By now you've heard Wyclef Jean has dropped "Bang Bang Bang", a dirge on Chicago’s gun violence. It’s an acoustic arrangement played on Wyclef’s guitar. And the guitar is made to look like a AK-47.
"The idea is we convert weapons into music. In the end of the day, we got these kids all over the world.We got this gun culture. What my movement is, we start converting weapons into musical instruments. Music is the movement."
The setting of "Bang, Bang Bang" is Chicago, best known for having the highest gun violence in the nation. I agree with this item in Chicago Mag, which says the song is the "sort of concern-trolling, vaguely patronizing fare that has made Jean infamous. The song is also, frankly, unnecessary."
The pattern is clear. Wyclef uses calamities to remain relevant. In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake in his native Haiti, he got in front of every camera, microphone, and writer’s pen and squawked about his campaign to be the next Haitian president. But that campaign was short-lived, as he wasn’t actually a resident of, you know, Haiti.
Wyclef then used his resurgent visibility to fraudulently raise millions of dollars for travel and salaries for himself and his family. An audit on his charity uncovered Wyclef spent over $4.5 million on travel alone.
In both these cases, earthquakes and guns, Wyclef swoops in on a tragedy and attempts to exploit it for notoriety and money. He's a disaster tourist. And it's no mystery why. Wyclef hasn't had a hit since 2007's "Sweetest Girl". And he's got to pay for those lawsuits. Fugee royalties don't net you that kind of coin.