Most Popular

  • To Hug a Porcupine
    Three little boys set out to destroy the parents who loved them. This isn't how adoption is supposed to work.
  • Sexual Healing
    Sad stories and otherwise freaky tales from Florida's last sexual surrogate
  • Cookie Monsters
    It's the old diet doc versus the marketing gun in the great war of the tasty appetite suppressors
  • Smoked Tuna in the Can
    He was the first big bust of the War on Drugs. That and two bits won't get you a cup of coffee.
  • Shark Huggers
    Tourists can't wait to get next to them – even if they are eating machines
"Most Popular" tools sponsored by:

Recent Articles

Recent Articles by Dan Leroy

National Features >

  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times

    Sexual Healing

    For Florida's sole remaining sex surrogate, love is a many splintered thing.

    By Michael J. Mooney

  • City Pages

    Your Friendly Neighborhood War Profiteer

    It's not just giant companies cashing in on America's defense industry.

    By Jeff Severns Guntzel

  • The Pitch

    Supersizing Sonic

    How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the "Sonic Guys."

    By Justin Kendall

  • Houston Press

    Temples of Tex-Mex

    A diner's guide to Texas's oldest Mexican restaurants.

    By Robb Walsh

Wyclef Jean

Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant (Sony)

By Dan Leroy

Published on February 07, 2008

In a recent interview, Wyclef Jean summed up in just a few words the very thing fans both admire and abhor about the former Fugee. Bubbling over with understandable enthusiasm for Carnival Vol. II: Memoirs of an Immigrant, the star-studded sequel (of sorts) to his 1997 solo debut, Clef couldn't resist comparing it to Bob Marley's Exodus and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Those two classics set a standard that Memoirs can't reach. But give the ever-ambitious Clef his due: This tuneful, multiculti bouillabaisse is his most fully realized project since the Fugees' 1996 masterwork, The Score. It's also an impressive bit of genre-juggling. Give a listen to Timbaland's recent solo CD to hear how a style-spanning lineup doesn't guarantee greatness. Wyclef wisely roots most of Memoirs' songs in familiar Caribbean and Latin amalgams. If that seems to be the way pop music is headed, it's still not an easy task to work Paul Simon ("Fast Car"), Norah Jones ("Any Other Day"), and Mary J. Blige ("What About the Baby") sensibly into a mix. Clef's own rough, island-inflected croon unites the disparate strands of Memoirs. So does the way he draws on his own history as an immigrant to highlight the musical melting pot he's created here. Memoirs sounds like world music as it was originally envisioned, before record company execs got their hands on it.