After his father’s sudden death sent him spiraling down into a creative rut, Producer/rapper Wyclef Jean headed to his native Haiti, where he discovered his mission in music and life.

35 years ago, inside a hut in the village of Lasserre, Haiti, a group of midvwives struggled to bring Nelust Wyclef Jean into the world.  To their horror, the boy’s head was stuck, and he wasn’t breathing.  It was October 17, 1972–the same date Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s first leader (1804-1806) and a key figure in the Haitian revolution, was assassinated almost two centuries earlier.  To Wyclef, the coinciding dates are symbolic of his future leadership role.  “That day defined me,” says the singer/rapper/producer,” and has always structured me as a man.”

Fast-forward to 2004, and Wyclef was sitting in Manhattan’s Platinum Studios when he came across a New York Times article about gangs beheading people in Haiti.  Four days later, carrying a backpack and a Bible, Wyclef flew to his native country.  He spoke to gang leaders in the favelas and met rappers such as Winson “2Pac” Jean and James “Bily” Petit Frére (central figures in th haunting 2006 documentary Ghosts of Cité Soleil).  Wyclef challenged them to write empowering lyrics about their poverty and frustration.

“That was filmed when I started talking to the gangs,” Wyclef remembers.  “I thought I’d die before that documentary was finished.  One time I was going to see a gang leader, and they’d told him to shoot me on sight!  I said, ‘Tell them I come in peace.  I’m not Martin Luther King or Gandhi, and if I have to, I’ll rise like Che Guevara, but that won’t solve nothing but bring more bloodshed.’  I meant that 110 percent.”