Nel Ust Wyclef Jean, October 17, 1969, Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti
Jean immigrated with his family to Brooklyn, New York City, before eventually moving to East Orange and Newark, New Jersey. He began making music as a child, and when he was a teen, his mother recognized his musical talent and bought him a guitar. During the 1980s, Sean and other musicians formed the Trangelator Crew. In 1992, Jean and Lauryn Hill began a romantic relationship, which ended in 1997, the year the band broke up. In the end, Jean revealed that Hill’s dishonesty regarding Zion David’s parentage split the group. The group renamed themselves Fugees after signing with Ruffhouse Records and Columbia Records in 1993, an abbreviation of “refugees” and sometimes a derogatory term for Haitian immigrants. The group released its debut album in 1994, Blunted by Reality. Among the guests on Jean’s solo album The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II a Book were Youssou N’Dour, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kenny Rogers, The Rock, and Mary J. Blige. As a single, he released “911” with Mary Blige. During a period between 2004 and 2006, fuelled by a reunion performance in the documentary Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2005), it appeared that the Fugees would record a new album. However, Pras claimed to Billboard magazine, “To put it nicely, it’s dead.” Pras said the root of this animosity was the third member of the group, Lauryn Hill, and was quoted in Billboard as saying; “Me and Clef, we’re on the same page, but Lauryn Hill is in her zone, and I’m fed up with that shit. Here she is, blessed with a gift, with the opportunity to rock and give and she’s running on some bullshit? I’m a fan of Lauryn’s but I can’t respect that.”