22763: (Chamberlain) Wyclef Jean's new project (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   CASTRIES, St. Lucia, July 22 (AP) -- Wyclef Jean has a new project -- a
benefit concert to promote peace in his troubled home country of Haiti.
   The Grammy-winning singer said the Dec. 5 event would be a fund-raiser
for efforts to stabilize the Caribbean country, but he didn't provide
details. Jean said he hoped 2 million people would attend, no small feat in
a nation of 8 million.
   "I was in Haiti three weeks ago, and I was hanging out on the block of
the ghettos, in the baddest parts of town with no security," he told
reporters in St. Lucia while on tour to promote his first album in Creole,
Haiti's language.
   "All that stuff you see on the news recently, with the guns and things,
I didn't see none of that," he said.
   Jean said he hoped some good would come out of Haiti's recent upheaval.
   "Every time after you have an uprising ... there is always hope that
something better will happen," the 31-year-old said.
   His new album, "Creole 101 (Welcome to Haiti)," tells the story of a
Haitian boy who immigrates to America and grows up in New York. Jean said
he drew from his own experiences and those of other Haitian refugees in
America.
   Jean, whose hits include "Gone 'Til November, also said he was ready for
a reunification of the Fugees, the hip-hop group that made him famous.
   "The Fugees is the one thing all of us have that will go No. 1, not just
in America, but in the whole world," he said. "So, anytime they're ready,
I'm ready. All they gotta do is come see me."