“I am the American Dream,” Wyclef Jean told the packed house at Powell Hall Friday night.
He didn’t stay in the political space when he brought his Night of Symphonic Hip Hop Tour to town in a special show accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony and his own live band. However, Jean made a point to counter the sentiments of Donald Trump.
He explicitly defended his birth nation and his contribution to what makes America great – a mosaic of cultures that have looked to the country as a place where they were able to rise above circumstances and live the success story they imagined.
Jean decried Trump’s remarks about Haiti as a “sh*thole” country and through his performance used music to illustrate the connection that comes when varying cultures are collectively celebrated.
With a blend of Caribbean, hip-hop, pop, rock and his Haitian roots, Jean gave a performance that proved the point he told The American earlier in the week – that, like America, hip-hop is a melting pot that blends cultures and influences for the greater good.
He got things started at the piano with Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel’s tender French Jazz ballad “Ne me quitte pas,” a song made popular in the U.S. by Nina Simone.
It was anything but expected as the opening number for what was billed as a hip-hop show. It set the tone for audiences to expect the unexpected – which continued when he brought out the young woman who would be helping him out by performing vocals made famous by Ms. Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige.
He relished in the moment of seeing people respond to the ability of Moira Mack – a young white woman – to add her own flavor to the hip-hop/R&B classics while keeping the soulful elements intact.
“I know what y’all were thinking St. Louis,” Jean said. “Y’all were thinking, ‘…she better not mess up Mary J. I’m Wyclef. I got you.”
She received rousing applause for her performances of “911,” – the gesture was repeated during The Fugees suite near the end of act one when she performed “Ready Or Not,” and “Killing Me Softly.”
His blend of genres kept the audience’s attention. But the part of the show when he paid tribute to his former group’s contribution to the canon of hip-hop was a game changer. Their 6X platinum sophomore album “The Score cemented The Fugees place in hip-hop’s proverbial time capsule.
The diverse audience was on there feet for the whole sequence of songs that also included “Fu-gee-la.”
The second half of the show was a potpourri of sounds that included rap, rock, pop and disco as he dug into twenty years of his own music and the music he wrote and/or produced for others. “Gone Till November,” “We Trying To Stay Alive,” the Santana hit “Maria Maria,” which Jean pointed out was sampled for the DJ Khaled and Rihanna hit “Wild Thoughts” and Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” were among them.
The orchestra’s performance of “Gone Till November” – which Jean originally performed with the New York Philharmonic, was particularly stunning.
He introduced the audiences to his latest record “Sak Kap Fet,” a tribute to his beloved Haiti. He boasted that the track is the perfect workout song – and proved it to be true by performing squats, pushups and lunges to the beat of the song.
The performance of the single, which translates to “what’s up” in English, energized Jean. He jumped from the stage and made his way through the entire venue as the symphony and his band carried on with a reggae disco interlude.
On his way back center stage, he noticed two boys – who appeared to about middle school age – so caught up in a groove that they were blocking his path to the front with their dancing. Just as ushers were about to ask the youth to return to their seats, Jean scooped them up and took them on stage. He mimicked their impromptu routine and kept the pace of the energetic youngsters – even challenging them to high kicks and turns – for the duration of the music.
The two young boys illustrated the point that Jean repeated over the course of the night – that his music transcends generations and that hip-hop can blend with anything and never lose the cool that symbolizes the culture.
Jean closed the show by continuing the thread of tribute to Bob Marley with “No Woman No Cry” and “Redemption Song.”
