on this edition of "our world with black enterprise" we catch up with music man wycliff john known for his music and humanitarianism. in our roundtable discussion, can you really meet your soulmate online? we discuss the rise on internet dating. a breast cancer survivor teaches others to fight for their lives. all that up next. -- captions made possible by the u.s. department of education and central city productions, inc.--

wycliff jean went solo after the grammy award winning duo the fujis splint in 1997. that is what is the start of an exceptional music career. i recently caught up with jean at the black and golf tennis classic where we discuss touchdown release of his next album and the future plans for his homeland, haiti. wycliff, good to see you. >> you, too, brother. >> before we get into some of the things you've been doing lately, i want to talk to you a little bit about music and one thing, what i think about the fugees, i think about the relatively short time they existed to the world, not in your life, obviously. you all were kicking it before anybody knew it, but the impact that you've had with such a short time. do you ever sit back and think about that? >> no

i mean for me i don't really think about that. my godfather of the game is like quincy jones. i think when i'm 50 years into it, i definitely look back at what i do. like the fugees was one impact. i thought, if i had the fugees, then the world probably wouldn't have had the whitney houston, probably wouldn't have had santana "maria maria," "destiny's child. i look at it like the arc of music. ♪ standing at the bar -- >> the fugees are considered the hip-hop of rap music, the hip-hop beatles.

>> what is it about music that captured your soul so? there's some music that you can feel it is truly a part of them. i get that from you? >> music for me is survival. it's not like i just did music to do music. coming from haiti, drums plays a very important -- i would just sit outside and just beat the drum, all day long, just beating drum. so for me music is like -- always has been survival for me, you know what i mean? it's part of my life. >> are you surprised at where you have gone in terms of, not the popularity, but the want for so many people to have wycliff connected with them musically? there are a certain number of producers who have their time, and it's their time. though yours is extended, you're having yours. is that a surprise to you? and i suspect you don't take that for granted? >> i don't take it for granted. actually my time actually just

started, you know what i'm saying? it's like, i'm from haiti, baby, this is the marathon. even when i slow down, baby, i'm just pacing myself. for me the thing about it is, the music will constantly change. the pulse is always in the youth. like, you can't fight the youth. the pulse is in the youth. so you have producers and you have artists that believes it's all about them. once you really think it's all about you, your time is done. you don't know that yet because you're still living in the hype. once your time is finished, it's finished. for me, my music and what i've done has never been about me. i would say one of my reinventions to the young generation -- that's like 16, 15 years old -- is when i'm in, like nebraska and a kid that's 16 and says ♪ if i was president, i'd get elected on friday, assassinated

on saturday ♪ i'm like where the hell did you learn that song? so i was like, okay, what if i listened to a record company at a time that's like, listen, it has to be the radio. jay z is doing this, 50 cent is doing this, follow this. the kid would have never had the record. that's the part i don't take for granted. of i always study the young generation. i always want to know what the culture is, what are they learning? as a teacher, i have to be able to spit it back to them in a way where you're not preaching. you know what i'm saying? >> i want to go back to what you've done in your homeland. i have traveled to haiti a couple times, doing the queue with cedris and aristeed's return. >> you've been in it. you can talk to me then. >> i want to get a sense of where you want all of your

efforts to culminate. what do you want it to be at the end of the day? >> i think that that question can't be answered in, like, two parts. one of the parts is economically this country needs job creation. we have to find a way to bring back job creation to port-au-prince. you take a situation where there's over 700,000 people in one area, now job creation is a problem. the reason job creation is a problem is because you never had a stable government. why would a business group come in and say, okay, man, well, we'll spend $100 million in port-au-prince, we believe this place is the future. the thing about it is unless come up with job creation, you're always going to have the same problem in haiti which falls on the second aspect. in the second aspect of job

creation is charity and business development. when we say charity, we don't mean like bringing us food this thing. we're saying charity in the sense of using the charity as micro management, where you're actually giving people jobs, where they're not getting it for free, but at the same time you're actually developing a country. >> let me take you, as we wrap up, back to music and ask you -- i asked you what you wanted to do on the building side, the philanthropic side. what do you want to do musically when you look back, what do you want wycliff's career to have said musically? >> i want my music to unite the globe. when you look at wycliff music, it has to be known as unity music. like, yo, this kid brought brooklyn to brazil and back to

jersey. if it wasn't for this kid, this part of the world wouldn't know this side of the world. jazz would have never been around the world if the guys that started jazz never thought like that. i want to leave a legacy of culture, you know, musically. >> you're on the road to that. always good to see you brother. >> you, too. yes, sir. wycliff's latest project is due out sometime in 2010. feel like the dating pool is getting smaller? up next in our roundtable discussion, we'll talk about the rise of internet dating. back in a moment. >> we're not settling these days. so it's not just about us looking for men. it's about us lookg of person t to date, whether we choose to make you a friend or a partner. but this malibu is a best buy. i heard that from consumers digest. it offers better highway mileage than a comparable camry or accord. estimated 33 highway. i saw that on the epa site. so how come the malibu costs so little.

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welcome back everyone. in the age of technology and busy schedules, online dating is not so tabu anymore. should you be more comfortable looking for your next date online. we've discussed le dawnblack, host of the radio program "the love zone." ron worthy, vice president of production and business services for people media which runs blackpeoplemeet.com. and zena phillips, formerly was an online dater.

welcome. greatly appreciate it. let me pick on you first, they told me it's former. you don't do it any longer. is that because you found the love of your life online or it was just not for you? >> i think it -- i didn't find the love of my life. the person i met was not online. i think it changed my purpose, the things that i want ed to do kind of changed, my priorities. at the time i was working a lot. the online dating was very effective, very helpful. >> how much hesitation did you have before you put up a profile and jumped on the water? >> i started more from curios y curiosity. i heard from people who had met people. after four months they were engaged and the relationship seemed really healthy. >> ron, talk to me about the increase in traffic you've seen over the years and the feedback you can give us in terms of pure da

data. >> absolutely. i think online dating has been around for a while. it's a hold-over in the old days, classifies with what may have had a lot of negative baggage. with the advent of internet, in the early days it was more mainstream focus. now the biggest growth area is in the targeted niche base. people are looking for a safe, effective environment where they can find people also looking for people like themselves. >> what does your company do to safeguard some of that? the profile, you put up a picture and meet him or her. that may or may not look like that picture. i tell you i make $250,000, and oops, zero in the wrong place, $25,000. how much can you safeguard what's online? >> the everyality is we provide a myriad of options on the back and the front end for the user to make sure they have the safest experience possible. just like anything else, it's buyer beware. you have to go out and exercise caution. you have to make sure you meet in a coffee house for an initial date, make sure you let people

know, just like you would if you met someone in the supermarket and you just happened to meet them and didn't have information about them. we have a full staff that makes sure that we monitor all the communications and makes sure that, if people have any complaints about a particular user, that we address that immediately. we certainly address that. >> le dawn, you've written books and blogs about relationships. you host a popular radio program in the baltimore area. talk to me about this whole idea of internet dating. there is a generation, mine, gray-haired folk who looked at this for a long time and said, you know, that's for weirdoes. you don't go that route. talk to me about what your listeners and read readers have been talking about. >> my listener base is 25 to 54. i have people who say no, i'll never do it. i have people who say this is something i'll do every day. i think it's changed because people are tired of clubs.

they're tired for the random person to meet them at the grocery store. they really want to take charge of their dating. online dating sites allow you to do that. you can say i want this certain height, certain income level, certain intellectual level. you can really drill it down and get that ideal person for you. >> now, do you find that there is this want, particularly for women -- we're not as discriminating as we go out there in the market. but for women there is this sense -- you always hear the complaint, i can't fine, i can't find, i can't find a good black man, blah, blah, blah, that they see this as a wider net cass casting? >> absolutely. going out to dinner, expensive dates in this economy. you become a paid subscriber, you instantly have access to thousands of people right away. i think the thing the internet does for you and online dating specifically, within the inbox, you can continue to have conversations online with them

until they go over a threshold that you realize, hey, maybe i want to meet this person in person and we have enough tools either through our chart or through actual messaging, where you can actually get to that before you see them in person. >> le dawn, what about the idea, i don't care what anybody says, there are stigmas for women that men don't have. so it seems to me because you have this wider net, you could conceivably go out with a lot more people through internet dating than going to a club. how much of a stigma can that be for women if, you know, when you get home, you've got 25, 30 men who are in your in box and you're like, well, i like 10 of these 20 and there is that sense of, come on now. >> i understand what you're saying. women, we do have that perception thing that we have to deal with, seeing a lot of men and what that really says about us. but you have to see online dating as dating. i think a lot of times we've

forgotten about what dating truly is. that is trying a lot of people out. it doesn't mean that you're sleeping with everyone that you try out. it means we're having conversations, going out for that coffee, getting to know people and we're drilling it down. if i come home at the end of the day and there are 25 messages in my inbox, yea, this is a good day. let's have conversations, that 25 will drop to 10. then it will drop to five and then maybe to two. i it's about playing the numbers game. i think it's important for women to get into the game. >> i know we're talking about facts and fiction of online dating. i had a blast. the internet is a world of resources. you have facebooks and all these different places you can go to meet people socially and networking. this does not just apply to women. it applies to men. there is a stigma associated with men who are going into their 40s and are not married and don't have children. and because women have a broader option, career-wise, money-wise,

we're not settling these days. it's not just about us looking for men. it's about us looking for the quality of person that we want to date, whether we choose to make you a friend or a partner. >> guys, thanks so much. we appreciate it. take a break here. up next, she says knowing your body can save your life. we'll see how this woman saved her own in this week's "slice of life." >> i'm able to show them in living color and proof, denenene is standing here alive and well over 20 years. ♪ so i change up my venue what can i get into? ♪ ♪ mcdonald's got a new do♪ ♪ skipping breakfast is not my m.o. ♪ ♪ when i could eat a sausage burrito ♪ ♪ biscuit, mcmuffin or get down with a coffee or hash brown ♪ ♪ow i rise on the double ♪ 'cause nobody does breakfast like mcdonald's ♪ make your mornings sing... with the new dollar menu at breakfast. ♪ ba da ba ba ba

♪ take out the rubbish ♪ scrub down the floor ♪ my achin' joints don't jump no more ♪ [ boi-oi-oing ] [ creak ] [ creak ] [ boi-oi-oing ] ♪ stumble up the stairway [ ringing ] ♪ shuffle down the hall ♪ these aching joints are sore ♪ ♪ ow! [ knees knocking ] [ boi-oi-oing ]

[ crack ] ♪ my joints don't jump no more ♪ ♪ my joints don't jump no more ♪ [ bang ] [ throbbing ] a message from the american academy of orthopaedic surgeons. visit orthoinfo.org. ♪ the joints ain't sore no more ♪ i still got it.

i trust unisom. i fall asleep fast and have a full night of restful sleep. morning class. unisom. good night. good morning. october is breast cancer awareness month. today we bring you a story that focuses on the importance of knowing your body. the denise roberts foundation is a community of minority women and men fighting breast cancer through education and early detection. diagnosed at the age of 34, denise focuses on those under the age of 40 who do not have the proper insurance, but it's also sharing her personal struggle that has truly allowed her to help others: two years ago during a self breast examination, darlene smith found

a lump. >> when you first get diagnosed and that information is given to you, you are in, i call it, a fog. >> like other women in the community, darlene called on denise. >> until you talk to another woman that has gone through what you're going through and have been there, the most comfort you can get out of anything that happens to you other than standing on your faith. >> denise roberts is a two-time cancer survivor, first diagnosed at the age of 34 with breast cancer which she thought was her hardest test. but 11 years later, her reality was rocked again by a diagnosis of uterine cancer. >> it was detected early, as the breast cancer. but both of them were the same. same meaning that they were not regular symptoms, so i had to know my body.

i had to know that something was wrong. >> after staring cancer in the face twice, denise decided it was time to help other black women and men. she founded the denise roberts breast cancer foundation in the greater los angeles area. >> so you go back to that dark place of fear, even though you have the support. that is why this foundation is so hard but yet is so needed. >> since 1999, the foundation has been providing free counseling and breast screenings for thousands of uninsured minority women under 40 years old. this demographic is particularly denise's focus, because waterily detection she would not be here. >> women are working in jobs as hair stylists, their own businesses, and they have no insurance. so, therefore, finances becomes the reason for them dying. >> her daughter, heaven roberts, has also seen firsthand how the

organization can impact lives. >> i stand behind her because she is literally the strength and the backbone of this foundation. it's important for me to be involved as a young person because there is no age to breast cancer, as we know now. >> i'm able to show them in living color, in proof, denise is standing here alive and well over 20 years. so that goes into helping me continue this fight for the cure. >> we'll be back right after this.

it's our connection to our community it's our lifeline to the emergency information we need it's a free service that provides free entertainment. but one day soon, it could be taken away. there's a movement among special interest groups to limit free antenna tv and millions of americans who depend on it would lose out. let's tell congress to keep free antenna tv as part of our communications future. always free and always local.

that does it for this edition of "our world with black enterprise." thanks for joining us. until next time, i'm ed gordon. thanks for making "our world" your world. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com for hours. new capzasin, takes the pain out of arthritis. body rested. stress gone. mind sharp. because unisom gave you deepestful sleep all night. morng early birds. unisom. good night. good morning.