“Cedric, I’m on my way down to see President Obama and I want to talk with you about some things,” Wyclef Jean told me last week. His words were part of perhaps the tightest, yet wide-ranging conversations I can remember having with a Hip-Hop artist.

Yeah, it’s not every day that you build with a musician able to move through diverse topics like street organizations (gangs); what it will take to get the industry monetized again (folks paying for music rather than copping it for free); and political events outside of America.

It came as no surprise then, last Thursday – less than 24 hours after my airing a portion of our conversation (download and scroll to the 3 hour 7 minute mark of the Dec. 9th Edition of ‘The Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program’ at: http://blackelectorate.com/media/cmbcp120909.mp3)) – that when I tuned in to news channel France 24 to watch international coverage of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, in Oslo, Norway, I see, who else, but Wyclef in the front row of the audience.

For the past month, it seems, some industry observers have been confused about Wyclef’s latest project, ‘DJ Drama Presents: From The Hut To The Projects, To The Mansion’ – a rare mixtape-EP album. And one may think that Wyclef has contributed to that by speaking as much about his next album, expected this Spring, as he does his current one, which dropped in November. But that’s only if you judge by appearance rather than listen carefully to the EP.

I initially saw ‘From The Hut, To The Projects, To The Mansion’ as part of a brilliant (if not transparent) marketing strategy designed to preserve Wyclef’s street credibility and to set up a contrast with the next album, which will have a different sound, and broader, more global appeal. But as I listened carefully to the mixtape EP I got the sense that this project wasn’t a loss leader (a business strategy where a business offers a product or service at a price that is not profitable for the sake of offering another product/service at a higher profit) to set up the next album, but, rather a definitive statement of just who he, Wyclef, is. Confirming my reaction, Wyclef acknowledged that this is the album, in terms of providing a window into his life journey.

To see how skillfully Wyclef balances political, street, and spiritual elements the album’s ‘Walk Away,’ ‘We Made It,’ and ‘Letter From The Penn,’ are references.

What I think has made this project difficult for some to grasp (especially those who still can’t accept the music industry made serious, almost fatal blunders in how it produced and distributed its product this decade) is that it comes from an artist who comes as close to the definition I have of a Hip-Hoppreneur ™ (http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=1812) as any I have built with.

Journalists who have been trained to focus only on one aspect of an artist’s personality and brand (especially in Hip-Hop) simply can’t appreciate broader dimensions that make them successful, inside the studio and in what they do outside of it. They also fail to see that there are some artists who have deep non-musical skills that help them make good music, and that the music of a few special artists – regardless to sales count – translates into non-musical benefits that make them larger than life and extend their careers.

In short, Wyclef is one of a very few entertainers who appear as comfortable in the three roles I believe will be necessary for any artist to fulfill in order to be successful next decade – creative risk-taker, business person, and leader (with political impact in America and abroad). The successful artist of the next decade will not be able to rely upon just hot music and selling a lifestyle and image. They will actually have to show that the street credibility and shot-calling they claim in songs is actually translating into power – from the block to the board room, and across borders.

Wyclef may already be where others will have to go.

What he has, that most lack is not just profile, personality and awareness, but just as importantly – the maturity and courage to take risks, take stands, and take the initiative to encourage those who collaborate with him to do the same.

Case in point – his creative relationship with DJ Drama.

Those who have heard it will note that one of the things that stands out on ‘From The Hut To The Projects To The Mansion’ are how strong the interludes are, in terms of message and delivery, spoken by DJ Drama.

So wanting to know more about how they came about, I asked Wyclef did he write them himself.

“I always write all of my interludes, but I’m going to tell you what’s deep about this,” Clef explained to me. “Me and Drama had a conversation and I said, Drama, on this one, you’re gonna come different because they are expecting you to come like, ‘Yo Drama Gangster Grillz!’ And I knew that Drama’s voice sounds like a preacher. I knew he had so much to say. So Drama (wanted me to send him the album tracks) and when he heard what I was doing, he was like, ‘I gotta just sit and write something for this’…I would say that every word that you hear Drama say in an interlude is something that he got inspired from, by listening to the music. He definitely went in. I said to Drama when people look back in history – they are going to look at us and they are going to (ask) ‘when they (DJ Drama and Wyclef) got together what did they do?’ And I was like, it has to be something historic, and he said the same.”

To me, what Wyclef describes sums up the challenge for the street-oriented Hip-Hop artist seeking to stay relevant and thrive in the coming years – where a gangster image and hot music matter less than how much an artist is up on technology, how strong their business mind or team is; how aware they are of current events; and how much they care about their legacy, beyond the lifestyle-image they sell their current core audience.

For years the industry and culture has been in denial about what makes an artist ‘street’ or ‘real.’ Dumbing it or boiling it down to aggression, claimed gang affiliation, and a careless (‘eff the world’) attitude, many artists, labels, and consumers forgot what really creates a following and generates record sales.

The result has been that somehow we are all supposed to accept that street artists are anti-intellectuals, who don’t read books or newspapers, could careless about political events, and who never admit how powerless we all are in a world and system we don’t run.

How soon we forget that Tupac was born to a family neck-deep in a political and community struggle, with a love for knowledge. How soon we forget the stance that Snoop Dogg took in relation to the execution of Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Crip co-founder Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams (much less what Snoop rapped about on ‘Lil’ Ghetto Boy in 1992 or what he said at Saviours’ Day in February 2009). And how soon we forget that 50 Cent – perhaps the defining ‘street’ artist of this decade openly indicates that his avid reading (better yet, mastery) of 48 Laws Of Power has been a factor in how he makes business decisions.

One of the best books I’ve ever read and one of 4 that I recommend to any and all youth is written by a proud member of the Bloods, Dashaun ‘Jiwe’ Morris (http://jiweera.com/), a person whom I’ve gotten to know over the past year and for whom I have great respect.

When we first spoke Jiwe told me a fact that is increasingly rare these days with book authors – he really wrote it himself.

Anyone who has read War of The Bloods In My Veins: A Street Soldier’s March Toward Redemption knows the author has extraordinary skill, with the ability to write to the head and the heart.

Rather than act as if his incredible writing talent, intellect and introspection isn’t ‘street,’ Jiwe proves the opposite.

That this is true for so many in the streets is why I gave 50 Cent the advice I did regarding how to market Beanie Sigel, should they collaborate together on an album and do business together.

You can read it at:

Part 1: https://allhiphop.com/stories/editorial/archive/2009/11/18/22031325.aspx

Part 2: https://allhiphop.com/stories/editorial/archive/2009/11/24/22040490.aspx

Today’s artists and labels with tunnel vision, focused only on how hard they sound are an endangered species about to become obsolete (or at least laid off) by demographics (population changes), technology, and the seriousness of two wars and a recession (which demand greater substance and impact from artists who claim to represent what’s happening in the hood).

In Wyclef, you have an artist who understands this and what it means to the future of the game.

“It’s a great opportunity for those who are aware, who understand the change (and accept that) everything can’t stay the same. We’re moving towards modern times, which deal with technology, and (where you) can get your information out there quicker. There are less people buying (music) and more people just grabbing it for free. They will continue grabbing it for free. But if they start to feel that you are beyond music and a movement I sincerely think that they will actually go back to the stores and pick up your music again. And that is what I’m working towards,” Wyclef told me.

High on his list of ‘movement’-oriented work are his efforts to broker a truce among street organizations on the ground and uniting them and others through the Internet. “I went back to Haiti and started putting a truce together among the gangs. I had an epiphany that I would start a new gang, and online. The idea of this social movement is that you can be from any part of the world and if you feel like you are in a gang, we welcome you. Just come and talk to us on Twitter and the computer because you know that the opposite force uses the Internet to recruit people for other things. So I use them (Twitter and the Internet) to recruit them for the right side of the gang. This is a real movement. When we come to your town I’m not only trying to perform, we’re trying to come to the schools, out to the community, and talk to kids in gangs and just try different things. Because we can’t just sing about it, we gotta act on it. We’ve seen everybody sing about it already,” Wyclef explained to me.

Unfortunately in Hip-Hop too few artists are willing to even ‘sing about it,’ not realizing that creative maturity, political influence, and greater reach in the local community and internationally, are a foundation of a lucrative career – not just posturing, and posing like you have rocks in your mouth.

They remain unaware and afraid to take a stance, not realizing that the artists with the longest careers – across genres – are those who have moved beyond a street or industry image and built a movement of some kind out of their ‘fans’ and consumer base. In a subtle way, this is what Jay-Z is pointing to in the first line of the first verse of ‘Run This Town.’

Never have I felt that more than when I heard ‘Million Voices’ on Wyclef’s 2007 album, Carnival II. On that song he justifies the call for a ‘United States of Africa.’ This goal is not a pipe dream. In some shape or form the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union – which represents the 53 nations of Africa – has been working to unite the continent since the 1960s. In 1991, the African Union, officially committed to building a common market or economy out of all of its countries. Last year, the AU established the First Congress Of African Economists to advise its efforts.

In 2001, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, speaking at Russell Simmons’ Hip-Hop Summit Action Network gathering, around the theme of taking back responsibility informed the artists who were present, about the ‘United States of Africa’ effort and encouraged them to find ways to rap about it in their songs. He offered to make himself available to them if they desired more information or his advice and guidance.

To the best of my knowledge, since June of 2001, Wyclef Jean is the only artist who was present that day who has prominently weaved a mention of this incredible movement into his music.

To one degree or another I believe it is fear, ignorance and an unwillingness to grow, that has prevented other artists from doing the same.

But just because this particular group of artists is standing still doesn’t mean that the rest of us are, or, that the world or even the music business will, for that matter.

In 1996, while serving as GM of Wu-Tang Management, I participated in a private meeting with executives from RCA Records. At a certain point they brought out our sales figures from around the world. It only included totals from the Americas, Europe and Asia. So I asked them, ‘What are our sales figures in Africa?’

After waiting a while they returned to the room with a new printout with Africa added to the list. The grand total, according to them, for the sale of ‘Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ in Africa, a continent of nearly 1 billion people was 73 units sold.

I will never forget how I felt when I saw the number ‘73′ on the paper. One day, in this column, I intend to share what I thought was the real cause of, or story behind the ‘73.’

Today that memory stays with me as I build with entrepreneurs and musicians in Africa on business concepts and ways for artists in the States to sell records abroad, and vice versa.

I’m no longer GM for Wu Tang but I have gone on to become a Member of the First Congress Of African Economists – named in 2008 by the African Union for my proposal for a single African currency backed by gold.

“If you have the euro and you have the European Union, then you can have a United States of Africa,” Wyclef said with passion last week.

2010 begins a new decade, one where I believe Hip-Hop artists will be guided by a different formula, what I now refer to as ‘The Wyclef Doctrine.’

Not just streets, and not just industry, but movement.

[You can watch and listen to the video collage of my thoughts on ‘The United States of Africa’, including Wyclef’s words and music at

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuP7uR2RSPk

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSRGkRbsqPQ]

Cedric Muhammad is a business consultant, political strategist, and monetary economist. He is author of the book, The Entrepreneurial Secret: To Starting a Business Without A Bank Loan, Collateral Or Revenue (http://theEsecret.com/). He is a Member of the African Union’s First Congress of African Economists. His talk show, ‘The Cedric Muhammad and Black Coffee Program’ can be viewed every Wednesday from 12 to 5 PM EST (USA) at: http://www.cedricmuhammad.com/media/

He can be contacted via e-mail at: cedric(at)cmcap.com

The year is quickly coming to an end, and we want to rundown some of the most notable trends of 2009 in denim for both men and women.

David Beckham

Give us your input on the best and the worst, what should stay and what should be buried!

Continue reading “Monday Fashion Feature: The Best And Worst Denim Trends Of 2009” →

Editor’s note: The

AllHipHop.com or its employees.“Reflection is a collection of memories/

Definitely: this is how Hip-Hop is meant

to be/

—Talib Kweli, “Memories Live,” Train of Thought, 2000.

I wouldn’t bore the reader with a recap of

‘09 through the vantage point of Hip-Hop—you’ll have to wait for Skillz’s

annual ingenious offering for that; but I’ll like, if only for a few moments,

to meditate on the last year and acquire your thoughts and critiques, as fellow

fan and observer, of Hip-Hop in the year of 2-0-0-9.

Almost a year ago, I wrote

that if Hip-Hop would regain its rightful place as society’s conscience and

thermometer (or transparent glove),

it would have to make a clear distinction between “socially-conscious Rap” and

“prophetic Hip-Hop”—suggesting that the latter does more than indict a society

for its wrongdoings and shortcomings, but goes further in producing usable

models and concepts to correct such society and redeem it. It was critical a

distinction be made because, I believed, with prophetic Hip-Hop, “the years of

industry-sanctioned Black-on-Black violence—be it verbally or physically—can be

finally laid to rest, and washed away over the oceans of memory. Prophetic

Hip-Hop can also help stop the bleeding begun by corporate executives of record

labels, and begin a genuine healing process for female Hip-Hop listeners.”

And, in closing, I prophesied: “A New

Year should herald a new phase and a new beginning. By the end of this New

Year, there would be no doubt as to whether Hip-Hop survives as an art-form or

devolves into the commercial enterprise it is becoming.”

Well, 1000 beefs, 2,000 arrests, and

3,000 Auto-Tune songs after, there seems to be very few ambiguity left to work

with.

In ’09, one of the more depressing

series of events witnessed was the arrests and incarceration of artists once

thought of as Teflon or impenetrable. What it revealed, which many fans and

artists might be uncomfortable admitting, is that the days of Hip-Hop artists

as Savior and Messiah of the music industry—valuable property of record label

executives—might be over. Once upon a time, a successful, commercial artist

almost had to stab five different men in broad daylight, right in front of the

empire state building, while hurling terroristic threats, in the nude, via a

megaphone, to the president and every pentagon official, before being arrested

and, if at all, sentenced to a few years behind bars.

In the last decade Hip-Hop fans saw

their favorite artists beat charges even some rich white men could never elude.

The message was clear: these artists were precious commodities, and protected

as such by the music industry’s lords of capital. Murder charges. Robbery

charges. Attempted murder charges. You name it. Even money laundering. Like an

acrobat hurling through hoops of fire, they emerged unscathed. But that era is

far gone. In the last year alone, dozens of prominent artists have not only

been arrested on charges—charges which 5 years ago wouldn’t stick like Jell-O

on brick—but also sentenced to serve multiple years.

The age of immunity is over.

No more are Hip-Hop artists granted

carte blanche to do whatever they please without excessive ramifications to

match their exuberance. And the devil might, as always, be in the details—the

numbers. How unremarkable is

it that the top 5 selling Hip-Hop artists of ’08 barely squeaked out 6 million

copies combined? In the last decade Hip-Hop sales have fallen over 50%—about

the same percentage of people, surveyed

in 2006 by The Associated Press and AOL Black Voices, that regard Hip-Hop a “negative

force in American society.” So we have the double whammy of declining album

sales—due in part to the disposable crap force-fed down the throats of fans—and

a growing, national backlash—due in part to both genuine angst and antagonistic

resentment (resentment of a rich, young, Black minority)—against Hip-Hop.

And major labels couldn’t be more

thrilled. Though they find the future filled with ever

gloomy promises, most executives understand that, with Hip-Hop artists, the

game is never over. New Rules, as

Bill Maher might put it, can always be manufactured, last minute, to bound and

gag artists who haven’t been explained to the insidious

intricacies of the music business. Like worms in the rain, they keep appearing.

There is simply no shortage of uninformed—violable—artists—more so in an age

when the political capital Rap artists once had no longer exists.

But 2009 was also more special than

others in recent memory because it produced perhaps the most depressing

catalogue of mainstream artists. Never before have there been so many replicas

of a failed brand sold to fans without any sense of remorse or shame. These I, Robots, all singing similar tunes and

promulgating equally pernicious values, were marketed as different and diverse.

Scores of artists, using the same machine, adopting the same tempo, crafting

the same dance steps, were trotted out one after the other—to the

disillusionment of a once vibrant fan-base. In a twist of unintended

consequences, though, this scheme successfully put to bed, forever, the laughable

claim that labels were still

in the business of artist development or creative promotion. Lights out.

The delays and postponement of long-awaited

projects from prolific artists like Lupe Fiasco (LupE.N.D.), Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek (Revolutions Per Minute), Nas and Damian Marley (Distant Relatives), and others, did well

to remind fans that their artists still

lack the autonomy and agency those who came before them also did. The only

redeeming moment, in terms of album releases, seemed to be Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II—a reassuring

masterpiece.

In 2009, we also learned that anyone

remotely critical of HOVA is an automatic “hater”—or “Jayter,” as some endowed scribe recently coined. Even for

legitimate reasons like the great one’s

betrayal

of his old neighborhood, or the unimpressively mediocre comeback attempt,

anyone who dares challenge his divinity could end up paying costly fines. I get

it: Most middle-class Hip-Hop fans (especially Black males) over the age of 35

see Jay-Z as the only relatable voice

speaking to issues of maturity and evolvement in Hip-Hop. That’s fine. And his

many millions also do well in convincing them the impossible is never so.

That’s great. But I like my coffee like I like my Hip-Hop: Strong, Black (not

necessarily in terms of Race), uncompromising, trust-worthy, humble,

courageous, non-corporatist, and unflinching. I don’t need my coffee beans

telling me, or the Hip-Hop artists I like, how many millions of endosperm cells

it has and why, on that basis alone, it deserves all the respect (and fear)

zygotes can buy. As a well known TV and Radio host recently wrote to me, “I

just wish the ni**a would stop reminding everybody how broke they are.  All the ‘off that’ talk is real corny in an

economy where so many fight on the daily just to provide food on the table.”

An ’09 reflection session could never be

complete without the WWF beefs that had many hanging their heads in shame. Yes,

beefs sell records. Yes, many of these artists are truly tender-hearted and

simply pander to the demands of executives that they keep the brand alive by

any means necessary. Yes, far too many fans, raised on terrestrial radio and Black Evil

Television, couldn’t tell the difference between what took place when

Joe Budden and Saigon were at it from when Joe Budden and Raekwon were… well,

we all know how that ended up. All above are true. But this gimmickry crap is

one step over the line. It’s a ploy, successfully executed, that effectively

absolves labels of their responsibilities to promote artists responsibly and

meticulously, and instead uses cost-free (minus the occasional homeboy smoked

inadvertently), media-hyped supercilious spats to fill the gap.   

If this was all ‘09 offered, though, the

future of Hip-Hop might be in great peril. Not to say it isn’t; but in 2009

such exceptional artists like Jasiri X

emerged, somewhat, in the mainstream, with levels of creativity and resilience

unheard of in recent Hip-Hop history. It took a few years but, finally, the genius of

this brother is being recognized in circles beyond the neo-Black nationalist,

underground, back-pack cocoon great talents like Jasiri are usually smothered

and suffocated within. The irreducible

Invincible from Detroit—who’ll likely blow to smithereens the first 7

rappers on your top 10 list and make mince meat of the last 3—also afforded

much comfort to those who hope Hip-Hop still rewards artists with the greatest

skills and grimiest work ethics. And the ascendance of creatively engaging

artists likes Minnesota MC M.anifest, part

of a larger African collective “stormin’ into the Hip-Hop world,” provided

a good deal of promise for a Hip-Hop future free from narrowness, parochialism,

and provincialism. 

Incandescent releases by Mos Def (The Escatic), DOOM (Born Like This), the peerless J Dilla (Jay Stay Paid), Q-Tip (Kamaal/The

Abstract), KRS-One and Buckshot (Survival

Skills), Marco Polo & Torae (Double

Barrel), amongst others, helped supply some fuel of hope to keep keeping on

even when the commercial realm of Hip-Hop tells

the world the culture is running—or has utterly run out—of ideas. Book

releases by KRS-One (The

Gospel of Hip-Hop), The RZA (The

Tao of Wu) and the golden Nikki Giovanni (Hip-Hop

Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat) also brought

much intellectual provision to the table.

But a handful is never enough.

So, all things considered, Hip-Hop

failed to deliver. But Hip-Hop did not fail in inspiring me profoundly, as it

always has—and, I can only assume, always will. The

recent National Geographic panel put together by Nas and Damian

Marley—which assembled DJ Kool Herc, Rakim, King Jammy, and DJ Red Alert in the

same room—is a firm reminder of why Hip-Hop (and its ambassadors) should never

be counted out. So is Lupe Fiasco’s performance in Howard Zinn’s The People Speak,

which aired last night on the History

Channel. I demand much from a culture that changed the way millions of

people around the world looked at young Black and Brown people, then changed

how millions of young Black and Brown people looked at themselves and the

world. Hip-Hop’s possibilities are infinite. And if anyone needs more convincing,

a few underground artists showed what true, collective Hip-Hop agitation looks

like last week: http://www.michiganhiphop.com/2009/12/07/1210-mu-today-u-tomorrow-benefit-concert/.

Tolu Olorunda is a cultural critic whose

work regularly appears on TheDailyVoice.com

and other online journals. He can be reached at: [email protected].