Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: You never know what's going to happen. A few nights ago,
Speaker 2: having dinner with friends in the garden of the River Cafe,
Speaker 2: a message came that Wycliffe Jean was sitting at Table
Speaker 2: four and he wanted to say hello. An hour later
Speaker 2: he joined us at our table, and an hour after
Speaker 2: that we were still there talking about music, politics, and
Speaker 2: of course food, late into the night. What a man.
Speaker 2: Wycliffe emigrated age nine from Haiti to the Brooklyn Projects,
Speaker 2: played fourteen instruments by the time he was thirteen, won
Speaker 2: three Grammys, speak seven languages, and was asked to run
Speaker 2: for president at least two times. When the evening was
Speaker 2: over saying goodbye, we agreed we'd do a podcast when
Speaker 2: he was back, and, like his beautiful song, I thought
Speaker 2: he'd be god on till November. This morning he called
Speaker 2: and said, Ruthie, I've delayed my flight. Let's record tonight.
Speaker 2: So here we are back in the River Cafe, two
Speaker 2: new friends, continueing our conversation about food and music and memories.
Speaker 2: You never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: It was a very good night, wasn't it that night?
Speaker 1: It was surreal night way because I'm a viber You
Speaker 1: saw how I just walked in in and I saw
Speaker 1: the piano and I just jumped on the piano and
Speaker 1: I believe, like everything is energy. And I came in
Speaker 1: the restaurant humbly, just chilled, and I was looking at
Speaker 1: everyone's eyes. Everyone was amazing, and it was cool because
Speaker 1: one by one people started coming to me. They was like,
Speaker 1: you are Clef Jean, right, yeah, yeah, what's up?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: This wild clep And then I really wanted to meet you,
Speaker 1: so I was like, yo, I gotta meet you. And
Speaker 1: then when you came over, we just we click. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. We click click like we said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give y'all a lot of hip hop
Speaker 1: terminology here, so we click click. Translation means where we bonded.
Speaker 2: And so when you were here last time, you had
Speaker 2: I think you had these peppers which we're cooking right now.
Speaker 2: One of the duties of this of this podcast is
Speaker 2: that the guest breads a recipe which kind of connects
Speaker 2: you with the people who are listening to you. So
Speaker 2: would you like to teach us how to cook through
Speaker 2: reading this recipe?
Speaker 1: Perfect, but we about you know, as a producer and
Speaker 1: as a creator. I'm a creative. I already knew I
Speaker 1: was going to do this, So I was like, so
Speaker 1: in hip hop we do this in the cafeteria. This
Speaker 1: is where we be boxed. So I was thinking, what's
Speaker 1: dope is you? You start off every recipe you go,
Speaker 1: I'm going to repeat it, but I'm going to repeat
Speaker 1: it in a hip hop way. You feel me like
Speaker 1: we used to do in the cafeteria. So it's gonna
Speaker 1: be rocking.
Speaker 3: So let's go.
Speaker 1: So this is the recipe here, okay, perfect, We're going
Speaker 1: in uh huh yeah, yeah, you could just read it.
Speaker 1: I'm ready for you.
Speaker 2: Go me to read it.
Speaker 1: Yes, you ling from long.
Speaker 2: Okay, got grilled red peppers, an chovies, capers and bisquetta blush.
Speaker 4: That and capers, anchovies, grilled red peppers.
Speaker 3: Here were you go?
Speaker 2: Oh oh, fifty salted capers soaked?
Speaker 4: Hey, yeah, I fifty salt capers soap, soap soap. Let's go, y'all.
Speaker 2: One hundred salted anchovies.
Speaker 4: Hold up, one hundred salted anchovies. Wy cleft the refuge.
Speaker 2: Come on. Twelve red peppers and three garlic clothes.
Speaker 1: Oh, twelve twelve red peppers and three garlic clothes. Come on, y'all,
Speaker 1: Come on, y'all.
Speaker 2: Basil, leaves, extravergin, olive oil.
Speaker 1: I like the way you did that. Three slice sword
Speaker 1: dough cut in half. Let's go, baby girl.
Speaker 2: I like you grilled whole peppers until blackened on all sides.
Speaker 1: I like that. That could be a top line.
Speaker 4: Grill the whole peppers until blackened on all sides.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when cool. Remove the blackened skin by rubbing peppers
Speaker 2: in your hands, and do.
Speaker 4: Not worry if they fall apart. Remove the seeds and cars.
Speaker 2: Layer the peppers in a large dish with slivers of garlic.
Speaker 4: Layer the peppers in the large dish with silver of garlics.
Speaker 1: Don't panic. Let's get it right.
Speaker 2: Capers, anchovies, basil, black pepper.
Speaker 4: Eh eh, eh hey, black peppers, and genuine amount of
Speaker 4: extra virgin olive oil, oil oil oil.
Speaker 2: The final layer should have all the ingredients visible.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. Grill the bread on bull side
Speaker 1: and gently garlic over one side. Only, only, only, only.
Speaker 2: Only serve the peppers with the busquetta.
Speaker 3: I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Earlier, I got a chance to go to Buckingham Palace.
Speaker 2: Right, but you went to I.
Speaker 1: Went to the Garden Party. But the part I was
Speaker 1: most excited about was the chambers to listen to the parliament. Right.
Speaker 1: This is very important, right because this simple act of
Speaker 1: democracy don't happen in a lot of places. Right, because
Speaker 1: you got places where you know, in these chambers when
Speaker 1: they don't agree, next thing, you know that the one
Speaker 1: of the like in our countries you have which called
Speaker 1: senators and deputies. Right one leaves and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: you hear about you know, this person getting killed or
Speaker 1: this person. So the democratic process within anything, I applored
Speaker 1: one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing isn't it that they disagree and they
Speaker 2: insult each other. It was must have been question time
Speaker 2: right on the Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was question time. That's why I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, into it. Coming from HATI, I came to
Speaker 1: the United States, and I haven't uncle. His name is
Speaker 1: Raymond Joseph and he has a book called for Whom
Speaker 1: the Dog Spy? So my polycide brain as a young child,
Speaker 1: I would always hear these. So he was one of
Speaker 1: the guys that was upfront and the idea of baby
Speaker 1: Doc having to leave so he was someone like, if
Speaker 1: you're a dictator, he's gonna come for you, because the
Speaker 1: idea is, you know, we don't support that. So Raymond
Speaker 1: Joseph made his way to America and he started a
Speaker 1: newspaper called it up Savata, which is equivalent to like
Speaker 1: the New York Times but in French and crayle. This
Speaker 1: is where the consciousness of just the idea of understanding
Speaker 1: policy and how important it was so at a very
Speaker 1: young age. This is why I gravitated towards Barb Marley
Speaker 1: a lot, because I feel like a you know, a
Speaker 1: man who's.
Speaker 3: Saying emanship, patriotshell from minto slavery. Nothing but that with
Speaker 3: shelves can for ya, We're might have no fear further
Speaker 3: time making ninji for none of them can stop the time.
Speaker 3: How long will they kill out? What profits? Why we
Speaker 3: stand this shide didn't look Some say it's just a
Speaker 3: part of it. We've got to fulfill the pool. Won't
Speaker 3: you help me? Shane another song of freedom, because all
Speaker 3: I've ever had Redamntion song right again, So I always
Speaker 3: go back to the music because just again, and I'll
Speaker 3: constantly say this, the artist should be present in this time.
Speaker 1: It's very important.
Speaker 2: Growing up in Haiti, you grew up in poverty, extreme poverty,
Speaker 2: and was that a reflection of the food that you ate?
Speaker 1: I remember food very well. So my father left me
Speaker 1: when I was one years old. He had got a
Speaker 1: work visa to come preach in the United States and
Speaker 1: so we was rais Is mostly with my grandmother. So
Speaker 1: one of my bandmates from the Fujis Miss Hill, she
Speaker 1: was like, yo, clef yo. Remember back in the days, man,
Speaker 1: when you used to tell us you used to eat dirt. Man,
Speaker 1: we thought you was like beyond exaggerating, until we went
Speaker 1: back and did our research and realized mud pie was
Speaker 1: a real thing. Me and my brother was eating dirt
Speaker 1: from the floor. When you are in extreme poverty, you
Speaker 1: don't feel it. You have to understand. So when I
Speaker 1: would see a poster of a child from either Haiti, Africa, Brazil,
Speaker 1: different places, and you show me the child crying and
Speaker 1: he looks desperate and he looks in need, be like,
Speaker 1: but hold up, hold up, I'm from extreme poverty. When
Speaker 1: you inside of the poverty, you don't feel it because
Speaker 1: that means that you're living inside of it. So your
Speaker 1: way out is imagination.
Speaker 2: You you were not exposed to wealth. You didn't compare
Speaker 2: yourself to someone with wealth.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know that what that is, right, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: my level of wealth would be this man, no matter
Speaker 1: how much we can't eat. I know one thing about Grandma.
Speaker 1: She just got two chickens, and once some chickens have
Speaker 1: lay some eggs, and then we go to the main
Speaker 1: city and she sells.
Speaker 3: Some of them eggs.
Speaker 1: We gonna come back and we gonna we're gonna have
Speaker 1: the biggest meal. So I want you to think like
Speaker 1: so every like three weeks, no matter what happened, my
Speaker 1: grandma would go. She would go and from planting tomatoes
Speaker 1: to corn, to different things. She would she would always
Speaker 1: get these seeds and from there she would go to
Speaker 1: the city. She would was it Porter Prince, Yeah, Porter Prince,
Speaker 1: and she go to Porter Prince. She would sell in
Speaker 1: the market, sell what she grow, and she comes back.
Speaker 1: So that was wealth to us. So no matter what
Speaker 1: we was going through, it didn't matter because we know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Grandma is gonna make us. Uh.
Speaker 1: Julli suspik relations Julie Rice black beans, sorry, Kra.
Speaker 2: Okay the vegetable Okra love.
Speaker 1: Okra and susqua is black beans. So this was this
Speaker 1: was one of the things that we we always was
Speaker 1: excited to look forward.
Speaker 2: What about fish?
Speaker 1: We get whitefish, what's a lot of whitefish? Snapper we
Speaker 1: get snapper, get we get shrimp. So now my daddy's
Speaker 1: side straight fisherman. Yo, let me tell you something about
Speaker 1: my daddy. My daddy heat the original aquaman. Like this
Speaker 1: dude can hold his breath for a date, like when
Speaker 1: he going underwater to get that fish, or he coming
Speaker 1: up with that fish, how.
Speaker 2: Did he catch it? Did he have an attack or
Speaker 2: have the stick?
Speaker 1: They have the stick and then they have the nest.
Speaker 1: So so you know, this is like I remember being
Speaker 1: now later in Brooklyn and with my daddy and then
Speaker 1: my grandma, my daddy's mother telling us, you know, she
Speaker 1: would make us laugh how my dad would like just
Speaker 1: jump in the water and he would get the fish.
Speaker 1: So that side where the fisherman was at was a
Speaker 1: little more easier to eat right, to get the food.
Speaker 1: But the thing is once he left us, remember we
Speaker 1: wasn't on that side. We was more on the side
Speaker 1: of you know, depending on is it going to rain today,
Speaker 1: is it not going to rain today?
Speaker 2: Let's go back to your childhood. You lived with your
Speaker 2: mother and your grandmother.
Speaker 1: I was one, my mom was pregnant and my dad
Speaker 1: left and my mother joined my father right after she
Speaker 1: had the baby. My second brother, Samuel in America and
Speaker 1: Haiti this is Haiti. They didn't even have babies yet
Speaker 1: by the time my parents got to America because of
Speaker 1: the immigration laws. Now Ford was the president and it
Speaker 1: was said like if you had a child in America,
Speaker 1: now you can go back, so and bring the kids.
Speaker 1: So my parents had two kids in America.
Speaker 2: Who was looking after you? Your parents were my grandma,
Speaker 2: your grandma, grandma, your mother's mother. So we're gone to
Speaker 2: school by that time.
Speaker 1: I was going to schoo when I was like five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I started going to schoo when I was five. So
Speaker 1: my father was a tailer. He worked in a factory.
Speaker 1: It was a sewer, so.
Speaker 2: As well as being a pastor.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so keep in mind the visa them ran
Speaker 1: out right, and so he's knitting and then he hears
Speaker 1: immigration and my father takes off to start to run
Speaker 1: like a gazelle. This dude done took off. His name
Speaker 1: should be changed to Greyhound. That's how fast this boy running.
Speaker 1: My daddy running. He running.
Speaker 2: How old did you think he would have been?
Speaker 1: My dad while he was running. My dad was like
Speaker 1: thirty something like he already was like thirty. So he
Speaker 1: was running because he didn't want immigration to catch him.
Speaker 1: So now they raided this place, and while he running,
Speaker 1: the immigration unit goes to my mama the apartment that
Speaker 1: they're staying. So while my dad's running, this is a
Speaker 1: big raid, like they day about that. Yes, this is
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Now immigration officer gets to my mama apartment.
Speaker 1: Immigration open up the door now, man, and my mom
Speaker 1: is so scared. The immigration officer has a translator with
Speaker 1: him that speaks French and crayle. So the immigration officer says,
Speaker 1: I'd have knocked on this door four times they ain't open,
Speaker 1: and I know somebody in there. I need you to
Speaker 1: say it in cray all, in French whatever language that is,
Speaker 1: tell them to open that door. And the translator says
Speaker 1: to my mother and cray all fair softly man, translation,
Speaker 1: do you not open that door right now now? The
Speaker 1: reason why I say this right is, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, people get caught up in these situations,
Speaker 1: and we the United States of America, like there was
Speaker 1: a time where we would take keed to this, and
Speaker 1: we would take like cause to this, and we would
Speaker 1: be so sensitive to that, like where we could say,
Speaker 1: we'll give you a pass because we know what you're
Speaker 1: doing here. You're not breaking the law. You just had
Speaker 1: a bad day, and these days do not exist. No.
Speaker 2: Also, you know you're making the country better, you know,
Speaker 2: by coming from another country. And I was just given
Speaker 2: a prize in America. It asked to be in the academy.
Speaker 2: I was made a member of this Academy of Arts
Speaker 2: and Letters. And I wrote the letter and I said,
Speaker 2: my grandparents came from Russia and I came in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 2: You know, they were part of that Ellis Island. I
Speaker 2: was just thinking, two generations. How you know if your
Speaker 2: grandparents were here watch watching you, did they Did your
Speaker 2: grandparents know the measure of your success? Did they see?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: My my my grandparents, my grandma knew my musical abilities
Speaker 1: at a very young age because I would just like
Speaker 1: make songs up. There was these women in the village
Speaker 1: every Sunday that would sing these church hymns and I
Speaker 1: would just get I would just be part of it.
Speaker 1: Remember one, Yeah, I remember a few of them.
Speaker 3: She sat fair, not do you aren't bad.
Speaker 1: One benea.
Speaker 3: Heya, she shuck fair, Oh what do you walk?
Speaker 2: Pair?
Speaker 3: We'll be me yeah, and work on that U pogod man.
Speaker 5: Theylluyah wah wah poco man llluiya po show whoa.
Speaker 2: Wha.
Speaker 1: So that was that was you know, you could just
Speaker 1: feel it. But the the the the the hem is
Speaker 1: saying we're blessed and we should acknowledge that like basically
Speaker 1: every day of our life. So again that was some
Speaker 1: of the I would hear these these these are these
Speaker 1: amazing women like and and then so the heymns would
Speaker 1: just channel.
Speaker 2: Through me after church. Would you would that be food?
Speaker 2: That a meal? Would you go home?
Speaker 1: And we call it Lucky Sunday. You get that Lucky Sunday.
Speaker 1: Everything come out on that Lucky Sunday. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen often. Lucky Sunday happens on Easter. The meal is big.
Speaker 1: The meal is big. The meal is a lot of meat, goat,
Speaker 1: goat goat cooked very interesting. It's called tassu. It's fried
Speaker 1: traditionally in Haiti. If you see how they cook, they
Speaker 1: use the chabon chocoal so it's caught with the chocoal
Speaker 1: because you know, the food gonna taste different. And then
Speaker 1: they put the big aluminum pan and so the goat
Speaker 1: is fried. They would make a uh poisson gorse. The
Speaker 1: passo gorsel is the white fish, a little saltea like codfish.
Speaker 1: At times, it.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you're saying gross sell is large salt, doesn't.
Speaker 1: It Yeah, yeah, yes, yes So in Crele the word
Speaker 1: means big yeah so yeah, and then phonetically yes so
Speaker 1: because uh crayle in French at times the words do
Speaker 1: mean the same thing else.
Speaker 2: And so when you your father around and your mother
Speaker 2: didn't open the door, so were they safe in the
Speaker 2: United States for you to come?
Speaker 1: They were safe. But let me tell you so in
Speaker 1: the village, what I want you to understand, I've never
Speaker 1: seen LeBlanc. I've never seen a white person in my
Speaker 1: life in this village. Never, right, So one day in
Speaker 1: the village and a jeep pulls up in this village.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, I've never seen no jeep before. So
Speaker 1: that looks like a UFO to us. And we all
Speaker 1: like five, and we all get next to my grandmother
Speaker 1: and we're standing next to us and I'm right next
Speaker 1: to her, and then LeBlanc gets out. So now this
Speaker 1: is my first time seeing a white man. I've never
Speaker 1: seen that long hair. You know. He got this this
Speaker 1: robe thing on, and then he goes in the back
Speaker 1: and then he gets these bags of rice, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Grandma, who's this. My grandma looked at me,
Speaker 1: dead in my eyes, and she said, that's Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So when Jesus brings me this rice, we take this rice,
Speaker 1: brings it to my grandma, does the prayer right, because
Speaker 1: he's actually a missionary. And then as he's leaving, I'm
Speaker 1: five and I remember telling my grandma, why ain't Jesus
Speaker 1: leave the seeds? Why ain't he bring no fertilizers? Because
Speaker 1: once he leaving, I'm five and I'm saying that, and
Speaker 1: I say that to show you these kids in these
Speaker 1: villages and what they want is an opportunity. Even at
Speaker 1: a very young age, I'm screaming, bring back the rice mills,
Speaker 1: Like is there a way where we can just start
Speaker 1: producing in the country. So in saying that, this is
Speaker 1: how it started. So my parents came and got me
Speaker 1: and my brother. Now they get on the plane, they
Speaker 1: immigration laws work out they come and get us from Haiti.
Speaker 1: So me and my brother going to see my parents
Speaker 1: for the first time. Now yeah, So now I'm like
Speaker 1: eight nine and now my parents are coming to get me,
Speaker 1: and I've never seen them. For them, So my grandma
Speaker 1: gets us dressed, she takes our bags, she brings us
Speaker 1: to the airport. I never seen an airport before. So
Speaker 1: when the airplane is landing, you can imagine what that
Speaker 1: looks like. To me, it looks like another UFO. So
Speaker 1: the airplane lands and and I'll never forget. My mother
Speaker 1: had a yellow outfit. She looked like Jackie Jo. She
Speaker 1: had the glasses on, you know, she looked like Miss America.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, that's my mama right there, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. My dad had the long bed
Speaker 1: looking like he moses.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: He comes, and they come and they hold me and
Speaker 1: my brother in that hog. I could still feel that hog.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen you for how long they haven't seen
Speaker 1: her since we were born.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe cafe, steps away from our restaurant, is
Speaker 2: now open in the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti,
Speaker 2: ciambella and cristada from our pastry kitchen in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: ice creamed coops and River Cafe classic desserts. Come in
Speaker 2: the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist.
Speaker 1: In the bar.
Speaker 2: No need to book see you here. Did they continue
Speaker 2: cooking the food of Haiti in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: My mama had a thing you only can eat in
Speaker 1: the house. I didn't even know what it was like
Speaker 1: to go to a fast food restaurant. A lot of
Speaker 1: what was cooked in Brooklyn was something called ligan. Ligan, yes,
Speaker 1: ligan is similar to a gumbo, right, but all in vegetables,
Speaker 1: so eggplants, water cress, this was like part of it.
Speaker 1: Also a lot of yam, sweet potatoes and this is natural.
Speaker 1: A lot of fish in the morning. It was very,
Speaker 1: very important that you had breakfast. My father, who was
Speaker 1: also an amazing cook, he used to cook liver for iron, right,
Speaker 1: So again like it would all, but he would like
Speaker 1: cook the liver with egg whites.
Speaker 2: They dipped the liver and the whites, yeah, they beat.
Speaker 1: The egg whites and the batter, yeah, and they batter
Speaker 1: the liver so it's very it's not rough, so everything
Speaker 1: is very tender. And so this is like some of
Speaker 1: the stuff. There was a juice that we had called coasal.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you said that in the English,
Speaker 1: but it helped. She always made us drink this juice.
Speaker 1: If if if the name comes to me in English,
Speaker 1: if anybody from Haitius listening, it's coo salt, maybe you
Speaker 1: could send the translation. But this help with cancer. This
Speaker 1: was it's called coal salt. I have to find the
Speaker 1: name of it. But it was a cold war sort,
Speaker 1: so we might have to I might have to call
Speaker 1: my wife figured that out, but it really like helps.
Speaker 1: So this is some of the the So we naturally
Speaker 1: grew up in an environment where the food wasn't processed
Speaker 1: like they literally, Oh you know what she used to do?
Speaker 1: Polg chicken. So from the chicken. She would always go
Speaker 1: to the butcher. Like they would not if the meat
Speaker 1: wasn't from the butcher, they would there's no such thing
Speaker 1: about she go to the supermarket and get chicken. So
Speaker 1: everything is from the butcher. And it was called pool gee.
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you, just thinking about that
Speaker 1: chicken right now and how they seasoned it and cooked
Speaker 1: it was pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: Did you ever go in the kitchen and cook with
Speaker 2: your mom?
Speaker 1: My? Mother? She was like, you gotta be real successful.
Speaker 1: I said, why because she said, every time we cook,
Speaker 1: and all you do is you come in the kitchen
Speaker 1: and sing, and you sing, and you stay here and
Speaker 1: you wait. So you're the first one with the first
Speaker 1: meal out right. My mom, when she would cook rice,
Speaker 1: she would had me work with the seasons with her.
Speaker 1: There's a seasoning called magi. You've ever heard of it?
Speaker 2: I think I have.
Speaker 1: It's like amazing because it's like a mixed season and
Speaker 1: it was something like she caught it literally works in everything,
Speaker 1: like literally like a little cube yes, yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 1: a yellow ye.
Speaker 2: Like it's like it's like a cube of vegetables and they.
Speaker 1: Put Maggie in.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the things. She was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: give me the two Maggie's so the rice game is crazy,
Speaker 1: and Haiti and and and then the the the kitchen.
Speaker 1: So she'd be like, okay, put this amount of water
Speaker 1: right in the pot. And she put the water. She says, okay,
Speaker 1: put this amount of oil right. And one of the
Speaker 1: things she used to have me do was wash the rice.
Speaker 1: Cleaning was very very important to her. How she actually
Speaker 1: cooked the food. So I'd be like, but the rice
Speaker 1: is already in the peck just but no, she says,
Speaker 1: you got to put the rice in the water.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 1: So literally for five minutes she has me cleaning this
Speaker 1: rice out, and I remember, like, now, sit back and
Speaker 1: I watch the water boil. And while the water was boiling,
Speaker 1: I was singing my mother's favorite French song Jack, which
Speaker 1: one if my says kitche and marry and faithful, Mary
Speaker 1: and faithful? Did it sting?
Speaker 6: Did it?
Speaker 1: I have a version of it?
Speaker 2: You go away?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you go away, Yes, that's right. Yeah to trust.
Speaker 1: Now you got to hear they version.
Speaker 2: So you sang it in Creole?
Speaker 1: No, I sang it in English. But I put the
Speaker 1: hip hop to it. I was like.
Speaker 3: To pursue, you know.
Speaker 1: I put the hipness to it. I put that sauce,
Speaker 1: you know, I put the maggi in it.
Speaker 2: Did you live in an enclave of Haitian culture?
Speaker 1: So we grew up in Marlborough Projects, one of the
Speaker 1: roughest projects in Coney Island in Brooklyn. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: we got there from Haiti. We grew up in Coney Island.
Speaker 1: As far as me and my brother was concerned, we
Speaker 1: came from a hut. And so we're in a building,
Speaker 1: so we were rich. We like the Jeffersons. We moved
Speaker 1: on up on the east side. Did you what was
Speaker 1: school like? We went to school in Brooklyn. But this
Speaker 1: is what was amazing about Coney Island. We lived in
Speaker 1: this big project, one of the most dangerous projects. But
Speaker 1: when we go on the roof, we could see the
Speaker 1: entire amusement park in the beach in Coney Island. And
Speaker 1: then so we was like living on up because me
Speaker 1: and my brother was like, this is amazing. So literally
Speaker 1: we could go from the projects and then like walk
Speaker 1: to the beach, which was pretty amazing. And the reason
Speaker 1: why we identified with the beach again and Haiti and
Speaker 1: a village. We played in the cemetery, so I will
Speaker 1: walk Disney and our playground was this big cemetery, so
Speaker 1: in I had we watched the transformation go from the
Speaker 1: cemetery to this amazing amusement park. And again, what that
Speaker 1: did for us was, you know, we are in the
Speaker 1: land of opportunity, and we was like, there's nothing now
Speaker 1: that's going to set us back. So the Eagle gave
Speaker 1: us that opportunity. America has given us this opportunity. And
Speaker 1: I don't say that just for me, I say that
Speaker 1: for many of my friends, my peers that ended up
Speaker 1: being super successful.
Speaker 2: Tell me about music.
Speaker 1: Rap music was forbidden in the house. My parents never
Speaker 1: knew I rapped. That did not exist in the house.
Speaker 1: The house was Amy Grant. It was if you want
Speaker 1: to listen to rock, it was Petra Christian rock, and
Speaker 1: it was hymns like I would write the church Hams
Speaker 1: and all of that. But being that I was the oldest,
Speaker 1: I would get into a lot of fights. Cousin of
Speaker 1: mine's ended up getting killed in Brooklyn. I mean, I
Speaker 1: still have a stab on my left leg, like, and
Speaker 1: we're teens, right, So it was rough. It was real,
Speaker 1: and my parents saw that I was headed in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. You know what people be like, why are
Speaker 1: you so sensitive to prison reform? Why do you connect
Speaker 1: with the youth so much?
Speaker 3: I said.
Speaker 1: I remember me and my cousin going into a you know,
Speaker 1: a bodega, and you know, like we're gonna rob it,
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's just a natural thing at the
Speaker 1: time we feel like we have to do. It's just
Speaker 1: this this false sense of reality becomes reality within the
Speaker 1: environment that you win. If you don't have the right
Speaker 1: mentors at the time, and your parents ain't gonna be
Speaker 1: with you all the time. So my introduction to rap
Speaker 1: was I'm on the on in the neighborhood and I
Speaker 1: see two guys in front of each other with big
Speaker 1: crowds around them, like the eight Miles Em and Them movie.
Speaker 1: These guys got too and then man, the one guy
Speaker 1: is insulting the other guy. He's like, Yo, mama, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, bye bye bye, bye bye bye. And
Speaker 1: the other guy, Oh, yeah, well your uncles are drunk
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and they're rapping. And I told my man,
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, what's that. He said, Yo, that's
Speaker 1: called battle rap. So battle rap. If you was to
Speaker 1: ask me to translate that, I would tell you this
Speaker 1: is what we call Shakespearean jousing. It's a jousing of
Speaker 1: metaphors and wordplays and similes and in a very unique
Speaker 1: way which is created in these communities. So then I
Speaker 1: was like, man, if I learned how to battle rap,
Speaker 1: then I won't have to slap box and fight as much.
Speaker 1: This was my introduction to rap. So I learned how
Speaker 1: to rap as a mechanism of self defense to save
Speaker 1: me in the ghetto that I was in. So this
Speaker 1: sort of like where it started for me. So rap
Speaker 1: was a secrecy thing that we did in the street.
Speaker 1: My dad moved us from Brooklyn to Jersey after the
Speaker 1: craziness and he started a small church and eleven eight
Speaker 1: South Orange Avenue, North, New Jersey. The church was a
Speaker 1: funeral home. So again here you go. So my father
Speaker 1: from Haiti right again, he always used to say, he said, America, America,
Speaker 1: He's the good, best place in the way because America
Speaker 1: provide you with say it opportunities that and it provides
Speaker 1: you with opportunity. That means as long as you don't
Speaker 1: break the break the law did, you can be what
Speaker 1: successful dad. And then he breaks. He takes us out
Speaker 1: and it's a big funeral home eleven o eight South
Speaker 1: Charlenge Avenue, a burnt down funeral He says, God has
Speaker 1: given me a vision. My father moves us into a
Speaker 1: burnt down funeral home and this is where he has
Speaker 1: this vision where he's going to create the first bilingual church,
Speaker 1: where he's going to push the faith in English, Creole,
Speaker 1: in French. He has this vision. His church is in
Speaker 1: the middle of eleven eight eight South Javenue, on the
Speaker 1: right side is a pub, an Irish pub. On the
Speaker 1: left side is a Sicilian crew that you know, they
Speaker 1: run in their numbers. They're doing what they're doing. My
Speaker 1: father's church is right in the middle of this.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: One night, my dad looks outside and it's nothing but
Speaker 1: El Dorado's in the back of his funeral home. And
Speaker 1: my dad said, whopoc all these that literatos. Now I
Speaker 1: go call the police. I go talk to them. So
Speaker 1: my dad and his Haitian short sandals, right, he goes
Speaker 1: to the Sicilian crew and he knock on that little
Speaker 1: joint like, and then the dude goes on and my
Speaker 1: father said, who popped these e lorados? I call the
Speaker 1: police now, and the dude goes, Fanny, Fanny, Hey, it's
Speaker 1: the Manaster. Come talk to the minister, right, so many
Speaker 1: he goes, Manister, I'm Catholic, right, he can't call the police.
Speaker 1: Some Catholic. Look, every Sunday I'm gonna come and you know,
Speaker 1: and contribute something to the church. And guess what, every
Speaker 1: Sunday they came, contributed something to the church. The Irish
Speaker 1: pub came. And it wasn't until a year later I realized,
Speaker 1: holy shit, my father bought that funeral home because of
Speaker 1: the big parking lot, and that parking lot was how
Speaker 1: he was able to rent it out to different communities
Speaker 1: and different things and raise money to actually built the church.
Speaker 1: So so in seeing that, you know, I just started
Speaker 1: seeing things completely different. And then so with us, we
Speaker 1: were his church band, like the same way you see
Speaker 1: the Jackson five. This was us. We was prodigies in
Speaker 1: the church. Me and my brothers, my sisters. We all sang,
Speaker 1: we all play instruments, and everyone came every Sunday to
Speaker 1: see these young kids. Like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I be how be you witness a sanct of five?
Speaker 1: Witness a witness father in law?
Speaker 4: How be you with this sCOD five?
Speaker 1: Withness a witness father in law? And the churches turned
Speaker 1: up and all the Catholics were there, everybody there Catholic.
Speaker 2: And must have had a great time. Church could be
Speaker 2: so fun.
Speaker 1: Man, church was fun. We called you know, at one time,
Speaker 1: we called it club church.
Speaker 2: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 2: please make sure to rape and review the podcast on
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts. Thank you and the music in schools. One
Speaker 2: teachers in your high school recognize your talent.
Speaker 1: Well, in high school, I didn't want to sing and
Speaker 1: show off my music because I don't think I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was cool because I'm like in a rough
Speaker 1: school and everyone's listening in the hip hop. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Everyone's listening a hip So one day
Speaker 1: I happen to be in the auditorium and I'm playing
Speaker 1: what's called the Circle of fifths, very simple but yet
Speaker 1: complicated chords on piano. I could just hear it, and
Speaker 1: a music teacher called Valerie Price walks in and she goes,
Speaker 1: where did you learn that from? And I said I
Speaker 1: could just hear it in my head. And she was like,
Speaker 1: tomorrow you're starting classical music and you're starting jazz. And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not jazz is for old people.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a battle rapper like LLL cool J.
Speaker 1: And she was like, well, you're gonna be a battle
Speaker 1: rapper like LLL COOOLJ, but you're starting jazz and classical
Speaker 1: music again like sixteen now. So this teacher took me
Speaker 1: and shaped me into reading sheet music and first composer
Speaker 1: she put me on was Gershwin?
Speaker 2: What did you What did you play?
Speaker 3: Summer Time?
Speaker 1: The home Parking bes like the whole She put me
Speaker 1: up on Gershwin and I fell in love with Gershwin,
Speaker 1: and then I fell in love with Quincy Jones. And
Speaker 1: so then I was like, Oh, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be a rapper. I'm going to be a composer. So
Speaker 1: then one day I hear Michael Jackson on the radio,
Speaker 1: and I'm the kid that would get the vinyl and
Speaker 1: out look for the back. But when I look in
Speaker 1: the back, I never looked to see the artist. I
Speaker 1: look to see who's doing the music. I see a
Speaker 1: name Quincy Jones. So then I get obsessed and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do like Quincy Jones. I'm from a
Speaker 1: jazz background. I'm going to create a you know, be
Speaker 1: part of a supergroup, and then I'm going to literally
Speaker 1: produce and create the biggest artists in the world. And
Speaker 1: that happened. I was like, I'm going to be a
Speaker 1: composer and I'm going to produce and be part of
Speaker 1: the biggest groups in the world. So the way that
Speaker 1: the Fujis happened is very amazing. So I want you
Speaker 1: to think about. I'm still like in my dad's church.
Speaker 1: Lauren Hell, Miss Hill goes to Columbia, which is another
Speaker 1: school high school. Prize comes to my school. Prize was
Speaker 1: in the studio with Miss Hill and another girl called Marci.
Speaker 1: This the group ain't formed yet and the producer was
Speaker 1: named Calise Beyond from Cooling the gang. So I'm in
Speaker 1: my dad's church and Prize gives me a call, and
Speaker 1: Prize goes, Yo, man, I'm out here. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: doing this recording, and I have these two girls, and
Speaker 1: I need a reggae hook. Man, could you come sing
Speaker 1: a reggae hook. So I get to the studio and
Speaker 1: I see Lauren, and I see Marcy. Yeah yeah, And
Speaker 1: I see Laurence Marci and I go in the booth
Speaker 1: and I sing this reggae hook.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you what a reggae hook is?
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the word hook. So when
Speaker 1: I say hook, that's chorus. So the idea of a chorus.
Speaker 1: So now when we say a reggae chorus, we're saying
Speaker 1: something that feels like Bob Marley ish whalers ish, you know,
Speaker 1: by the Rivers of Babylon two Siage, so they knew
Speaker 1: that I had that kind of voice that I could
Speaker 1: deliver that. So there was like can you sing a
Speaker 1: chorus like that? So literally it's like, can you give
Speaker 1: us an incredible top line in.
Speaker 6: The song that's where the Fuji's sang was the birth Yeah,
Speaker 6: and then Lauren and Frise and Marcy and it was
Speaker 6: four of us and I sung, and then that the producer,
Speaker 6: who was Collisbie, I was like, there's magic here, like
Speaker 6: there's something going on here.
Speaker 1: And then this is how it started. And then so
Speaker 1: we literally kept like recording, dancing, popping, locking, writing your
Speaker 1: own music, writing our own raps, writing our own songs.
Speaker 1: And then the first album, which was called Blunted on
Speaker 1: Reality and the album bombs. I think Lauren's mother picked
Speaker 1: up a copy, so maybe five copies. So the album
Speaker 1: ain't go platinum, but it went coppa like it didn't
Speaker 1: go like Coppa went Coppa like you know that means
Speaker 1: you ain't selling nothing. So but what was interesting about
Speaker 1: that was now it's time for the score. What made
Speaker 1: this score amazing is that because of what was going
Speaker 1: on in the community, in our community, we was able
Speaker 1: to hear it. So now I go with my other cousin,
Speaker 1: Jerry Wonder. We go with Lauren and I would say
Speaker 1: like we had the whole stacks group that was the
Speaker 1: Fouji's and we go in stacks like Motown, think of that,
Speaker 1: and then we go in and then we just start
Speaker 1: to young kids like the Beatles. We just started recording
Speaker 1: all of this stuff, but now it was coming directly
Speaker 1: from us.
Speaker 2: And were you in New York?
Speaker 1: Are you're still in New Jersey and my uncle's and nope.
Speaker 1: My dad had kicked me out the church at the
Speaker 1: time because he said, you can't serve two masters. You
Speaker 1: can't do circular music. So my uncle was like, it's
Speaker 1: not like the boys selling drugs circular music.
Speaker 2: Do you mean secular music?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, And so you were independent at a young age.
Speaker 2: Did you live in your own apartment?
Speaker 1: And did you know my uncle took me in. And
Speaker 1: of course it takes a village to raise a community.
Speaker 1: So when my father was like, you can't do my
Speaker 1: uncle took me in. He was like, it's not like
Speaker 1: he's doing anything wrong. So he took me in.
Speaker 2: And so did he look after you?
Speaker 1: He looked after us. Of course, he fed us, he
Speaker 1: took because this is strong family morals. If my father
Speaker 1: kicks me out for some religious reason, that my mother's
Speaker 1: brother is going to take me in. You see, this
Speaker 1: is another thing that we're missing in our rural communities right.
Speaker 1: A lot of fathers are getting put in person. The
Speaker 1: kids are having absolutely no guidance. There's not an uncle
Speaker 1: or aunt that could take them in. So I had
Speaker 1: that privilege where someone takes us in. So we took
Speaker 1: us in, and the score the score. We did it.
Speaker 1: But again, a lot of the score came from a
Speaker 1: lot of inspiration. I said. One of my biggest inspiration
Speaker 1: was probably Pink Floyd the Wall the way like that
Speaker 1: album was recorded. So when you hear records like ready
Speaker 1: or Not, here I Come, you can't hide. And you
Speaker 1: hear the when you hear Ready or Not, there's a
Speaker 1: humming in the background. It's like, h Now, anyone who
Speaker 1: listens to this, I'm in the hood in Newer New
Speaker 1: Jersey and that's in ya okay. And how does a
Speaker 1: kid from the hood finds in Inya? You know, that's
Speaker 1: living in the castle. So again this was the Fuji's.
Speaker 1: Fuji's is short for refugees, and that goes back to
Speaker 1: that story, right. My whole thing was the consciousness of
Speaker 1: the village of where we come from. And then so
Speaker 1: what we wanted to do is Fujis wanted to speak
Speaker 1: for the less fortunate. So that's how that came about.
Speaker 2: We just talked for a minute of becoming a success
Speaker 2: and how that changed your culture and your life.
Speaker 1: So I call it the Cinderella's Story imagination. I'm playing
Speaker 1: the air guitar before I'm at Madison Square Garden. The
Speaker 1: success it happened, I mean, the Fujis did not sell
Speaker 1: one million albums. It went to sell like twenty million
Speaker 1: albums with just to score so overnight. The phone calls.
Speaker 1: You could call anybody that'll pick up the phone. The
Speaker 1: White House wants you to come play. You know you're popping.
Speaker 1: Bill Clint was my man. Clint was my man at
Speaker 1: the time, Like Yo, the way that jay Z was
Speaker 1: with Obama. That was like me and Clinton at the time,
Speaker 1: Like what up, Belly, what's up?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: Yo?
Speaker 1: Clip, if you want to come jam at the White House,
Speaker 1: it's gonna boom. Everybody jump at the White House. Jump
Speaker 1: jump jump, So.
Speaker 2: And so success, fame music, the White House.
Speaker 1: At the height of the Fujis. I took the Fujis
Speaker 1: to Haiti. I bring the Fujis to Haiti. We do
Speaker 1: a big concert. I cried like a little baby. It
Speaker 1: was It was emotional because you got to understand. We
Speaker 1: talked about the village here. I am the biggest group
Speaker 1: in the world, and we go back and again to
Speaker 1: bring a weirdness to this place. Fujis also did the
Speaker 1: Rock the Vote. We was one of the first people
Speaker 1: to do Rock the Vote. Also in Tibet, the Tibet
Speaker 1: Freedom Concert. Fujis was like one of the first to
Speaker 1: do that. I remember, like you know, meeting the Dalai Lama,
Speaker 1: different things. So again, we've always used our fame and
Speaker 1: that energy to promote consciousness, which is that's what the
Speaker 1: Fujis are known for.
Speaker 2: Many people that I talked to who grew up in
Speaker 2: poverty or certainly unentitled see food and being able to
Speaker 2: eat a certain way, or to drink the wine, or
Speaker 2: to expose yourself to restaurants was a measure of their success.
Speaker 2: Do you see that You remember when you could go
Speaker 2: to a good restaurant and order something that you might
Speaker 2: never have had before.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny, so because you remember I told
Speaker 1: you we used to eating home, so we never really
Speaker 1: used to go to restaurants. So when the fujis get signed,
Speaker 1: you know things are good. You feel me And the
Speaker 1: product manager brings me in prize to an Italian restaurant,
Speaker 1: keep in mind in New York City and New York City,
Speaker 1: but keep in mind we ain't never eat out right,
Speaker 1: So I'm just showing you the mentality. So now we
Speaker 1: get there. Oh, table looks nice, the glasses look nice,
Speaker 1: and this dude brings this amazing bread out. Me and
Speaker 1: prize ate at least three hundred pieces of bread. This
Speaker 1: ain't no regular but I don't know where does bread come.
Speaker 1: This is a different type of bread cause when you
Speaker 1: used to taste this bread, we used to have wonder bread.
Speaker 1: This bread tastes like a different kind of bread. And
Speaker 1: after three hundred breads, the guy come out, he's like, YO,
Speaker 1: do you want to order? And I looked at prizot
Speaker 1: I said, I thought that was the whole meal. I'm
Speaker 1: only giving you these realities because it's real. So by
Speaker 1: the time that we can get to afford the lifestyle
Speaker 1: and now start to read, start to read about, yo,
Speaker 1: what restaurant you want to go to what type of
Speaker 1: food you want to go to? Then you know, you
Speaker 1: start to read about okay, what kind of wine do
Speaker 1: you like? What year did this wine come out? Right?
Speaker 1: Then you start to look at different fishes. Right, you'd
Speaker 1: be like, okay, what kind of fishes? Is this going
Speaker 1: to work? Then you'll be like, oh, I got to
Speaker 1: do a movie this week. Then you'll be like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got to do all lean meats. Then you'll be like, okay,
Speaker 1: which restaurant is all grass fed? Right? You start you
Speaker 1: won't be able to do this without money. Like at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that changed too.
Speaker 2: And when you're performing, do you go on a certain
Speaker 2: type of tie.
Speaker 1: So when I perform, Quincy Jones like call me one
Speaker 1: of the greatest performances. Shout out to Quincy very humble
Speaker 1: by that. I have a lot of energy, So I
Speaker 1: go very light before I go on stage. So I
Speaker 1: might have like a soup or I might have like
Speaker 1: akunk salad or something right because I know I'm about
Speaker 1: to burn some calories on that state. But when I
Speaker 1: get off that stage, I promise you, like, if it's
Speaker 1: steak day, you know we got the best steak. If
Speaker 1: it's poultry day. We have the best poetry off stage
Speaker 1: after burning that calorie. I always like to do a
Speaker 1: lot of veget vegetables.
Speaker 2: Are you doing now?
Speaker 1: Well? My focus right now for the next level or
Speaker 1: a few things. One is working with Google with Leo
Speaker 1: Cohen's on the AI side of the music. As a
Speaker 1: purist of music, I was definitely one of the perfect
Speaker 1: people to bring in and so the best way I
Speaker 1: can explain it, my niece is twelve, and I want
Speaker 1: her to understand, don't let the algorithm control you. You
Speaker 1: control the algorithm, meaning that as a purist, anything that
Speaker 1: you see the AI does, it couldn't do it unless
Speaker 1: the human did it first. So you can be lazy
Speaker 1: and you have to be innovative and create the next thing.
Speaker 1: I'm very very excited about that touring with the Fujis.
Speaker 1: Look out for some dates. That's going to be Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the Fujis is going on to it. That's going
Speaker 1: to be amazing. Come here, I'm coming here with Johanna Jackson,
Speaker 1: so you could be my guest for that. Okay, perfect,
Speaker 1: We're going to Janet Jackson fandom. It's gonna be cool.
Speaker 1: And I've been inspired while in London so working on
Speaker 1: some new music and talks. I probably maybe do a
Speaker 1: residency out here.
Speaker 2: Why not, Yes, you do residency right here up the
Speaker 2: River cafe.
Speaker 1: We're talking residency, m.
Speaker 4: H.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair
Speaker 6: M