Interview with Hiponline

Hiponline: How do you write?

Wyclef: Sometimes it comes from a verse or a strum on the guitar. Also my cousin and I could be messing in the studio and come up with something good.

Hiponline: Is it hard to figure out what is good as your own producer?

Wyclef: It's all I've been doing since I've been thirteen. For some its hard and some its not.

Hiponline: Do the lyrics just flow or do you go back and put a message inside?

Wyclef: Most of the time you just start it off and say 'I want to say this' or 'I want to say that', sometimes you get pissed off because you don't get it, but you just go right back and go after it again.

Hiponline: How important is the message or do you just try to entertain?

Wyclef: I really try to get both sides of it.

Hiponline: Do you want fans to interpret the songs on their own?

Wyclef: It's usually best if you can interpret it yourself. Like take "Gone 'Til November", when I said, "every time I make I run", making a run is selling drugs. "Girl you turn around and cry". That is a drug dealer talking to his girlfriend. One of my friends got murdered in Baltimore. People hear that song and put their own meaning behind that song, so if I went and told everyone it was a song about drugs a lot of people might not have been moved or listened to it.

Hiponline: Did you try to figure out the songs you listened to as a kid?

Wyclef: I would listen and see if they'd give me something internally.

Hiponline: What songs growing up moved you?

Wyclef: Public Enemy's "Fight The Power".

Hiponline: Anyone out there you want to work with?

Wyclef: There are a lot of people I'd like to work with, but I really like working with new artists most. I really like developing them.

Hiponline: Is it the end result you like most?

Wyclef: The end result is the best thing. To see something start from scratch and then see the world singing it, man you can't even explain what that is like.

Hiponline: When you are working on a song that ends up being a hit, do you ever know it will be so big?

Wyclef: You never know, you just assume. (Laughs)

Hiponline: What was your motivation for the title Masquerade?

Wyclef: I wanted to get the whole concept of life being a Masquerade. Hiponline: I know you've been active against bootlegging.

Wyclef: Yeah. I think that its hurting the artists. Selling records is how we make a living. The people who are doing the bootleg don't worry about no one but themselves. It really brings our income down and then we are forced to find different things to make money. What a fan has to understand is that we're six months or more in a studio trying to come up with material for them and its only right that they pick up a right copy.

Hiponline: Have you ever thought about going out on your without a big label so that you make more of your own money?

Wyclef: I have. I have my own studio and I have my own label, Clef records and we have some hot stuff coming out soon. But I'm a musician first and foremost. But I am a leader, I don't follow.

Hiponline: When you meet new artists what is it like being someone they look up to?

Wyclef: It's a privilege.

Hiponline: I saw you were arrested recently at a protest against the cuts in education in New York City.

Wyclef: Definitely. It's one of the most important things.

Hiponline: Do you think too much focus goes on the bad things and not enough on the good?

Wyclef: More people need to talk about the positive and stop focusing on the negative.

Hiponline: What would you say to kids out there that look up to you and want to be the next Wyclef?

Wyclef: Know what you are talking about first, and be positive. Know that you are going to face the obstacles of people saying that you wont make it. But if you get past that then you have a chance.

Hiponline: Did a lot of people tell you that you wouldn't make it?

Wyclef: Big time. They said I'd never get up out of the ghetto, I'd go to prison, and then I come out with the Fugees and they said it wouldn't last and hip-hop wouldn't accept it. But its ten years later and I'm still here.

Interview conducted by Hiponline.com