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Wyclef Jean - Quantum Leap 1 & 2


Thirty years after The Score, Wyclef Jean is releasing seven albums in seven genres, one after another. These are the first two, and they could hardly be further apart. That's the point.

Vol. 1, Clef Notes, goes back to where he started: an autobiographical hip-hop record, with Lil Wayne, Rapsody, G Herbo and Andra Day stepping in. Start with "Mr. October," an elder and a younger voice from the same tradition trading ideas rather than trading places.

Vol. 2, Q Theory, is the surprise: his first jazz album, almost entirely instrumental and named for his mentor Quincy Jones. Wyclef calls the sound Rara Jazz, with Haitian street-procession rhythms carried into a band that includes Robert Glasper, Yussef Dayes and Theo Croker. The closer, "Louverture," named for the leader of the Haitian Revolution, brings it all home.

Play them back to back. One is the storyteller, the other the bandleader. Same man, same roots, two different rooms.

:::MME:::

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