Wyclef Jean 'The Carnival'

The production and sound design on this is pretty perfect.

I liked this a lot at the time. You're right about the production, and I think you're also correct about it being forgotten.

The guitar, horns (tuba and trumpet?) and strings really fill out Gone Til November

This album has not aged well for me.

really? sounds great re-listening right now.

Gone Til November is the greatest song ever so

Man, my friends and I spent so many months listening to this album while playing GoldenEye

Torn between "Mona Lisa" and "Yele." That final stretch of the album is so good; its world seemed so much more expansive than just about any rap LP at the time

loved this so much at the time but haven't heard it in forever and it does feel like miseducation came out and basically erased this from history (though subsequent clef obv helped). might've voted the gone til november remix, voted mona lisa

lol Evan otm re goldeneye. This record came out when I was 16 right around when I got my license. I remember one of the first high school parties I ever drove to pulling up playing Staying Alive feeling like a million bucks... only to walk in and see the girl I had been crushing hard on making out with one of my best friends. I left and peeled out of the driveway and drove off to the nearby hollywood video parking lot and sat there listening to Mona Lisa on repeat for an hour or so. Just sitting there hating my life.

I really love both of John Forte's verses on this album

I remember one of the first high school parties I ever drove to pulling up playing Staying Alive feeling like a million bucks... only to walk in and see the girl I had been crushing hard on making out with one of my best friends.

Damn... too many in the wolf pack

lol otm

I haven't heard it this millennium but I looooooved "Apocalypse" and "Bubblegoose."

Thanks for this thread! It's amazing how omnipresent this album felt in summer/fall '97 only to disappear.

The bass on Apocalypse is really boomy. Been on my sub bass playlists for yeeeeears.

https://open.spotify.com/user/theshipment/playlist/7xy8ShER1qpdkbX2fQrFt3

I may vote for it. Love the 2nd verse so much.

Anything Can Happen

Album is super slept on, i bumped this all the time

Will the Knicks win the championship this year?
Say what, say what, anything can happen

gone till november is a great song i haven't listened to in like a decade

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean: "Jaspora" by Wyclef Jean

Wow. Dean is, as usual, full of surprises. Jean is a Haiti native, member of the hit group the Fugees and an innovator in hip-hop who taps his Caribbean heritage in song. "Jaspora" is sung in French-Creole on Wyclef's 1997 solo album The Carnival. Does Dean speak French-Creole? Does he just dig the beat? Watching Dean's favorable press coverage and populist momentum, the other nominees may be humming a different Fugees selection: "Killing Me Softly."

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-09-21/entertainment/0309200189_1_small-town-man-town-two-songs

wyclef played a free show at my college and it was a Big Deal. seems weird in retrospect that he played so many college shows.

really fun album, although also the first rap album i can remember where i was like "he used the same drum kit on every song, damn switch it up"

the way all the acclaim and prestige attached to this album (and even The Score more or less) was almost instantly shuffled over to Miseducation in the space of a year was pretty crazy. i dunno if i'd say this is a better album but i'm way less sick of it than Miseducation or The Score.

I really love both of John Forte's verses on this album

― Spottie, Monday, March 21, 2016 4:12 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

EATIN' MANGOES IN TRINIDAD WITH ATTORNEYS

Ha, I interviewed John Forte a few years ago, after George W. Bush pardoned him (!). Really brilliant guy who missed his window.

bubblegoose is my secret jam

the forte story is a really weird one

anyways, i was JUST listening to this recently after reading about Wyclef getting badly clowned on reddit. it's a nostalgia trip for sure.

for some reason this album feels like it took place a more barely remembered past than The Chronic or a Wu solo joint.

I think that's because the album was too hard to replicate to be influential. The few albums that did try to follow in its footsteps by trying to do a little bit of everything, including Wyclef's own, were pretty awful. So this feels like it's own little island

Nice to see ILX turning more warmly to this one - there's a thread from a few years back where it gets a bit rougher treatment IIRC. Like most of y'all, I still have fond memories of this CD, and it is a little hard to reconstruct this moment when it seemed like Wyclef was this polymath genius poised to reshape the entire pop landscape or something. The standout tracks are fantastic, and quite diverse, but it's also a case of an album horribly bloated by skits that kinda dilute the impact. I liked a few of 'em, but still. "Words of Wisdom" in particular is pretty wince-inducing now. The sequencing was also a little weird - last three tracks, coming after the "closing arguments," always felt like a movie that has a few too many "okay, this is the end scene, great!" moments.

But man, "Apocalypse" is great. "Anything Can Happen" and "Year of the Dragon" my other faves of the non-singles.

WYCLEF STILL BEST RAPPER SINCE KRS-ONE is the thread i was thinking of

I don't care for "We Trying to Stay Alive" as a first single imo

or maybe it was this one How many times can you vote in the best Wyclef Jean single poll?

that's interesting, Alfred. What would you have gone with? It maybe doesn't represent the album all that well, as a "big sample" kind of thing, but it also seems like the obvious pick if you're a record exec looking for the hit. "Gone till November" (just noticed the misspelling after all these years!) was what got me to buy the album though. It sounded so different and exciting in the radio landscape of 1998.

Also, "hip-hop turns to the future of rock when I smash a pumpkin" was kind of a perfect little appeal to my mini-demographic even if it also kind of suggests a certain basic corniness that does attach to Wyclef. I feel like his star was already sinking by the time The Eclectic came out and then it basically sophomore slumped and (Shakira mega-hit aside) he never quite got his momentum back. But apparently his eighth album is in the works, so I guess he did actually cultivated a fan base.

Haven't listened to this in soooooo long. Oui oui, y'all!

see i didn't get that sense at all. The Score was huge and then when everyone expected a follow-up, Wyclef did the solo record and it was a pretty big deal and he got hailed as very important and so on. Wyclef was maybe not looked as a STAR star but definitely a Dr. Dre type A-list mastermind. it was a little ridiculous, the way he got branded as 'the real musician' vs. Puff Daddy or whoever when he used samples as shamelessly as Bad Boy, but Clef and The Carnival were a very big part of 1997's pop rap crossover moment. (xp)

The sequencing was also a little weird - last three tracks, coming after the "closing arguments," always felt like a movie that has a few too many "okay, this is the end scene, great!" moments.

Naw the Hatian stuff is so essential. It makes this album what it is.

Oh yeah, I dig the tracks, I just think the sequence is weird.

I love that sequencing; feels like the whole album builds to those last three songs.

Biggest sequencing problem is breaking the spell of "Gone Til November" with that disgusting "RAPE! RAPE!" skit. That whole skit should've been cut, obviously, but placed where it is it's especially toxic.

i haven listened to the skits in forever, honestly. Loved them at the time, i don't even remember that one :/

man, if this brings back memories, try the ecleftic, yow

I dropped "Perfect Gentleman" in a set recently and it went off

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Vision: revelation; sky-wrote "Apocalypse"
Enemy pilots kamikaze into the abyss

ended up going for "Bubblegoose"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

1. Intro 1

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