Top 33 Wyclef Jean Quotes

‘Masquerade’ is the autobiography of Wyclef Jean. A lot of people know me through my work with Carlos Santana or Destiny’s Child, winning all those Grammy Awards, but you do not know what is going on inside me.

Me and my father went through a war period where we wasn’t talking. He wanted me to go to theology school – I didn’t want to go. I wanted to do music. I told him I was a minister through music.

There’s not a hip-hop artist that didn’t snatch of piece of Bob Marley. It’s totally impossible.

I lived in a hut with no roof, and I rode to school on a donkey. I used to shoot birds with a slingshot to cook for dinner. Now I prefer to get my food from KFC.

If I can’t take five years out to serve my country as president, then everything I’ve been singing about, like equal rights, doesn’t mean anything.

I’m like Cab Calloway: I love the entertainment, and I’ve loved entertaining people ever since I was little.

I’m cheap, and I’m proud of it!

I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.

My songs are really never titled. Sometimes I call it one thing. then I change it.

I’m the hip-hop Quincy Jones of today.

Rap records don’t make you feel good no more. Six months after release, it can’t come back as a classic.

Coming from Haiti and growing up in Brooklyn, there’s a lot of European influence when I get dressed up. I wear a lot of fitted suits, elegant cuts; I think it’s cool to mash up a lot of different looks.

I like to go against the grain, against what’s out there. Every day is like a challenge.

I want to be part of a different kind of celebrity, one that thinks not just about charity but policy.

I really have fans that are from 14 or 15 years old to 60.

When I was 11 years old, I started playing guitar.

Whenever I would get in trouble with my dad, my mom would always save me. So that’s why I like my mom – she cool.

When you enter the realm of politics, you don’t enter it because you want to be popular. When I want to be popular, I pull on a guitar and sing a song.

I’m like a hippie. At the end of the day, that’s what my voice caters to.

I’m hands-on with everything, always trying to reach the real people.

With Yele Haiti, the first thing was I’m proud of the organization and the work that the organization has done, and in the future hope to continue doing.

I do music for the love of it, and I’ve been doing it from a very young age: about 11.

It was important that I became successful. People say they do it for the love, and yes, you do it for the love, but you want to be successful.

At the end of the day, just know that God made you, so you can be your own individual, and don’t let people give you that peer pressure.

My grandfather was a voodoo priest. A lot of my life dealt with spirituality. I can close my eyes and remember where I come from.

I don’t have to be president to do great things for my country, but at the same time, to get legislation and policy passed, you have to be in some kind of office. So I don’t know what the future will lead to.

When I rap, I get to express myself in a way where putting words together is like poetry, and sometimes it’s better to talk in certain expressions than sing, you know? So I love, I love to rhyme when I want to express certain things.

Haiti is my country. The same way the Beatles are received in England – that’s how Wyclef Jean is received in Haiti, do you know what I mean?

What I learned from people like Carlos Santana is that you cannot get too happy after working for five years in the industry. It takes years and years, and I learned to keep a straight head and keep on working harder and harder.

My parents were Christian.

All that violence in the world, we need to stop that.

When the Fugees were big, we made a whole lot of money, and what happened was that I saved my money and never spent it.

Every generation is gonna keep changing, and you just have to embrace the change.