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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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'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.

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 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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I think we will have a boy baby and he will be born on the 20th of August. Everyone else has a girl baby and at times I don't believe I should mind having a little Phyllis Dawn but Dearest wants a boy and I do.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

I don't like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don't like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it's essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you.

Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach... it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say 'What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!'

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

I didn't have any problem bonding with Honey, but I was plagued with insecurities about my ability to bring up my baby.