Wyclef Jean isn't willing to disappear during the extended vacation that his band the Fugees seems to be taking. He's not too proud to beg, either. Though she wasn't there, he addressed the group's more elusive and more famous star, Lauryn Hill, during one of many little side-road vignettes at his Avery Fisher Hall concert on Thursday night. "Mrs. Hill," he sang, "can you hear me, Mrs. Hill? I want a Fugees album."
Mr. Jean, a Haitian-American, is a broad collection of things. He sings, plays guitar, advocates peace and performs acrobatics, straddling old hip-hop, older reggae and older-yet rock 'n' roll, as well as Haitian carnival music. Part of Lincoln Center Festival 2005, the show, "Africa - America" was about hip-hop as a transcontinental unifying force. (It also emphasized the music's antiviolent, nonmaterialist side.) But Mr. Jean's multiculturalism has a manic quality, like a talent show or an indecisive frenzy in a changing room.
Hitting the stage in a tuxedo, he rapped in English, then in Spanish, French and a little Japanese. He freestyled over hip-hop and reggaeton rhythms, referring in passing to the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)," poured a bottle of water over his head, and performed some Fugees songs everyone knew, "Fu-Gee-La" and "Ready or Not." Then the show started on its crazy path.
He produced a bejeweled electric guitar and sang versions of "Jailhouse Rock" and "Guantanamera," then played a long guitar solo, showing the audience that he could play (not very well) behind his back and with his teeth. He performed a song that sounded ad-libbed about having the last laugh at a popular girl who slighted him at the senior prom. He brought out his sister Melky, a gospel belter, who sang Sam Cooke's "Change Is Gonna Come."
He started some protest chants, one calling for President Bush to send our troops home. He sang Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry." A few times he yanked a couple of men on stage to join his party, hectoring one until he took off his suit and tie. He was on a rampage with all the agreeable Joes in his audience, who mostly seemed like bohemians and mild-mannered corporate types: at one point he implored all men, except ones with bellies, to take off their shirts and dance.
He went barefoot to perform a few flips, then sang his "Diallo" - protesting the police shooting of Amadou Diallo - followed by Marley's "Redemption Song," which segued into Mr. Jean's grandiose "If I Was President." He sang Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," doing some verses in Creole. Finally he got around to West Indian carnival rhythms, which won the crowd completely; at the concert's best moment, he was balancing on top of two orchestra-section seats, playing rhythm guitar for dozens of fans dancing on stage. But he didn't leave before bringing back the talent show, for a solo-guitar version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
The concert opened with Daara J, a high-energy Senegalese hip-hop trio with a Parisian D.J., which also talks about peace in multiple languages (French, Wolof, English and a little Spanish), surfing among dancehall, Latin and hip-hop rhythms. The group has a song (and a new album) called "Boomerang," whose French lyrics describe how hip-hop started in Africa, winged around to North America, then worked its way back. Faada Freddy, with his intense, reedy voice, rapped sleek, double-timed rhymes in French and more percussive ones in Wolof; Aladji Man, in a long saffron robe and Timberland boots, declaimed booming, overstuffed lines; N'Dongo D kept the show cranked up and humming, interjecting little screams between stanzas.