...The Carnival was another find I uncovered at the library and I think it was wayyy ahead of its time; a highly under-rated album in some circles when it came out...it was the first solo effort of the newly ex-Fugee, Wyclef Jean and it dropped back when I worked at the record company that released it back in NYC...he was there all the time and the look he had on his face wasn't necessarily worry but it definitely appeared to be trepidation on how his new stuff was going to be taken by the rest of the world, he was doing some real experimentation in the studio for the album and The Score had been such a huge critical and commercial success, that the word around the campfire was "how in the hell was he going to top that?"
..with the heat of his former group's massive hit album quickly cooling, I remember seeing him in the building all the time on his way up to the 18th floor...Jean was taking a bold step by infusing foreign sounds into the hip hop mix (now its de rigeur but this was eleven years ago) and I could kind of feel his plight (he collaborated with a pre-Mis Educatioin, Lauryn Hill, Bob Marley's I-Threes and even the Salsa Queen Celia Cruz on this album)...when I first heard the rough mix, I liked it-- so when I peeped the album cover in the library bin, I was like "oh yeah, THAT'S RIGHT!"
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another great encounter was when the founder of Ruff House Records (The studio is in Conshehocken, PA) would stop by to see how the album was doing. We told him we couldn't keep it on the shelves. I asked him what ever happened to The Goats, he just shook his head in a disappointed manner and kind of told me it was a long and disappointing story that he didn't want to get into. I'll post on The Goats later...