12330: Wyclef Jean's new CD personal, hard-core, but PG (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 12:00:54 -0400

Miami Herald
Posted on Sun, Jun. 16, 2002

ALBUM REVIEW
Wyclef Jean's new CD personal, hard-core, but PG

WYCLEF JEAN

• Masquerade

(Columbia)

* * *

Wyclef Jean is certainly ''the first rapper to ever rep for the Haitians,''
as he boasts, in a characteristic combination of hubris and consciousness,
on the track Oh What a Night.

And yet his sensibilities have always been middle class: He directed the
Fugees' crossover via old pop and rock tracks, and his solo work has been
somewhat self-consciously multicultural and PC. In an age of hoochie
vulgarity and bling-bling materialism, Masquerade, his third album (in
stores Tuesday), is resolutely spiritual and PG.

But it's also hard-core. On PJ's, You Say Keep It Gangsta, and Thug Like Me,
Jean counters the would-be street cred of other rappers with tales of his
own upbringing in Brooklyn projects. Jean doesn't glamorize ghetto
fabulousness; he preaches ghetto realism. The results are some of the most
personal and affecting songs he has ever written.

But Jean's not always paying homage to the Notorious B.I.G. He collaborates
with Tom Jones and City High's Claudette Ortiz as well as rappers MOP.
Masquerade includes compas and reggae tracks, and stylistically, it's more
tightly honed than Jean's previous albums. Still, at 22 tracks long, it's a
testament to Jean's oversized ego.

The running shtick is that Masquerade's a pirate radio broadcast. Jean's
twin positions as an African-American and an immigrant have always given him
a distinctive voice. But his taste, his artistic choices, have sometimes
been questionable, like covering Jones's What's New Pussycat. Someone give
Jean an editor.

-- EVELYN  McDONNELL


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