He's produced brilliant tracks for the likes of Whitney Houston, Santana, Mick Jagger, Sinéad O'Connor and Destiny's Child. And combined sales of Jean's first three solo albums, he informs me as we take a seat in the studio, have recently hit the 10 million mark. His first solo album, "Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival," went double platinum and earned him a Grammy nod.

But Jean's next two albums, "The Ecleftic" and "Masquerade," boasted no such commercial or critical success. They did boast an unusually assorted supporting cast: Rappers made their appearance, yes, but so did Kenny Rogers, Tom Jones and Youssou N'Dour. There was a reworking of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." Lyrics came alternately in English, Caribbean patois and French Creole, Jean's original tongue. Jean's diversity has ultimately been his blessing and his curse.

"You never know what I'm gonna do, so you always give me that 10-second listen," he tells me. At the 11th second, however, music industry demographics kick in -- and Jean's audience remains hard to classify. "People will be like 'I don't know what's going on with you, because I like you, my mom likes you, and my little brother likes you,'" Jean explains. Six-year-old children and 60-year-old women line up for his shows; truckers have stopped him on the road, he says, to confess that he's their favorite artist.

Jean told me he is in the midst of churning out a French Creole album, a reggae album (à la Gregory Isaacs) and a hip-hop album, "Silent but Deadly" (whose first single is "If I Was President"). He's cultivating talent for his own Clef Records: 18-year-old Trini Don, who's been described as a female Notorious B.I.G., and 3 On 3, singing brothers from the Bronx who happen to be sons of former Harlem Globetrotter Muggsy Bogues.

Platinum Sounds is a Wyclef Jean album come to life: You never know who'll turn up. Among those who did while I was there: the manager of politically radical, indie rap duo Dead Prez; a posse of men in jackets splashed with "Bad Boy," for P-Diddy's un-political, un-indie label; a P.R. rep for reggae label VP Records; bearer of the tentative treatment for Jean's new video, to be shot in Miami's Little Haiti. Following the crisis in Haiti, one video became two: Jean returned there to make a statement about Caribbean unity, shooting a second, as yet unreleased video, featuring American rapper Scarface, Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton and Haitian group T-Vice.

Don't call Jean a rapper. "I'm a hip-hop musician," he says, seated comfortably on a black leather sofa and surrounded by guitars, which he's adept at playing. "I want to make healing street music. To address the things that matter -- you know, life, love," he explains. "To say something. Of course, keeping it sexy, because I'm very sexy. But food for thought. Like a good book." He calls "The Preacher's Son" his most recent "good book." It's a label I endorse: "The Preacher's Son," while released to minimal fanfare, is addictive. It has requisite radio bangers ("Party to Damascus," with Missy Elliott) and duds ("Industry," a plodding journey through hip-hop blunders). But on "The Preacher's Son," Jean does more singing than rapping. This is good, because Jean is a "rapper" only in the strict sense of the word: He chats over beats and music. He lacks varied intonation or rhythmic flow, which is what rapping is really about.

His singing, though, is bad. I mean bad bad, but now that falsetto-fixated rappers who can't sing -- like Andre 3000 or Pharell Williams -- are a hot commodity, bad bad is good bad. Jean can carry a tune but barely a note. So when he sings, he sounds as if he's half joking; you're never sure if he's serious about his voice or being ironic with it. And in the end it doesn't matter, because the effect is compelling. Pair Jean up with a woman whose singing is good good, and the effect is mesmerizing. He and Lauryn Hill discovered that formula in the '90s, but since the Fugees disbanded, Jean has tapped it for a string of collaborations with ur-Lauryns -- his best one is "911," with Mary J. Blige. Jean has described the song as "one of those things that god put together," and it's that rare Wyclef Jean hyperbole that isn't, in my mind, hyperbole.

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