New Music: Wyclef Jean - 'The Ring'
Wyclef Jean is out to get “The Ring” on the latest single from his forthcoming EP J’ouvert.
The aspirational cut begins with a message from the former Fugees frontman, who says he isn’t resting on his legacy with his upcoming material.
“I left at the height of my career,” he says. “I’m coming back. It’s like I’m starting all over again. It don’t matter what I did before, man. It’s the music business, man. You’re only as hot as your last hit. Everybody’s like, ‘Can he get another ring?'”
The song itself features references to Michael Jackson, Big Pun, A Tribe Called Quest, and others, including a certain Snapchat King. “Me and Khaled, boy, we go way back,” raps ‘Clef. “So far back…Man, he had a 6-pack.”
At one point, ‘Clef decides to run through the alphabet in his second verse, ending it all with some social, political, and historical commentary.
“By the window like X, don’t ask Y,” he raps, referencing a famous Malcolm X photograph. “I ain’t taking no Zs ’cause the Klan’s outside.”
On the heels of “Life Matters” and the Young Thug-assisted “I Swear,” “The Ring” is set to appear on Wyclef’s seven-track EP J’ouvert, due Feb. 3.