Christ, it's difficult to resist the temptation to poke fun at Wyclef, especially when he, ridiculously, entitles his second solo album, 'Ecleftic - Two Sides Of A…! And the sheer scale of the man's ego - curiously far more annoying than the similarly proportioned tokens of self-worth displayed by your average ghetto fabulous star - is enough to make you choke as the deluded self-titled modern day Quincy Jones pairs up with some of contemporary music's most marketable talents.
Still, they don't seem to mind, coming across as quietly complicit as they watch the former Fugee 'do a Wyclef' on their respective styles.
Album opener 'Where Fugees At' (intro: 'yo, yo, yo-yo) illustrates Wyclef's conviction that his own lyrical contribution to The Fugees (you know, 'yo-yo, one time, two time) was the singular most influential moment in the last decade of hip-hop. Wake up mate, Lauryn was the Fugees and 'The Score' featured a maximum of five decent tracks, two of which were admittedly iconic but when you take from the likes of Bob Marley and Roberta Flack can you really go wrong? This wasn't an innovative new direction in hip-hop, this was a new direction for ruthlessly effective commercial hip-hop.
'Kenny Rogers/Pharoah Monch Dub' is just as ridiculous an idea as it sounds. Kenny singing "you got to count your dubplates before you touch the turntables / 'cause if you run out of big tunes that means your sound is done" over the hook from Monch's massive anthem 'Simon Says' is amusing in the worst possible way. But, hey, 'Clef's opening up markets, right?
It isn't all this bad. 'It Doesn't Matter' is pure quality pop even if it does feature celebrity wrestler The Rock (is there anyone this man won't work with?) and is, inevitably, the first single to be culled from the album. Mary J Blige shines, as usual, on '911' but anyone that combines symphonic strings with an electro beat 'Perfect Gentleman' - should be cautioned for crimes against hip-hop.
Wyclef's undoubted talent is for making anthemic hip-hop for people who don't like hip-hop. But, while 'The Score' earned round-the-clock rotation from Funkmaster Flex by virtue of its respect for the roots of the genre, 'The Ecleftic' just tries to please too many people, open up too many markets, and simply ends up diluting the sound in which it purports to be rooted.
