Wyclef Jean, Lady Gaga And Others Call For Everyone To Help Haiti

Becky Bain | January 15, 2010 1:26 pm

After visiting Anderson Cooper 360 earlier this week to call a “state of emergency” for his home country of Haiti following the disastrous earthquake, Wyclef Jean personally flew down to the devastation to provide hands-on support.

While standing right in the middle of what Jean describes as “the apocalypse,” he and his wife were interviewed by a Fox News reporter who calls the rapper/singer “Haiti’s version of Bono [and] Bruce Springsteen.” Interview after the jump, including other efforts made by Lady Gaga, Blink-182 and other notable names in music to help out the victims from Tuesday’s tragic 7.0 earthquake.

Wyclef Jean flies back to the U.S. today, but he spent the last few days in Port-au-Prince doing whatever he could do to help support the victims of the quake. “We spent the day picking up dead bodies,” he told Fox News on Thursday. “The cemeteries are filled up.”

Wyclef claims that the victim count is considerably higher than what’s being reported. “The count is not 100,000,” he desperately pleads. “It’s more like four to five hundred thousand that is about to die… We have to raise a million dollars a day, otherwise in four or five days, this whole country is going to be in chaos.”

He might very well reach his goal—his non-profit organization Yele Haiti has raised over $2 million in text message and online donations, and many other musicians are joining Wyclef in aiding the victims of the Port-au-Prince disaster.

Lady Gaga announced her own plans for relief while on Oprah today. “On the the 24th, the Monster Ball in New York City—all of the money that I make in ticket sales and merchandise that day is going to go to Haiti,” Gaga told Oprah. “And on the 24th, you can also go onto LadyGaga.com if you’re not going to the Monster Ball, and any merch that you buy on the website, not a dollar is going to anybody else but Haiti.”

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is urging fans to donate to Oxfam. “I visited Haiti with Oxfam a few years ago,” says Martin. “It’s a country of extreme poverty and brutal living conditions. Most people in Port-au-Prince live in tin shacks. The earthquake that has struck Haiti will have turned the city into an unimaginable hell. The people of Haiti will be desperate for help and assistance.”

Blink-182 are selling T-shirts on their Merch page (which you can purchase here, first shirt on the left) for $15, with all the proceeds going to the Red Cross. So far, so good—according to Blink’s Twitter page, they’ve already raised ten thousand dollars.

How can you help? Go here and donate whatever you can. (The site previously crashed due to traffic, but is up and working again.)