You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
You never know what's going to happen. A few nights ago, having dinner with friends in the garden of the River Cafe, a message came that Wycliffe Jean was sitting at Table four and he wanted to say hello. An hour later he joined us at our table, and an hour after that we were still there talking about music, politics, and of course food, late into the night. What a man.
Wycliffe emigrated age nine from Haiti to the Brooklyn Projects, played fourteen instruments by the time he was thirteen, won three Grammys, speak seven languages, and was asked to run for president at least two times. When the evening was over saying goodbye, we agreed we'd do a podcast when he was back, and, like his beautiful song, I thought he'd be god on till November. This morning he called and said, Ruthie, I've delayed my flight. Let's record tonight.
So here we are back in the River Cafe, two new friends, continueing our conversation about food and music and memories. You never know what's going to happen.
Ah, that's beautiful.
It was a very good night, wasn't it that night?
It was surreal night way because I'm a viber You saw how I just walked in in and I saw the piano and I just jumped on the piano and I believe, like everything is energy. And I came in the restaurant humbly, just chilled, and I was looking at everyone's eyes. Everyone was amazing, and it was cool because one by one people started coming to me. They was like, you are Clef Jean, right, yeah, yeah, what's up?
Yeah?
This wild clep And then I really wanted to meet you, so I was like, yo, I gotta meet you. And then when you came over, we just we click. You know what I'm saying. We click click like we said, Okay, I'm going to give y'all a lot of hip hop terminology here, so we click click. Translation means where we bonded.
And so when you were here last time, you had I think you had these peppers which we're cooking right now. One of the duties of this of this podcast is that the guest breads a recipe which kind of connects you with the people who are listening to you. So would you like to teach us how to cook through reading this recipe?
Perfect, but we about you know, as a producer and as a creator. I'm a creative. I already knew I was going to do this, So I was like, so in hip hop we do this in the cafeteria. This is where we be boxed. So I was thinking, what's dope is you? You start off every recipe you go, I'm going to repeat it, but I'm going to repeat it in a hip hop way. You feel me like we used to do in the cafeteria. So it's gonna be rocking.
So let's go.
So this is the recipe here, okay, perfect, We're going in uh huh yeah, yeah, you could just read it. I'm ready for you.
Go me to read it.
Yes, you ling from long.
Okay, got grilled red peppers, an chovies, capers and bisquetta blush.
That and capers, anchovies, grilled red peppers.
Here were you go?
Oh oh, fifty salted capers soaked?
Hey, yeah, I fifty salt capers soap, soap soap. Let's go, y'all.
One hundred salted anchovies.
Hold up, one hundred salted anchovies. Wy cleft the refuge.
Come on. Twelve red peppers and three garlic clothes.
Oh, twelve twelve red peppers and three garlic clothes. Come on, y'all, Come on, y'all.
Basil, leaves, extravergin, olive oil.
I like the way you did that. Three slice sword dough cut in half. Let's go, baby girl.
I like you grilled whole peppers until blackened on all sides.
I like that. That could be a top line.
Grill the whole peppers until blackened on all sides.
Yeah, when cool. Remove the blackened skin by rubbing peppers in your hands, and do.
Not worry if they fall apart. Remove the seeds and cars.
Layer the peppers in a large dish with slivers of garlic.
Layer the peppers in the large dish with silver of garlics.
Don't panic. Let's get it right.
Capers, anchovies, basil, black pepper.
Eh eh, eh hey, black peppers, and genuine amount of extra virgin olive oil, oil oil oil.
The final layer should have all the ingredients visible.
I agree with you. Grill the bread on bull side and gently garlic over one side. Only, only, only, only.
Only serve the peppers with the busquetta.
I agree with you.
Earlier, I got a chance to go to Buckingham Palace.
Right, but you went to I.
Went to the Garden Party. But the part I was most excited about was the chambers to listen to the parliament. Right. This is very important, right because this simple act of democracy don't happen in a lot of places. Right, because you got places where you know, in these chambers when they don't agree, next thing, you know that the one of the like in our countries you have which called
senators and deputies. Right one leaves and next thing you know, you hear about you know, this person getting killed or this person. So the democratic process within anything, I applored one hundred percent.
The interesting thing isn't it that they disagree and they insult each other. It was must have been question time right on the Wednesday.
Yeah, it was question time. That's why I was like, you know, into it. Coming from HATI, I came to the United States, and I haven't uncle. His name is Raymond Joseph and he has a book called for Whom the Dog Spy? So my polycide brain as a young child, I would always hear these. So he was one of the guys that was upfront and the idea of baby Doc having to leave so he was someone like, if you're a dictator, he's gonna come for you, because the
idea is, you know, we don't support that. So Raymond Joseph made his way to America and he started a newspaper called it up Savata, which is equivalent to like the New York Times but in French and crayle. This is where the consciousness of just the idea of understanding policy and how important it was so at a very young age. This is why I gravitated towards Barb Marley a lot, because I feel like a you know, a man who's.
Saying emanship, patriotshell from minto slavery. Nothing but that with shelves can for ya, We're might have no fear further time making ninji for none of them can stop the time. How long will they kill out? What profits? Why we stand this shide didn't look Some say it's just a part of it. We've got to fulfill the pool. Won't
you help me? Shane another song of freedom, because all I've ever had Redamntion song right again, So I always go back to the music because just again, and I'll constantly say this, the artist should be present in this time.
It's very important.
Growing up in Haiti, you grew up in poverty, extreme poverty, and was that a reflection of the food that you ate?
I remember food very well. So my father left me when I was one years old. He had got a work visa to come preach in the United States and so we was rais Is mostly with my grandmother. So one of my bandmates from the Fujis Miss Hill, she was like, yo, clef yo. Remember back in the days, man, when you used to tell us you used to eat dirt. Man, we thought you was like beyond exaggerating, until we went back and did our research and realized mud pie was a real thing. Me and my brother was eating dirt
from the floor. When you are in extreme poverty, you don't feel it. You have to understand. So when I would see a poster of a child from either Haiti, Africa, Brazil, different places, and you show me the child crying and he looks desperate and he looks in need, be like, but hold up, hold up, I'm from extreme poverty. When you inside of the poverty, you don't feel it because that means that you're living inside of it. So your way out is imagination.
You you were not exposed to wealth. You didn't compare yourself to someone with wealth.
I wouldn't know that what that is, right, Yeah, so my level of wealth would be this man, no matter how much we can't eat. I know one thing about Grandma. She just got two chickens, and once some chickens have lay some eggs, and then we go to the main city and she sells.
Some of them eggs.
We gonna come back and we gonna we're gonna have the biggest meal. So I want you to think like so every like three weeks, no matter what happened, my grandma would go. She would go and from planting tomatoes to corn, to different things. She would she would always get these seeds and from there she would go to the city. She would was it Porter Prince, Yeah, Porter Prince, and she go to Porter Prince. She would sell in the market, sell what she grow, and she comes back.
So that was wealth to us. So no matter what we was going through, it didn't matter because we know, at the end of the day, Grandma is gonna make us. Uh. Julli suspik relations Julie Rice black beans, sorry, Kra.
Okay the vegetable Okra love.
Okra and susqua is black beans. So this was this was one of the things that we we always was excited to look forward.
What about fish?
We get whitefish, what's a lot of whitefish? Snapper we get snapper, get we get shrimp. So now my daddy's side straight fisherman. Yo, let me tell you something about my daddy. My daddy heat the original aquaman. Like this dude can hold his breath for a date, like when he going underwater to get that fish, or he coming up with that fish, how.
Did he catch it? Did he have an attack or have the stick?
They have the stick and then they have the nest. So so you know, this is like I remember being now later in Brooklyn and with my daddy and then my grandma, my daddy's mother telling us, you know, she would make us laugh how my dad would like just jump in the water and he would get the fish. So that side where the fisherman was at was a little more easier to eat right, to get the food. But the thing is once he left us, remember we
wasn't on that side. We was more on the side of you know, depending on is it going to rain today, is it not going to rain today?
Let's go back to your childhood. You lived with your mother and your grandmother.
I was one, my mom was pregnant and my dad left and my mother joined my father right after she had the baby. My second brother, Samuel in America and Haiti this is Haiti. They didn't even have babies yet by the time my parents got to America because of the immigration laws. Now Ford was the president and it was said like if you had a child in America, now you can go back, so and bring the kids. So my parents had two kids in America.
Who was looking after you? Your parents were my grandma, your grandma, grandma, your mother's mother. So we're gone to school by that time.
I was going to schoo when I was like five. Yeah, I started going to schoo when I was five. So my father was a tailer. He worked in a factory. It was a sewer, so.
As well as being a pastor.
Yes, and so keep in mind the visa them ran out right, and so he's knitting and then he hears immigration and my father takes off to start to run like a gazelle. This dude done took off. His name should be changed to Greyhound. That's how fast this boy running. My daddy running. He running.
How old did you think he would have been?
My dad while he was running. My dad was like thirty something like he already was like thirty. So he was running because he didn't want immigration to catch him. So now they raided this place, and while he running, the immigration unit goes to my mama the apartment that they're staying. So while my dad's running, this is a big raid, like they day about that. Yes, this is in Brooklyn. Now immigration officer gets to my mama apartment. Immigration open up the door now, man, and my mom
is so scared. The immigration officer has a translator with him that speaks French and crayle. So the immigration officer says, I'd have knocked on this door four times they ain't open, and I know somebody in there. I need you to say it in cray all, in French whatever language that is, tell them to open that door. And the translator says to my mother and cray all fair softly man, translation,
do you not open that door right now now? The reason why I say this right is, at the end of the day, people get caught up in these situations, and we the United States of America, like there was a time where we would take keed to this, and we would take like cause to this, and we would be so sensitive to that, like where we could say, we'll give you a pass because we know what you're doing here. You're not breaking the law. You just had a bad day, and these days do not exist. No.
Also, you know you're making the country better, you know, by coming from another country. And I was just given a prize in America. It asked to be in the academy. I was made a member of this Academy of Arts and Letters. And I wrote the letter and I said, my grandparents came from Russia and I came in nineteen seventeen. You know, they were part of that Ellis Island. I was just thinking, two generations. How you know if your grandparents were here watch watching you, did they Did your
grandparents know the measure of your success? Did they see?
No?
My my my grandparents, my grandma knew my musical abilities at a very young age because I would just like make songs up. There was these women in the village every Sunday that would sing these church hymns and I would just get I would just be part of it. Remember one, Yeah, I remember a few of them.
She sat fair, not do you aren't bad.
One benea.
Heya, she shuck fair, Oh what do you walk?
Pair?
We'll be me yeah, and work on that U pogod man.
Theylluyah wah wah poco man llluiya po show whoa.
Wha.
So that was that was you know, you could just feel it. But the the the the the hem is saying we're blessed and we should acknowledge that like basically every day of our life. So again that was some of the I would hear these these these are these amazing women like and and then so the heymns would just channel.
Through me after church. Would you would that be food? That a meal? Would you go home?
And we call it Lucky Sunday. You get that Lucky Sunday. Everything come out on that Lucky Sunday. But it doesn't happen often. Lucky Sunday happens on Easter. The meal is big. The meal is big. The meal is a lot of meat, goat, goat goat cooked very interesting. It's called tassu. It's fried traditionally in Haiti. If you see how they cook, they use the chabon chocoal so it's caught with the chocoal
because you know, the food gonna taste different. And then they put the big aluminum pan and so the goat is fried. They would make a uh poisson gorse. The passo gorsel is the white fish, a little saltea like codfish. At times, it.
Sounds like you're saying gross sell is large salt, doesn't.
It Yeah, yeah, yes, yes So in Crele the word means big yeah so yeah, and then phonetically yes so because uh crayle in French at times the words do mean the same thing else.
And so when you your father around and your mother didn't open the door, so were they safe in the United States for you to come?
They were safe. But let me tell you so in the village, what I want you to understand, I've never seen LeBlanc. I've never seen a white person in my life in this village. Never, right, So one day in the village and a jeep pulls up in this village. Keep in mind, I've never seen no jeep before. So that looks like a UFO to us. And we all like five, and we all get next to my grandmother and we're standing next to us and I'm right next to her, and then LeBlanc gets out. So now this
is my first time seeing a white man. I've never seen that long hair. You know. He got this this robe thing on, and then he goes in the back and then he gets these bags of rice, and I was like, Grandma, who's this. My grandma looked at me, dead in my eyes, and she said, that's Jesus Christ. So when Jesus brings me this rice, we take this rice, brings it to my grandma, does the prayer right, because
he's actually a missionary. And then as he's leaving, I'm five and I remember telling my grandma, why ain't Jesus leave the seeds? Why ain't he bring no fertilizers? Because once he leaving, I'm five and I'm saying that, and I say that to show you these kids in these villages and what they want is an opportunity. Even at a very young age, I'm screaming, bring back the rice mills, Like is there a way where we can just start producing in the country. So in saying that, this is
how it started. So my parents came and got me and my brother. Now they get on the plane, they immigration laws work out they come and get us from Haiti. So me and my brother going to see my parents for the first time. Now yeah, So now I'm like eight nine and now my parents are coming to get me, and I've never seen them. For them, So my grandma gets us dressed, she takes our bags, she brings us
to the airport. I never seen an airport before. So when the airplane is landing, you can imagine what that looks like. To me, it looks like another UFO. So the airplane lands and and I'll never forget. My mother had a yellow outfit. She looked like Jackie Jo. She had the glasses on, you know, she looked like Miss America. I was like, yo, that's my mama right there, you know what I'm saying. My dad had the long bed looking like he moses.
You know.
He comes, and they come and they hold me and my brother in that hog. I could still feel that hog. I hadn't seen you for how long they haven't seen her since we were born.
The River Cafe cafe, steps away from our restaurant, is now open in the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, ciambella and cristada from our pastry kitchen in the afternoon, ice creamed coops and River Cafe classic desserts. Come in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist.
In the bar.
No need to book see you here. Did they continue cooking the food of Haiti in Brooklyn.
My mama had a thing you only can eat in the house. I didn't even know what it was like to go to a fast food restaurant. A lot of what was cooked in Brooklyn was something called ligan. Ligan, yes, ligan is similar to a gumbo, right, but all in vegetables, so eggplants, water cress, this was like part of it. Also a lot of yam, sweet potatoes and this is natural. A lot of fish in the morning. It was very,
very important that you had breakfast. My father, who was also an amazing cook, he used to cook liver for iron, right, So again like it would all, but he would like cook the liver with egg whites.
They dipped the liver and the whites, yeah, they beat.
The egg whites and the batter, yeah, and they batter the liver so it's very it's not rough, so everything is very tender. And so this is like some of the stuff. There was a juice that we had called coasal. I don't know how you said that in the English, but it helped. She always made us drink this juice. If if if the name comes to me in English, if anybody from Haitius listening, it's coo salt, maybe you could send the translation. But this help with cancer. This
was it's called coal salt. I have to find the name of it. But it was a cold war sort, so we might have to I might have to call my wife figured that out, but it really like helps. So this is some of the the So we naturally grew up in an environment where the food wasn't processed like they literally, Oh you know what she used to do? Polg chicken. So from the chicken. She would always go to the butcher. Like they would not if the meat wasn't from the butcher, they would there's no such thing
about she go to the supermarket and get chicken. So everything is from the butcher. And it was called pool gee. And I got to tell you, just thinking about that chicken right now and how they seasoned it and cooked it was pretty amazing.
Did you ever go in the kitchen and cook with your mom?
My? Mother? She was like, you gotta be real successful. I said, why because she said, every time we cook, and all you do is you come in the kitchen and sing, and you sing, and you stay here and you wait. So you're the first one with the first meal out right. My mom, when she would cook rice, she would had me work with the seasons with her. There's a seasoning called magi. You've ever heard of it?
I think I have.
It's like amazing because it's like a mixed season and it was something like she caught it literally works in everything, like literally like a little cube yes, yeah, yeah, like a yellow ye.
Like it's like it's like a cube of vegetables and they.
Put Maggie in.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
So that was one of the things. She was like, Yo, give me the two Maggie's so the rice game is crazy, and Haiti and and and then the the the kitchen. So she'd be like, okay, put this amount of water right in the pot. And she put the water. She says, okay, put this amount of oil right. And one of the things she used to have me do was wash the rice. Cleaning was very very important to her. How she actually
cooked the food. So I'd be like, but the rice is already in the peck just but no, she says, you got to put the rice in the water.
Got it.
So literally for five minutes she has me cleaning this rice out, and I remember, like, now, sit back and I watch the water boil. And while the water was boiling, I was singing my mother's favorite French song Jack, which one if my says kitche and marry and faithful, Mary and faithful? Did it sting?
Did it?
I have a version of it?
You go away?
Yeah, if you go away, Yes, that's right. Yeah to trust. Now you got to hear they version.
So you sang it in Creole?
No, I sang it in English. But I put the hip hop to it. I was like.
To pursue, you know.
I put the hipness to it. I put that sauce, you know, I put the maggi in it.
Did you live in an enclave of Haitian culture?
So we grew up in Marlborough Projects, one of the roughest projects in Coney Island in Brooklyn. So yeah, so we got there from Haiti. We grew up in Coney Island. As far as me and my brother was concerned, we came from a hut. And so we're in a building, so we were rich. We like the Jeffersons. We moved on up on the east side. Did you what was school like? We went to school in Brooklyn. But this is what was amazing about Coney Island. We lived in
this big project, one of the most dangerous projects. But when we go on the roof, we could see the entire amusement park in the beach in Coney Island. And then so we was like living on up because me and my brother was like, this is amazing. So literally we could go from the projects and then like walk to the beach, which was pretty amazing. And the reason why we identified with the beach again and Haiti and
a village. We played in the cemetery, so I will walk Disney and our playground was this big cemetery, so in I had we watched the transformation go from the cemetery to this amazing amusement park. And again, what that did for us was, you know, we are in the land of opportunity, and we was like, there's nothing now that's going to set us back. So the Eagle gave
us that opportunity. America has given us this opportunity. And I don't say that just for me, I say that for many of my friends, my peers that ended up being super successful.
Tell me about music.
Rap music was forbidden in the house. My parents never knew I rapped. That did not exist in the house. The house was Amy Grant. It was if you want to listen to rock, it was Petra Christian rock, and it was hymns like I would write the church Hams and all of that. But being that I was the oldest, I would get into a lot of fights. Cousin of mine's ended up getting killed in Brooklyn. I mean, I still have a stab on my left leg, like, and
we're teens, right, So it was rough. It was real, and my parents saw that I was headed in the wrong direction. You know what people be like, why are you so sensitive to prison reform? Why do you connect with the youth so much?
I said.
I remember me and my cousin going into a you know, a bodega, and you know, like we're gonna rob it, Like it's just it's just a natural thing at the time we feel like we have to do. It's just this this false sense of reality becomes reality within the environment that you win. If you don't have the right mentors at the time, and your parents ain't gonna be
with you all the time. So my introduction to rap was I'm on the on in the neighborhood and I see two guys in front of each other with big crowds around them, like the eight Miles Em and Them movie. These guys got too and then man, the one guy is insulting the other guy. He's like, Yo, mama, blah blah blah blah, bye bye bye, bye bye bye. And the other guy, Oh, yeah, well your uncles are drunk blah blah blah, and they're rapping. And I told my man, I was like, Yo, what's that. He said, Yo, that's
called battle rap. So battle rap. If you was to ask me to translate that, I would tell you this is what we call Shakespearean jousing. It's a jousing of metaphors and wordplays and similes and in a very unique way which is created in these communities. So then I was like, man, if I learned how to battle rap, then I won't have to slap box and fight as much. This was my introduction to rap. So I learned how to rap as a mechanism of self defense to save me in the ghetto that I was in. So this
sort of like where it started for me. So rap was a secrecy thing that we did in the street. My dad moved us from Brooklyn to Jersey after the craziness and he started a small church and eleven eight South Orange Avenue, North, New Jersey. The church was a funeral home. So again here you go. So my father from Haiti right again, he always used to say, he said, America, America, He's the good, best place in the way because America provide you with say it opportunities that and it provides
you with opportunity. That means as long as you don't break the break the law did, you can be what successful dad. And then he breaks. He takes us out and it's a big funeral home eleven o eight South Charlenge Avenue, a burnt down funeral He says, God has given me a vision. My father moves us into a burnt down funeral home and this is where he has this vision where he's going to create the first bilingual church, where he's going to push the faith in English, Creole,
in French. He has this vision. His church is in the middle of eleven eight eight South Javenue, on the right side is a pub, an Irish pub. On the left side is a Sicilian crew that you know, they run in their numbers. They're doing what they're doing. My father's church is right in the middle of this.
Right.
One night, my dad looks outside and it's nothing but El Dorado's in the back of his funeral home. And my dad said, whopoc all these that literatos. Now I go call the police. I go talk to them. So my dad and his Haitian short sandals, right, he goes to the Sicilian crew and he knock on that little joint like, and then the dude goes on and my father said, who popped these e lorados? I call the police now, and the dude goes, Fanny, Fanny, Hey, it's
the Manaster. Come talk to the minister, right, so many he goes, Manister, I'm Catholic, right, he can't call the police. Some Catholic. Look, every Sunday I'm gonna come and you know, and contribute something to the church. And guess what, every Sunday they came, contributed something to the church. The Irish
pub came. And it wasn't until a year later I realized, holy shit, my father bought that funeral home because of the big parking lot, and that parking lot was how he was able to rent it out to different communities and different things and raise money to actually built the church. So so in seeing that, you know, I just started seeing things completely different. And then so with us, we were his church band, like the same way you see the Jackson five. This was us. We was prodigies in
the church. Me and my brothers, my sisters. We all sang, we all play instruments, and everyone came every Sunday to see these young kids. Like you know what I'm saying, I be how be you witness a sanct of five? Witness a witness father in law?
How be you with this sCOD five?
Withness a witness father in law? And the churches turned up and all the Catholics were there, everybody there Catholic.
And must have had a great time. Church could be so fun.
Man, church was fun. We called you know, at one time, we called it club church.
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you please make sure to rape and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you and the music in schools. One teachers in your high school recognize your talent.
Well, in high school, I didn't want to sing and show off my music because I don't think I didn't think it was cool because I'm like in a rough school and everyone's listening in the hip hop. You know what I'm saying. Everyone's listening a hip So one day I happen to be in the auditorium and I'm playing what's called the Circle of fifths, very simple but yet complicated chords on piano. I could just hear it, and a music teacher called Valerie Price walks in and she goes,
where did you learn that from? And I said I could just hear it in my head. And she was like, tomorrow you're starting classical music and you're starting jazz. And I was like, no, I'm not jazz is for old people. I'm going to be a battle rapper like LLL cool J. And she was like, well, you're gonna be a battle rapper like LLL COOOLJ, but you're starting jazz and classical
music again like sixteen now. So this teacher took me and shaped me into reading sheet music and first composer she put me on was Gershwin?
What did you What did you play?
Summer Time?
The home Parking bes like the whole She put me up on Gershwin and I fell in love with Gershwin, and then I fell in love with Quincy Jones. And so then I was like, Oh, I'm not going to be a rapper. I'm going to be a composer. So then one day I hear Michael Jackson on the radio, and I'm the kid that would get the vinyl and out look for the back. But when I look in the back, I never looked to see the artist. I look to see who's doing the music. I see a
name Quincy Jones. So then I get obsessed and I'm like, oh, I'm going to do like Quincy Jones. I'm from a jazz background. I'm going to create a you know, be part of a supergroup, and then I'm going to literally produce and create the biggest artists in the world. And that happened. I was like, I'm going to be a composer and I'm going to produce and be part of the biggest groups in the world. So the way that the Fujis happened is very amazing. So I want you
to think about. I'm still like in my dad's church. Lauren Hell, Miss Hill goes to Columbia, which is another school high school. Prize comes to my school. Prize was in the studio with Miss Hill and another girl called Marci. This the group ain't formed yet and the producer was named Calise Beyond from Cooling the gang. So I'm in my dad's church and Prize gives me a call, and Prize goes, Yo, man, I'm out here. You know, I'm doing this recording, and I have these two girls, and
I need a reggae hook. Man, could you come sing a reggae hook. So I get to the studio and I see Lauren, and I see Marcy. Yeah yeah, And I see Laurence Marci and I go in the booth and I sing this reggae hook.
Can I ask you what a reggae hook is?
So let's go back to the word hook. So when I say hook, that's chorus. So the idea of a chorus. So now when we say a reggae chorus, we're saying something that feels like Bob Marley ish whalers ish, you know, by the Rivers of Babylon two Siage, so they knew that I had that kind of voice that I could deliver that. So there was like can you sing a chorus like that? So literally it's like, can you give us an incredible top line in.
The song that's where the Fuji's sang was the birth Yeah, and then Lauren and Frise and Marcy and it was four of us and I sung, and then that the producer, who was Collisbie, I was like, there's magic here, like there's something going on here.
And then this is how it started. And then so we literally kept like recording, dancing, popping, locking, writing your own music, writing our own raps, writing our own songs. And then the first album, which was called Blunted on Reality and the album bombs. I think Lauren's mother picked up a copy, so maybe five copies. So the album ain't go platinum, but it went coppa like it didn't go like Coppa went Coppa like you know that means you ain't selling nothing. So but what was interesting about
that was now it's time for the score. What made this score amazing is that because of what was going on in the community, in our community, we was able to hear it. So now I go with my other cousin, Jerry Wonder. We go with Lauren and I would say like we had the whole stacks group that was the Fouji's and we go in stacks like Motown, think of that, and then we go in and then we just start
to young kids like the Beatles. We just started recording all of this stuff, but now it was coming directly from us.
And were you in New York?
Are you're still in New Jersey and my uncle's and nope. My dad had kicked me out the church at the time because he said, you can't serve two masters. You can't do circular music. So my uncle was like, it's not like the boys selling drugs circular music.
Do you mean secular music?
Yeah?
Okay, yes, And so you were independent at a young age. Did you live in your own apartment?
And did you know my uncle took me in. And of course it takes a village to raise a community. So when my father was like, you can't do my uncle took me in. He was like, it's not like he's doing anything wrong. So he took me in.
And so did he look after you?
He looked after us. Of course, he fed us, he took because this is strong family morals. If my father kicks me out for some religious reason, that my mother's brother is going to take me in. You see, this is another thing that we're missing in our rural communities right. A lot of fathers are getting put in person. The kids are having absolutely no guidance. There's not an uncle or aunt that could take them in. So I had that privilege where someone takes us in. So we took
us in, and the score the score. We did it. But again, a lot of the score came from a lot of inspiration. I said. One of my biggest inspiration was probably Pink Floyd the Wall the way like that album was recorded. So when you hear records like ready or Not, here I Come, you can't hide. And you hear the when you hear Ready or Not, there's a humming in the background. It's like, h Now, anyone who listens to this, I'm in the hood in Newer New Jersey and that's in ya okay. And how does a
kid from the hood finds in Inya? You know, that's living in the castle. So again this was the Fuji's. Fuji's is short for refugees, and that goes back to that story, right. My whole thing was the consciousness of the village of where we come from. And then so what we wanted to do is Fujis wanted to speak for the less fortunate. So that's how that came about.
We just talked for a minute of becoming a success and how that changed your culture and your life.
So I call it the Cinderella's Story imagination. I'm playing the air guitar before I'm at Madison Square Garden. The success it happened, I mean, the Fujis did not sell one million albums. It went to sell like twenty million albums with just to score so overnight. The phone calls. You could call anybody that'll pick up the phone. The White House wants you to come play. You know you're popping. Bill Clint was my man. Clint was my man at the time, Like Yo, the way that jay Z was
with Obama. That was like me and Clinton at the time, Like what up, Belly, what's up?
Man?
Yo?
Clip, if you want to come jam at the White House, it's gonna boom. Everybody jump at the White House. Jump jump jump, So.
And so success, fame music, the White House.
At the height of the Fujis. I took the Fujis to Haiti. I bring the Fujis to Haiti. We do a big concert. I cried like a little baby. It was It was emotional because you got to understand. We talked about the village here. I am the biggest group in the world, and we go back and again to bring a weirdness to this place. Fujis also did the Rock the Vote. We was one of the first people to do Rock the Vote. Also in Tibet, the Tibet Freedom Concert. Fujis was like one of the first to
do that. I remember, like you know, meeting the Dalai Lama, different things. So again, we've always used our fame and that energy to promote consciousness, which is that's what the Fujis are known for.
Many people that I talked to who grew up in poverty or certainly unentitled see food and being able to eat a certain way, or to drink the wine, or to expose yourself to restaurants was a measure of their success. Do you see that You remember when you could go to a good restaurant and order something that you might never have had before.
You know, it's funny, so because you remember I told you we used to eating home, so we never really used to go to restaurants. So when the fujis get signed, you know things are good. You feel me And the product manager brings me in prize to an Italian restaurant, keep in mind in New York City and New York City, but keep in mind we ain't never eat out right, So I'm just showing you the mentality. So now we get there. Oh, table looks nice, the glasses look nice,
and this dude brings this amazing bread out. Me and prize ate at least three hundred pieces of bread. This ain't no regular but I don't know where does bread come. This is a different type of bread cause when you used to taste this bread, we used to have wonder bread. This bread tastes like a different kind of bread. And after three hundred breads, the guy come out, he's like, YO, do you want to order? And I looked at prizot I said, I thought that was the whole meal. I'm
only giving you these realities because it's real. So by the time that we can get to afford the lifestyle and now start to read, start to read about, yo, what restaurant you want to go to what type of food you want to go to? Then you know, you start to read about okay, what kind of wine do you like? What year did this wine come out? Right? Then you start to look at different fishes. Right, you'd be like, okay, what kind of fishes? Is this going to work? Then you'll be like, oh, I got to
do a movie this week. Then you'll be like, okay, we got to do all lean meats. Then you'll be like, okay, which restaurant is all grass fed? Right? You start you won't be able to do this without money. Like at the end of the day, that changed too.
And when you're performing, do you go on a certain type of tie.
So when I perform, Quincy Jones like call me one of the greatest performances. Shout out to Quincy very humble by that. I have a lot of energy, So I go very light before I go on stage. So I might have like a soup or I might have like akunk salad or something right because I know I'm about to burn some calories on that state. But when I get off that stage, I promise you, like, if it's steak day, you know we got the best steak. If it's poultry day. We have the best poetry off stage
after burning that calorie. I always like to do a lot of veget vegetables.
Are you doing now?
Well? My focus right now for the next level or a few things. One is working with Google with Leo Cohen's on the AI side of the music. As a purist of music, I was definitely one of the perfect people to bring in and so the best way I can explain it, my niece is twelve, and I want her to understand, don't let the algorithm control you. You control the algorithm, meaning that as a purist, anything that you see the AI does, it couldn't do it unless
the human did it first. So you can be lazy and you have to be innovative and create the next thing. I'm very very excited about that touring with the Fujis. Look out for some dates. That's going to be Yeah, So the Fujis is going on to it. That's going to be amazing. Come here, I'm coming here with Johanna Jackson, so you could be my guest for that. Okay, perfect, We're going to Janet Jackson fandom. It's gonna be cool. And I've been inspired while in London so working on
some new music and talks. I probably maybe do a residency out here.
Why not, Yes, you do residency right here up the River cafe.
We're talking residency, m.
H.
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair
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