Wyclef Jean: Young people must vote down hate in US politics

Oct 25, 2010, 23:31 GMT

Los Angeles - Rapper Wyclef Jean may have failed in his Haiti presidential bid, but he's keeping up his political activities in the US where he launched a youth voting initiative Monday.

The founder of the seminal band The Fugees teamed up with Campaign Money Watch, a political advocacy group that is spending 750,000 dollars on a media campaign before mid-term elections on November 2.

The campaign aims to energize young people to vote.

Jean's new song Election Time is a centerpiece of the Democrat- leaning campaign, which had the tagline: 'Make Your Voice Heard: If you don't you've cast a vote anyway. For the other side.'

Jean announced the campaign, saying the extreme atmosphere of hate and aggression in the US mid-term campaigns seemed even worse than the chaos of Haitian politics.

'After a month of campaigning for president of Haiti and the first six months after the earthquake helping the country start rebuilding, I sat back and looked around,' Jean said in a statement.

'What I saw and felt in the US, my second home country, with all the haters and money craziness in the campaigns, it almost puts the chaos of Haitian politics to shame, you know?

'It's about making your voice heard. That's what's important, and I know that better than ever, so I want to reach the young people to remind them.'

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