker 1: I do a beat, I put a hook and I
47:14
Speaker 1: say send back sixteen bars. Yo. Man, the stuff the
47:19
Speaker 1: kids are saying, bra, it's almost like a completely new language.
47:24
Speaker 1: But are you writing it the same way as you
47:25
Speaker 1: would before? I mean, are you? So? The whole idea
47:29
Speaker 1: with this I wanted to be like electronics, software driven
47:34
Speaker 1: against the acoustic. So what I did was I was
47:38
Speaker 1: experimenting with a lot of software, a lot of software plugins.
47:42
Speaker 1: Do that, you see what I'm saying? Because I wanted
47:45
Speaker 1: it to be about the why Cleft goes back to school.
47:48
Speaker 1: This is what I've learned. Each track you could see
47:51
Speaker 1: what I've learned and where we're taking it, you know,
47:53
Speaker 1: and then with each student. You know. But the guitar
48:00
Speaker 1: our record, though you know it's coming, do you want
48:03
Speaker 1: to you want to try to play some of some
48:05
Speaker 1: of it? Like I always say, man so so if
48:11
Speaker 1: anybody didn't get the so White Cleft goes back to school,
48:15
Speaker 1: I would just show up at the school and I
48:17
Speaker 1: catch a vibe with the kids. You know what I'm
48:18
Speaker 1: saying to you. Donald Trump, he won the COMPETI shun,
48:26
Speaker 1: Hilary Clinton. She put up a compete, T shun. I
48:31
Speaker 1: was smoking weed with Bernie Sanders. He should have one.
48:35
Speaker 1: Need compete, t shun. Y'all should have voted for me. Yeah,
48:41
Speaker 1: vote for me. Yeah, White Cleft for president. Oh high
48:48
Speaker 1: word to Day Chappelle. If I was president, I'll get
48:53
Speaker 1: elected on Friday. Assassin Day did don't shut the day
49:00
Speaker 1: every dawn Sunday. Then on Monday, everybody goes back to
49:07
Speaker 1: working like nothing happened. It's just an ordered every day.
49:15
Speaker 1: But I could be the president, and then you could
49:17
Speaker 1: be the president and then she could be the president.
49:21
Speaker 1: If I was presidentee, if I go, who's the preside? Yeah,
49:28
Speaker 1: A man say he gonna build the wall, have Mexico
49:33
Speaker 1: pay for it. All. I called up my Mexican friends.
49:37
Speaker 1: They said, white cleft, we ain't gonna pay for ship.
49:42
Speaker 1: There's a riot every week and the people on the street,
49:47
Speaker 1: everyone is living on the edge. You could be the
49:51
Speaker 1: next If I was presidentee, I'll get elected on Friday.
49:58
Speaker 1: That's that's a nigga. Shut the day every dawn Sunday.
50:05
Speaker 1: Then on mondayybody going back to working like nothing happening.
50:14
Speaker 1: It's just in all and every day. Vote for me. Yeah,
50:18
Speaker 1: I vote for me. Yeah, white cleft up president day.
50:27
Speaker 1: So what I'm excited about is that I could just
50:30
Speaker 1: be cleft, you know what I'm saying to you, and
50:34
Speaker 1: I could absorb a lot of that material. It's almost
50:37
Speaker 1: like when you open arms, you get so much materials.
50:40
Speaker 1: So in the next three to four years, I know
50:44
Speaker 1: exactly where I'm going. And it's like the truth reinvention
50:49
Speaker 1: I learned it's from Michael Jackson, is not about you
50:53
Speaker 1: reinvent yourself. You can't when people be like yo, they
50:57
Speaker 1: reinvented themselves. No, the general ration has to reinvent you.
51:02
Speaker 1: And in order for them to reinvent you, they have
51:04
Speaker 1: to feel you, and they got to just feel like
51:06
Speaker 1: you come in like raw, like this is who I am,
51:08
Speaker 1: Like I'm not trying to be. You accept me for
51:11
Speaker 1: who I am, you know what I mean. So that's
51:13
Speaker 1: the kind of love. That's why I'm excited. Man. Thanks
51:18
Speaker 1: to Watch with John for coming through Broken Record. We
51:20
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. Man, Here's a lot going on, including
51:22
Speaker 1: an animated series based on his childhood and Haiti coming
51:25
Speaker 1: to Netflix soon. Follow him on Twitter at wyclef to
51:28
Speaker 1: stay up to date, and you can check out some
51:31
Speaker 1: of this music that we put together in a playlist
51:32
Speaker 1: at broken Record podcast dot com. And while you're there,
51:35
Speaker 1: sign up for a behind the scenes newsletter. Broken Record
51:39
Speaker 1: is produced with help from Jason Gambrell and Mea Lobelle.
51:41
Speaker 1: Our theme music is like Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for
51:44
Speaker 1: next week's episode with Rex Orange County Court a vibe. Man,
51:53
Speaker 1: you sure y'all recorded this? I just felt like I
51:56
Speaker 1: was having a conversation with my cousin