Oct 13 - Wyclef Jean Readies Concept EP With DJ Drama

To help create suitable musical settings for the grisly tales Toussaint has to tell, Wyclef turned to DJ Drama, who has worked extensively with T.I. "I asked myself, 'Who's the toughest guy out there?'" Wyclef says. "Then I said, well, DJ Drama is pretty badass. So I called him and asked if he'd be interested in doing a mixtape. He heard what I was up to and he said, 'We gotta do a book -- this is a novel!' He got excited, and it became more like an EP than a mixtape."

Tracks like "Warriorz," "Letter From the Penn" and "Toussaint vs. Bishop" paint riveting pictures, "hood stories," as Wyclef describes them, of street life and its consequences. The gripping storytelling in those songs recalls the raw environments in Haiti and Brooklyn from which Wyclef emerged -- "from the hut to the projects to the mansion," as he memorably puts it in "Slumdog Millionaire." It's a story arc that these songs make compelling.

Wyclef views the message of "Toussaint St. Jean" as "not everything that appears bad is really bad, because the real bad men move in silence. So be careful what you emulate, because it's could get you six feet deep. If you don't see me with a gun, it doesn't mean that the guy with the gun is badder than me. I've been in those communities, but you've got to rise past that world."