Wyclef Jean

"Preacher's Son is my first album," he insists. "It's the first album I've ever done where I focus on my songwriting more than anything else. That's why I call it Volume One -- because it's a movement back to music. Being a hip-hop musician, being from a reggae background and of Haitian descent, I have a lot of music in my mind. For the first time on any record, I'm going back to that music."

Even heard superficially, Preacher's Son makes this clear. Clef draws from the islands, from the streets, from faraway cultures brought close by the... more