Live: Fugee Wyclef Jean Gets Funky On Stage

SAN FRANCISCO -- Fifteen-year-old Olivia Bushes, who traveled into the city from East Bay suburb Pleasant Hill to see Wyclef Jean and the Refugee All-Stars' show at Maritime Hall, more than likely came to hear familiar tracks from The Carnival and from the Fugees' The Score, among other favorites.

That in mind, you'd think Olivia would have been taken aback that the performers didn't stick to the recorded versions of The Carnival's "We Be Trying To Stay Alive" and "Gone 'Till November."

Think again.

Instead, the teen reflected the spirit of the crowd gathered for the performance when she judged the concert as "the best show I've seen in a long while."

While Wyclef Jean has taken some heat for climbing the pop charts by adding hip-hop beats to such songs as Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly With His Song" and Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry," his concert with the Refugee All-Stars on Wednesday went a long way toward further cementing his reputation as one of hip-hop's most talented performers.

In fact, he basically proved himself a veritable hip-hop virtuoso by masterfully performing the genre's many varied styles of rapping all in one night. Whether playing guitar, freestyling, credibly rapping in the style of old-school pioneers Run-D.M.C. by finishing the sentences of rapping partners John Forte and Pras or performing a sing-songy rap that railed against police brutality to the tune of Laura Branigan's "Gloria," Wyclef Jean showed he was capable of much more than programming a drum machine.

Backed by a live drummer, bassist and the incredibly versatile DJ Total, Wyclef Jean, Pras and John Forte consistently moved the crowd by tickling their dancing shoes and memory banks, giving them a taste of what they were familiar with and then flipping the script.

In the middle of "Guantanmerra," for example, the groove the audience knew and loved was without warning switched to the bassline of the Commodores' '70s hit "Brick House" while the rappers continued without missing a beat. The going-to-prison lament "Gone 'Till November" worked well even without the string section that dominates the recorded version and was actually improved upon when DJ Total spun a bit of the Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" toward the end.

"Mona Lisa," a love song crooned by the Neville Brothers on The Carnival, started off with Wyclef Jean playing guitar and singing, but ended as a hip-hop rave-up that clearly expressed the power and intensity of true love.

But the highlight of the show came when the Refugee All-Stars were joined by a rapper named Cannabis. Although his dramatic mid-song entrance was marred because his mic wasn't turned up, he quickly made up for the error by engaging Wyclef Jean in a friendly freestyle battle, with each MC performing an old-school brag fest without musical accompaniment. Wyclef went first, rapping about an MC who he said was "actually a CM -- common motherfucker rapping about a Lexus and Benz," and who he was planning to devastate with his skills and "send to hell where [he will] get fucked by Marilyn Manson."

Cannabis held his own, though, "talking about the facts of life like [he] was Tootie," and calling his faceless opponent "so chicken you should come with a large drink and a biscuit." Wyclef Jean then stepped back to the mic and bragged about his skills some more, concluding that anyone who challenged him "must have stopped off in D.C. to smoke some crack with the mayor," referring to Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry, who was arrested years ago for smoking cocaine and carrying on with a prostitute. With that, Cannabis got one more stab at the mic and seized the chance to compare his lyrical skills to the ejaculatory power of fictional porn star Dirk Diggler of the movie "Boogie Nights" and told anyone who dare step to him that he was going to "make disaster strike like I was Busta," referring to rapper Busta Rhymes' When Disaster Strikes.

But Wyclef Jean's stage antics weren't limited to showtime. He returned to the stage after the houselights came up, signed some autographs, said some words of encouragement to an aspiring rapper who continually threw his demo tape on the stage. Then he performed yet another freestyle, this time talking about how he knew it was hard to be a struggling MC. As the last of the crowd made their way out of the club and down the block to their cars, the Refugee All-Stars could be seen giving advice to the wannabe hip-hop star outside the front of their tour bus.

If anyone left the concert doubting that Wyclef Jean and the Refugee All-Stars were multi-platinum artists who remain true to their music and their fans, the convincing evidence was in the headlights of their bus. [Sat., Jan. 24, 1998, 9 a.m. PST]