J. Period says that a conversation he had with Wyclef inspired some of the rapper’s lyrics on “How Many Mics,” a song that appeared on The Score, the Fugees’ multi-platinum 1996 album.
While a student at Stanford, J. Period had written Wyclef a letter asking him about some of his lyrics from the Fugees’ “Refugees Hip Hop Remix” of its 1994 song “Vocab.” J. Period says he wanted to know what Wyclef meant by the lyrics, “Like a Jew is a Jew.”
After getting the letter, Wyclef reached out to J. Period.
“Wyclef calls me and explains his whole life story,” J. Period says in an exclusive interview that premiered in the DX Daily today (September 5). “This is before The Score, so nobody knows about the Fugees at this point in time, except they had ‘Mona Lisa’ [‘Nappy Heads,’ which features the Fugees saying ‘Mona Lisa’]. He tells me his whole life story. He’s like, ‘I was raised in Crown Heights [Brooklyn]. The Black kids would be like, ‘What’s up, Black?’ The Jewish kids would be like, ‘What’s up, Jew?’ I was like, ‘Well, I’d never heard of that, but you called me, so, OK, cool.’ So basically, the first single of The Score dropped. The b-side is ‘How Many Mics’ and he says, ’So on my day off with David Sonderberg I play golf / Run through Crown Heights Screaming out ‘Mazel tov’ / Problem with no man / Before Black, I’m first human.’ I was like, ‘Huh. That’s what he was talking about in our conversation.’”
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J. Period was out of the country when the Fugees were next going to perform in Los Angeles, so he sent his sister to the concert on his behalf.
“I sent my sister to this show at the House of Blues, just to meet him,” he says. “She goes to House of Blues beforehand, sees him sitting down, goes up and says, ‘This is going to sound crazy but my brother, he wrote you a letter. He goes to Stanford.’ Wyclef’s like, ‘Oh yeah. The kid about the Jewish thing. I figured he would like the lyric I put on the new album for him.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ She told me that that line on that album was for me.”
J. Period, who has released Q-Tip and Lauryn Hill mixtapes, collaborated with Fugee affiliate John Forte on the opening theme for the Brooklyn Nets’ 2012-13 season.
RELATED: J. Period Uses Eminem’s “‘Till I Collapse” On Brooklyn Nets Opening Theme
