The shoeless kid from the countryside who once rode a donkey to school peered out of the helicopter and belted out a scream as it lifted off. “Yoo-hoo!” he shouted, a mischievous grin lighting up his face.

Wyclef Jean, the Haiti-born hip-hop producer, former Fugees member and now solo artist, should be in Miami or New York promoting his new album. Instead, he is touring Haiti aboard a U.N. military helicopter with a trio of A-listers he hopes will help him bring hope to his country.

“My responsibilities have grown beyond music,” Jean says. “For me, music happens to be secondary now. And the mission of the country happens to be first.”

Social ills
At 37, Jean is not just a creator of chart-smashing hits. He is a Haitian profoundly connected to his politically ravaged nation, a place of abject poverty, dysfunctional politics and vexing social ills.

These days, he is trying to use his celebrity status to bring millions of dollars to Haiti, essentially deploying his Yele Haiti Foundation to help build schools, train teachers, feed and educate children, and put to work women living in some of the country’s grittiest slums.

While other groups organize the actual projects, Yele provides the management, some financing — and the Wyclef Jean branding from a celebrity who remains a Haitian citizen.

A decade ago, Jean wrapped himself in the Haitian flag, walked onto the stage of the Grammy Awards ceremony to accept the prize for the Fugees’ multiplatinum album, The Score, and created a revolution among countless Haitian youths.

Instantly, being Haitian was no longer a badge of shame.

In the years since, Jean has lent his name to other people’s social causes, experimented with a Creole-infused album, and been the rainmaker behind numerous hits such as Destiny’s Child’s No, No, No and Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie.

No political ambition
But he left his recording label and almost disappeared from the spotlight after his preacher father, Gesner Jean, was killed when his Bentley accidentally rolled over him in 2001. Now Wyclef Jean is back, with a renewed zeal to help his country.

“Once my dad died, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was so confused,” Jean says. “Some thought I was drowning. But I was actually getting baptized.”

Today, he is asked frequently whether he has presidential ambitions. The Bob Marley-inspired dreadlocks are gone, and he has been named a goodwill ambassador by Haitian President Rene Preval. But Jean says he is not interested.

“I’m talking about the same things I’ve always been talking about,” he said a few weeks before his Haiti visit as he dodged New York City traffic in a silver Rolls-Royce. “I don’t have any political ambitions, but the people of Haiti have political ambitions for me. I feel that the way I am moving, I’m doing more than a president.”

Heavy hitters
Last year, he brought Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to Haiti and pleaded for support on the Caribbean nation’s behalf before the World Bank and the U.S. Congress. And the year before that, he bought a Haitian TV station, Telemax.

On a recent Sunday, the mission to change Haiti led Jean to temporarily put aside his fear of flying and show off another side of his beloved country.

He was hoping that his fellow helicopter passengers — fashion model Petra Nemcova, Sony BMG executive Lisa Ellis and Joelle Adler, head of Diesel Canada and founder of a foundation that has raised millions for impoverished children — would be moved to partner with him in programs to help Haiti’s youth.

“When they call it the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere … that is what really gets to me,” Jean says in flight, arguing that the country has lots of potential.

Jean’s good intentions haven’t always translated into success. His first charitable effort, the Wyclef Jean Foundation, failed because of a lack of focus and support.

An uphill battle
Now, Yele Haiti has combined the concepts from that effort — using music as a tool for development — with the idea of cooperating with nongovernmental groups already working in Haiti. “It’s a vehicle for projects,” said Maryse Kedar, president of Yele Haiti.

But in a country where more than half of the 8.5 million people are younger than 25 and there is no shortage of problems, Kedar acknowledges that the foundation faces an uphill battle.

“We know what we are doing is a drop in the ocean when we look at the amount of youths out there who do not have access to our programs,” Kedar said.

This stark reality is not lost on Jean. “If you want to change a country, unfortunately you are not going to be able to help 8 million people at one time,” he says. “But if you can get one or two and three and start to make that change, that will make a difference.”

Source:
Houston Chronicle