June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists
June 9 Black Music Month Artist Wyclef Jean
My June 9 selection is Wyclef Jean.
Black Music Month Heat Factor "Why's this artist hot?": When the earthquake in Haiti happened, I wrote an entry on my ChicagoNow.com's "Message from Montie" blog called "Wyclef comes back to U.S., 'disgusted' by profit accusations about Yele Haiti Foundation." I said it then, and I'll say it again. As soon as I heard about Haiti, the only organization I focused on donating to was Wyclef's non-profit organization Yele Haiti because he was trying to help Haiti before it was the "in" thing to do. I'm not knocking any other organization, but Wyclef has always been known for going back to his birthplace to help Haitian people. He doesn't just talk about helping the community. He does it. According to Yele Haiti, the non-profit organization has created over 3,000 jobs; 7,000 children were given an education; over 8,000 people receive food; and 2,000 people a month learn about HIV/AIDS prevention. Now add that to his outstanding success as a member of the hip-hop group The Fugees and his solo career that continues to grow. He's a musical humanitarian, and I will always respect him for that.
First Memory, Most Personal Memory of the Artist: I've owned all of his CDs, but I will be honest and say I didn't necessarily like them all. However, two CDs that I played the hell out of during college were "The Carnival" and "The Ecleftic." My roommate and I played those two albums nonstop and probably irritated our suitemates to death. I dig how he blends so many genres together like "Guantanamera," "Jaspora," "Yele" and "Diallo." Spanish music. Haitian music. Hip-hop music. R&B music. Give him a guitar and it got even better. My favorite songs are "Diallo," "If I Was President," "Gunpowder," "Gone Til November" and "Low Income" (in that order), but I usually play the rest of his songs without pressing the next button. When he appears on other people's songs (ex. T.I.'s "You Know What It Is" and Destiny's Child's "No No No"), it's always that much better.
Accomplishments from the Artist: It wouldn't be fair to not mention his success with two-time Grammy-award winning The Fugees before I talk about his solo work. As a triple team with singer/rapper/actor Lauryn Hill and rapper Pras, they took the hip-hop world by storm, spending 16 weeks on the Billboard charts with "Nappy Heads" and 20 weeks with "Fu-Gee-La." And he was a phenomenal gift to the Billboard charts and radio stations everywhere when he went solo. Billboard hits included "Gone Til November" (19 weeks), "Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)" (21 weeks), "911" (18 weeks), "We Trying to Stay Alive" (12 weeks), "Party to Damascus" (9 weeks). "Two Wrongs" peaked at number 28 on the charts. He was also nominated for approximately six Grammys as a solo artist.
Other Black Music Month Selections: June 1 Trey Songz
Published by Shamontiel
Shamontiel is the author of Round Trip and Change for a Twenty, and in mid-October became the Chicago Tribune s Digital News Editor. She works on National Travel, Health and occasionally Breaking News, and w... View profile
June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-Amer...Black Music Month starts June 1. Each day of June, I'll be highlighting 30 of my favorite African-American artists, telling you why they're winners and informing you of their ac...
June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-Amer...Black Music Month starts June 1. Each day of June, I'll be highlighting 30 of my favorite African-American artists, telling you why they're winners and informing you of their ac...
June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-Amer...Black Music Month starts June 1. Each day of June, I'll be highlighting 30 of my favorite African-American artists, telling you why they're winners and informing you of their ac...- Wyclef Jean Home on Auction; Foreclosure Not Discriminating Wyclef Jean's home is soon headed to the auction block. The fact that a big name star, such as Wyclef Jean has had to allow the foreclosure of his home should say something about today's economy - if people haven't wo...
- Wyclef Jean Uses Twitter to Help Haitian Earthquake VictimsMusician Wyclef Jean is utilizing Twitter to gather support and raise awareness about the earthquake victims of Haiti. Twitter users responded by sending out tweets of donation amounts sent and sharing information fro...
- Yele Haiti: Musician Wyclef Jean Gives Back
- Miri Ben-Ari's The Hip-Hop Violinist Features Kanye West, Scarface, Others
- June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists
- June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists
- June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists
- June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists
- June is Black Music Month, Countdown of Shamontiel's Top 30 African-American Artists
- Wyclef Jean is the founder of Yele Haiti non-profit organization.
- Yele Haiti was created in 2005.
- Yele Haiti teaches HIV/AIDS prevention, and gives food, job and education assistance.
4 Comments
Post a CommentAs far as the friend, I'm not offended by his comment. If someone called me European because they thought I was a black person from London or something, I'd correct them, too, and say I was from America. I think he has a right to be proud he's from Jamaica. There's a lot of pride from the island. If I was from Jamaica, I'd represent, too. Unlike African-Americans, Jamaicans have been able to keep a strong culture and language. I believe there's less assimilation than blacks in America.
Black, Negro, Colored -- all terms created by the government. African-American was the first term people of African descent (if you exclude the whole scientific fact of the oldest human being's bones found in Africa) made up themselves. I use the terms interchangeably for SEO purposes and out of respect for those who prefer one over the other. But the actual creation of the month is called Black Music Month. I do, however, wish I'd have used Haitian in the subtitle but I was trying to keep the uniformity of the other 29 entries. Big perk: He follows me on Twitter. That's the biggest accomplishment I could ask from one of my favorite artists outside of interviewing them. Yay! I'm a big supporter of Yele Haiti and his music.
I was unaware of Black Music Month, though you use African American in title, he is a black artist. Your comment reminded me of a friend who said he was Jamaican American, sneering at African Americans, as if that made him better than others. I wondered if he was aware that dark skinned Jamaican's got there the same way the majority of U.S. citizens of African assent got here: slavery.
Note: Yes, I do realize he's Haitian American or Haitian (depending on what he prefers), but if we go according to scientific research, we're all descendants of Africa anyway (in reference to the title). His connection to Haiti makes him THAT much more important and certainly worthy of being honored for Black Music Month.