When hip hop icon Pras Michel stood on the tiny stage in the intimate space of the Grammy Museum, rapping Ghetto Supastar at a Music in Film event at the LA Film Festival this past Friday, the night flipped—as if Elvis Mitchell had thrown a switch backstage—from Festival conversation to beyond-magical moment. Heads bobbed. Fans beamed. The room grooved.

That sweet surprise was quickly followed by another when Pras—on stage with singer Kenna and two guitarists—leaned over and whispered in the ear of one of the musicians his idea for what to do next. It was a secret plan, inspired by Kenna, (who had just rocked the house with her stunning interpretation of the Mia part) and her journey from her native Florida to California to pursue her music dreams. As Kenna waited to hear what she was going to be expected to sing, the guitarist strummed first few bars of Hotel California, the crowd cheered and she belted it out as Pras and the guys improv-ed along.

The music capped off a conversation that was equal parts hilarious and inspiring. Most of it focused on what Sweet Micky for President director Ben Patterson, admiringly calls Pras’s “Spidey sense.” Story after story testified to the fact that, as Pras himself put it, “I dream big.”

But unlike most of the rest of us, Pras deems his big dreams direct instructions from the universe—and promptly obeys. Which makes the tale chronicled in Sweet Mickey for President, which screened at the Festival, as inevitable as it was outlandish.

The film follows Pras as he returns to his homeland of Haiti post-earthquake and finds a corrupt government in paralysis. With no experience or money, Pras passionately mobilizes a presidential campaign for the unlikeliest of candidates: Michel Martelly, (aka. Sweet Micky), Haiti’s most popular and most outlandish pop star. When Wyclef Jean also enters the presidential race, their chances seem further doomed and the story takes on the wild twists of celebrity drama.  

Sweet Micky is Pras’s second foray into the doc world. In 2005, convinced by a friend, he agreed to wear a hidden camera and spend 10 days living in the streets of downtown LA, embedded in the world’s largest homeless community, Skid Row. Chaos—as you might imagine—ensued. The documentary reveals the awakening of the world renowned artist to the realities of life on the streets. To hear Pras and Elvis tell the tale, it sounds like nothing so much as Beverly Hillbillies in reverse. Pras put up a tent Elvis called “the Taj Mahal,” and immediately blows his first day’s panhandling windfall ($30 in three-four hours) on one meal at The Standard hotel, which he promptly regrets. “The next day, I only made, like $2.” He also freaks out a do-gooder who gifts him a bag of McDonalds when tells her, “Oh, sorry. I’m a pescatarian.”

Pras eventually got the hang of street life, and found himself inspired by the tenacity of some of the people he met there. The experience taught him some life lessons, like… shut up about your preferred brand of water. “When you come down here, every one has a bottle of Fiji water, and I’m particular about the water I drink, and everyone else has Dasani. I think to myself, what kind of luxury to have the audacity to say, ‘I want to drink Fiji water.’”

“What I learned from Skid Row is, ‘What are you complaining about?’”

Five years later, the universe started telling Pras to do something about the political corruption in Haiti. The horrific earthquake there, and the shocking lack of empathy—let alone leadership—on the part of then-president Préval, struck Pras as a personal call to action—one that he couldn’t ignore. “When you stand by, and you don’t do anything, you’re just as guilty as the person doing the corruption, or who’s oppressing the people.”

One of the first things Pras did when he got the idea of doing a documentary about plight of the Haitian people in the wake of the hurricane, was to call Patterson, whom he’d never met, but whose work he knew from the ad campaign for favorite watch brand. Ben said, “I was in my apartment in New York, I randomly got a call. ‘Yo’ this is Pras.’ I was not sure why Pras was calling me. I said, ‘Pras from the Fugees?'” At that point, there was no storyline, until one day, as they were discussing the project, Pras told Ben that he’d decided to convince Michel Martelly to run for president. Ben Googled Michel and up came videos of Sweet Micky. “He had these diapers on and he was dressed in drag and I was like, ‘I must have spelled his name wrong.’”

“I was fascinated by what was behind that,” Ben said. “I knew Pras had this sense of life and I knew about Skid Row and I knew about his founding of The Fugees and I just wanted to know more about his Spidey sense and what is it that he understood that nobody else understood—and what was behind that.”

“I trust my instincts 90% of the time,” said Pras, who said he prophesized winning a Grammy before he’d had his first record deal.

Late in the game, Pras brought in Karyn Rachtman, a producer he’d known since 1998 when she brought Pras in to compose a track for Bulworth. She was executive producer, executive soundtrack producer and music supervisor on that film. (They shared the story of Pras having to cajole a fickle Warren Beatty to go with Ghetto Supastar. Pras convinced him that the song was an homage to his Bulworth character.)

“Pras has always had that Spidey sense,” Karyn explained. “I’ll tell him something about my day, and he’ll go, [she drops her voice to mimic the rapper’s deep baritone] ‘You know what that is right?’ And I say, ‘No, Pras. What is it?’ And he’ll say, ‘ That’s the universe talkin’ to you.’”

When Pras showed Karyn a rough cut she said, “I was so blown away,” and begged to work on it. “These beautiful gentlemen right here didn’t have the administration, so there was a lot for me to do in terms of licensing and releases and budgets and schedules and putting together the team for post-production. And it’s the best thing that’s happened to me in 10 years, getting to work with these guys.”

She loved the rough cut, but the music was problematic. As producer and executive soundtrack producer on Sweet Micky, Karyn had to be the one to give Pras a reality check. “She shut the music down,” said Pras. “I was just going for everything, and she said, ‘you got a $10 million budget? Cause that’s what this is going to cost.'”

“Most of the music is Sweet Micky’s music, which is phenomenal,” Karyn countered, “and the Fugees songs, which of course belong in there….”

“Yeah, but I wanted Sweet Dreams,“ said Pras, still pouty about not being able to get the Eurythmics song he’d had his heart set on.

Karyn is still defending her choice, “Because we have a documentary budget and we have a documentary song….”

“But I’m a dreamer,” said Pras, still defending his. “Obviously, I’m a dreamer; I thought this diaper guy could be president.”

Pamela Miller / Website & Grants Manager