Wyclef Jean: The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II A Book : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

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The term "MC" can mean different things to different people. To Rakim, it meant "move the crowd." To many rappers, it means "microphone controller," someone focused only on verbs, nouns, similes, metaphors and flow. (For others, it just means "making cheddar.") But for Wyclef Jean, before anything else, "MC" truly means "master of ceremonies" -- someone who orchestrates everything from beats and rhymes to mood and emotion.

Clef's second solo album, The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book, is the most pleasingly direct yet musically adventurous hip-hop long-player you're likely to hear all year. He picks up on the spirit and the title of his first solo album, The Carnival, creating a big top where everyone from a New Jack rhyme spitter like Small World to crusty Brit rockers like Pink Floyd can coexist. Ecleftic has hyperactive, pass-the-mike rhyme sessions followed by heart-wrenching duets with Mary J. Blige and Whitney Houston dub plates; nowhere else will you see the same kind of range, unless VH1 comes out with a whole new type of Divas compilation.

Produced mostly by Clef and right-hand man Jerry Wonder, Ecleftic is part formulaic pop decision making, part rootsy, organic hip-hop. It's a blend that works like Flintstones-brand vitamin C with echinacea. Take the formulaic part: "It Doesn't Matter," which samples Bad Manners' Eighties hit "This Is Ska," seems clearly aimed at radio and video rotation. Groovy enough to make Rudy Giuliani bob his head, "It Doesn't Matter" calls out rappers who believe their own press clippings over a sunny, undeniable beat. (Ironically, it features professional wrestler the Rock -- currently the world's most recognizable poseur.) "Kenny Rogers Dub Plate" is a mad-scientist blend of backpack-meets-ten-gallon-hat corn that features Rogers kicking an interpolation of "The Gambler" alongside MC Pharoahe Monch. "Put this song full blast," Wyclef raps. "I'm about to break all formats."

Amid these bizarro yet radio-ready juxtapositions are songs that end up sounding totally unforced. The semiconscious booty-bass joint "Perfect Gentleman" is more about shaking derriFres than crossing over. And there's the roots-reggae "Diallo," a soul-searing eulogy for West African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was fatally shot by New York police officers in 1999. Interestingly, Clef's bold cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" makes perfect sense -- the song becomes a flashback to his time as a young immigrant, when he used to "listen to hip-hop/My brother tuned me into rock/Put me up on Pink Floyd."

There's also some thinly veiled nastiness to keep things interesting. On the Salaam Remi-produced "Where Fugee At," Clef mixes a vague nostalgia for his old trio with lyrical barbs aimed at his ex-band mates. Over slow, muted horns that behave like strings and stuttering drum thumps, he releases stinging lines like "How quick y'all forget/I'm the reason y'all MC/But y'all flip like Pharisees and charge me for blasphemy."

On "Pullin' Me In," Clef laments, "Man, I miss real MCs." That said, Clef's lyrical acumen won't become a hot chat-room topic of the Canibus vs. Eminem variety that keeps hip-hop purists preoccupied. His rhymes fall off beat at times: When attacking his former protTgT Canibus on "However You Want It," Jean drops cumbersome lines like "I heard he's lethal, and I'm too rusty to battle him/Me being rusty is like Biggie not being born-again." But Clef's sheer hubris -- plus the fact that the production on "However You Want It" is better than anything on Canibus' current effort -- puts him over the top.

Most important, Clef keeps his music as accessible as a Napster download. No matter where he ventures -- the hyper-Southern bounce of "Thug Angels" breaks into Haitian rara; the folk-rocky sinsemilla ode "Something About Mary" becomes a guitar and bass jam session -- he filters everything through a hip-hop boom-bap and makes sure there's a hook somewhere. With this album, he's re-established himself as a musician, producer, writer, arranger and personality who is both of hip-hop and bigger than it.

He knows rap fans might doubt his intentions. "Hip-hop fans, y'all like the woman in my house," Clef raps. "No matter how faithful I am, y'all still have your doubts/Talkin' 'bout, 'Is he real in this relationship?/Or did he go pop and on the side get a mistress?' " Clef may be a flirt -- cavorting with pop music for Grammys and mainstream appeal -- but The Ecleftic shows without question where home and his heart are. (RS 846)

KRIS EX