Wyclef Jean, Purpose:
An Immigrant’s Story
(It Books/Harper Collins), 2012
Selected Reviews
“[A] riveting memoir . . . Jean is candid in chronicling the drama of the music business and his heartfelt anguish for his homeland while struggling with success and commitment.”
– Booklist
“Jean’s passion for music, his fierce love for his family and for Lauryn Hill, his partner in the Fugees, and his deep and abiding devotion to his native country, Haiti, forcefully reach out and grab the reader.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Wyclef is a restless mad scientist — musician, activist, businessman, rabble-rouser — and Purpose is like the kitchen-sink style of the Grammy winner’s music, in which Caribbean rhythms and Bee Gees samples mix with hard raps and Hendrixian guitar. He’s funny and gossipy and horny and arrogant. He’s ‘Clef, and there’s no one like him in music.”
– The Tampa Bay Times
“His subtitle is even more telling: over and above a hip-hop story, Wyclef’s is “an immigrant’s story.” That is what makes it a gem. This escapade-filled memoir — short on revelations or scintillating tone, but brimming with droll yarns — delivers a narrative that often gets short shrift in hip-hop historiography: a diasporic one.”
– The New York Times
A Word from Anthony
Writing Purpose was tough. Wyclef is known for his music, which is why I wanted to work with him, but music wasn’t his concern in this endeavor. He wanted to share his story of growing up poor in Haiti to becoming an immigrant success story in America. It wasn’t what I expected, and it was a challenge, but it was a rewarding experience. The book he wanted to write forced me out of my comfort zone to tell the story that needed to be heard
