Wyclef Jean

When I rap, I get to express myself in a way where putting words together is like poetry, and sometimes it's better to talk in certain expressions than sing, you know? So I love, I love to rhyme when I want to express certain things.

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

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.

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

With Yele Haiti, the first thing was I'm proud of the organization and the work that the organization has done, and in the future hope to continue doing.

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

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?

When you enter the realm of politics, you don't enter it because you want to be popular. When I want to be popular, I pull on a guitar and sing a song.

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

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

If I can't take five years out to serve my country as president, then everything I've been singing about, like equal rights, doesn't mean anything.

When I was 11 years old, I started playing guitar.

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.

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

Whenever I would get in trouble with my dad, my mom would always save me. So that's why I like my mom - she cool.

When I want to be popular, I pull on a guitar and sing a song. Pras did not affect me because, in the realm of politics, he has never stood up for anything.

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

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.

What I learned from people like Carlos Santana is that you cannot get too happy after working for five years in the industry. It takes years and years, and I learned to keep a straight head and keep on working harder and harder.

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 really have fans that are from 14 or 15 years old to 60.

As a producer, I always want to know what makes the kids tick.

I'm like a hippie. At the end of the day, that's what my voice caters to.

I'm most comfortable when you just give me a guitar and I just sing.