Wyclef Jean presents The Carnival featuring Refugee Allstars

Wyclef Jean takes the global gusto of the Fugees’ debut, The Score, several steps further on his first solo album, rhyming earnestly over a wide range of boom-bap, reggae, calypso, and Latin rhythms. Sonically, the album is as eye-opening as a trip around the world, but topically, it's still deeply rooted in hip-hop. Wyclef is as proficient a narrator on third-person, ’round-the-way crime stories (“Bubblegoose”) as he is on romantic struggles like the frank open letter “Gone Till November.”