Wyclef Jean

My daddy was a minister, my grandfather was a voodoo priest, my uncle was a mason; I was raised with a lot of studies.

I want people to experience what it's like being from Haiti, coming to America, being Wyclef - multicultural, multilingual.

I do music for the love of it, and I've been doing it from a very young age: about 11.

Haiti is my country. The same way the Beatles are received in England - that's how Wyclef Jean is received in Haiti, do you know what I mean?

I like to go against the grain, against what's out there. Every day is like a challenge.

I'm the hip-hop Quincy Jones of today.

Every generation is gonna keep changing and you just have to embrace the change.

I didn't grow up to call a woman a ho. That's just how I was brought up. I won't call a girl a bitch, unless she wants me to call her a bitch.

My parents were Christian.

Rap records don't make you feel good no more. Six months after release, it can't come back as a classic.

Bob Marley stood for universal peace and love. He tried to break racial barriers.

I'm like Cab Calloway: I love the entertainment, and I've loved entertaining people ever since I was little.

What happens is we're all gonna return to dirt, so at the end of the day we're all equal.

You know, I'm a modern day Harry Belafonte; I got the swagger of the island.

When I'm rhyming it's all in my head... Like the slaves, when they were picking cotton, they would block out their minds. They would sing.

My songs are really never titled. Sometimes I call it one thing. then I change it.

I'm hands-on with everything, always trying to reach the real people.

'Masquerade' is the autobiography of Wyclef Jean. A lot of people know me through my work with Carlos Santana or Destiny's Child, winning all those Grammy Awards, but you do not know what is going on inside me.

I feel that life is short, so we should be disciplined, but at the same time we should have a good time.

All that violence in the world, we need to stop that.

I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.

Every generation is gonna keep changing, and you just have to embrace the change.

What I'm trying to do is break the genre from what is rap and what is music.

Me and my father went through a war period where we wasn't talking. He wanted me to go to theology school - I didn't want to go. I wanted to do music. I told him I was a minister through music.

I always want to know what's wrong with you, why you ain't smiling. That's just my character; I just love people and want to see people having a good time.

I want to be part of a different kind of celebrity, one that thinks not just about charity but policy.

I lived in a hut with no roof, and I rode to school on a donkey. I used to shoot birds with a slingshot to cook for dinner. Now I prefer to get my food from KFC.

At the end of the day, just know that God made you, so you can be your own individual, and don't let people give you that peer pressure.

I'm cheap, and I'm proud of it!

It was important that I became successful. People say they do it for the love, and yes, you do it for the love, but you want to be successful.

Coming from Haiti and growing up in Brooklyn, there's a lot of European influence when I get dressed up. I wear a lot of fitted suits, elegant cuts; I think it's cool to mash up a lot of different looks.

You get quick money, it's beautiful, there's sunshine, but at the end of the day, you find out it's all a masquerade, baby. It's not what it seems.

There's not a hip-hop artist that didn't snatch of piece of Bob Marley. It's totally impossible.

When the Fugees were big, we made a whole lot of money, and what happened was that I saved my money and never spent it.

That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in your face. After you got the groove, you were just singing the hooks, because you thought it was cool.

I lived in the projects and the ghetto, and turned the negative into a positive.

I know that the nice shines I have on is going to pass. The nice cars will pass. All that will stay is the music and the work. That's where I get the inspiration to help people out and work.

Wyclef is a musician that tried to unite as many musicians at once as possible. I am trying to be successful at that. The greatest challenge is that, I just got arrested for protesting in NYC for cutting the school budgets... And I think that it's important to stand up. Schools are important.

My grandfather was a voodoo priest. A lot of my life dealt with spirituality. I can close my eyes and remember where I come from.