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Calling for a "new age of activism," Lava Records CEO Jason Flom joined with friend Wyclef Jean on Wednesday (May 3) at the Collision Conference in New Orleans to discuss wrongful conviction and how to change a criminal justice system he called "a disaster."   Flom, who is on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and hosts the podcast  Wrongful Conviction , noted how attitudes have changed drastically since he started working on criminal justice reform in the '90s. Skeptics once called him "Don Quixote, jousting at that shit," he said, but now more colleagues realize "it's our national disgrace." Read more: billboard.com

Wyclef Jean just dropped a new video for “The Ring” where he shows off his impressive boxing skills. The song is off of his recent February release,  J’ouvert. In the video, Wyclef raps into an announcer microphone before going into full sparring mode. Throwing both jabs, as well as kicks, the Haitian musician makes sure that his haters know not to mess with him. This latest song follows “I Swear” featuring Young Thug. While “The Ring” has more of a trap feel, the Thugger collaboration offers a pop dancehall vibe. Watch here: theboombbox.com  

Wyclef Jean returns to his  J’ouvert  EP to provide some visuals for “The Ring.” The Fugees member goes through a hard sparring session at the gym in the new video, which displays his fighting prowess. “The smile in my face, behind my back, they hate us/But like Bernie Mac said, I ain’t scared of you motherfuckers/Little Haiti to Sicily, Big Pun, he was a friend to me/Fat Joe, he called me literally/Put me on a track instantly/Caribbean connection put me all the way up/What goes up must go down, so Thugga picked me up/Ay, that’s what I call that street cred/Take your chance in the lobby, you gon’ meet those old dreads,” Wyclef raps in between shots of his training. Read more: xxlmag.com

Wyclef Jean makes the most of whatever environment he finds himself in. It’s a skill the singer-producer acquired as a youngster, when he and his family left his native Haiti for Brooklyn and eventually settled in New Jersey. “I was born in a hut. I ate dirt from the floor. I didn’t know what electricity was,” Jean says. “So by the time I got to America, I was like, ‘We made it.’ I just became a sponge wanting to escape, and my escape became culture.” Read full interview: washingtonpost.com

Approximately a half hour before noon, Wyclef Jean strolls into the entryway of his Four Seasons hotel room strumming his guitar and humming lightly over an improvised chord progression. He carefully places his instrument on the bed and settles in a chair facing Austin’s Lady Bird Lake. Each March, SXSW turns Austin, Texas, into a hotbed for music lovers and tech innovators; Jean’s 2017 appearance is an opportunity for him to immerse himself both worlds. Less than an hour remains before he's scheduled to perform at a brunch hosted by Shazam. He and the company partnered together to create an augmented reality experience to promote his latest EP,  J’ouvert. But in the early 1990s, Jean and his bandmates - The Fugees - had no access to such technology. Read more: forbes.com