Watch Wyclef Jean Play a Custom Whitney Houston Dubplate for Lena Waithe

Back in August, Wyclef Jean launched a new interview series, Run That Back, and on the debut episode he played screenwriter and actress Lena Waithe a previously unreleased dubplate Whitney Houston had personally made for him.

In the clip, Jean explains that he was headed to Jamaica for a dancehall clash and he needed a secret weapon to send the crowd wild, so he asked Houston — whom he’d worked with on 1998’s My Love Is Your Love — for a dubplate.

“She was like, ‘Baby, what the fuck is a dubplate?’” Jean recalls with a laugh. “And I said, ‘So what it is, is you know how when people be doing drops for the DJs?’ I said it’s the same way, but versus you just doing a drop, you’re gonna talk about how great my soundsystem is, and if anybody comes to get us, they will not survive.”

Jean says when he dropped the Houston dubplate at the clash, there was lightning and thunder, and he proceeded to play the raw vocal she recorded. In the recording, Houston gives a shout-out to late reggae star Dennis Brown then proceeds to sing “My Love Is Your Love” with a special twist in the lyrics: “If tomorrow is judgment day/And I’m standing on the front line/And the Lord asks me what I did with my life/I would say, Wyclef murdered the soundboys.”


Along with Waithe, Run That Back has featured interviews with Will.i.am, Clive Davis, Kirk Franklin and Rapsody. The next episode, premiering Thursday at 7pm EST, will feature A$AP Ferg.