WYCLEF JEAN

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

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.

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.

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.

My parents were Christian.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.