Wyclef Jean

“Let’s start with this. “I’m Spartacus.” “No, I’m Spartacus.” “No, I’m Spartacus.” “No… I’m Spart–” Well, who the hell is Spartacus? I would say this is one of my favorite films. I was actually born in a place called Haiti. And the thing about it is, Haiti was the first Black republic to become free, in 1804. So, what I love most about the movie Spartacus is just the uprising, the idea of, “We’re no longer going to conform ourselves to what you want us to be,” and the idea of what freedom really is.”

“♪ La Bamba ♪ ♪ Se necesita una poca de gracia ♪ ♪ Una poca de gracia ♪ Exactly. This is important for me because I’m an immigrant, and, coming to America, I had a dream. Dude’s like, “But you don’t know how to speak English.” And I would say, “Je parle français,” I spoke French, I spoke Creole. My English was terrible. My English was terrible. But when I did an album called The Carnival, I defied language. So this album had English, French, Creole, Spanish. Because what I learned from this story was that what’s bigger than language is cultural vibration. This was amazing. I ain’t going to lie to y’all, I did cry at the end of this. I ain’t let my girl see me tearing, but…”

“Menace II Society, the Hughes brothers. They always say film is an expression of self. So I would say with this, Menace II Society was us. It was, like, the community. We got a chance to see our faces. We got a chance to see… And this is big for us because it was like our actual culture was on screen, our Shakespearean slang, ghetto, twisted language, people flipping the lingo. At the same time, we saw the reality of how something can go from being so beautiful to being tragic. Growing up in the projects, when we see Menace II Society, every one of us has one person from that movie that we identify with. And to us, when this came out, it changed the culture and gave people a different sense of what really, really was going down in the ghetto.”

“One of my greatest movies of all times, Black Orpheus. When we talk about Black Orpheus, one of the things we talk about, how this thing is so colorful and how it’s just literally so incredibly shot within a structure where you’re using a lot of the natural light. Another thing that I loved about Black Orpheus, and I’m also inspired by that when I perform, they call me the Carnival Man, and I think in my shows I do take a piece of Black Orpheus with the idea of how the energy of Carnival is portrayed in Brazil.”

“Three Musketeers. When I see this movie, first thing I think about is my grandmother. I ain’t going to lie to y’all. That’s the era when we all had to sit in front of the television screen. “What did you learn from Three Musketeers? Now you tell me, what did you learn?” And… It’s like, one person can be an island by themselves. To get something done, you have to… Partnership is very important. Sometimes you might not like who your partner is, but sometimes you just have to get along for the better of peace. You know what I’m saying to you?”