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Wyclef Jean addressed accusations against his Yéle Haiti organization for the second time in as many days, delivering prepared remarks to a roomful of reporters at Manhattan’s Sheraton Hotel this afternoon.

The former Fugee has battled allegations that his foundation played loose with its bookkeeping by directing monies toward Wyclef’s pockets instead of charitable efforts. The charges arise as the Haitian-born musician has mounted relief efforts in the wake of last week’s devastating earthquake that struck the tiny country. Yéle Haiti has raised over $2 million, according to reports, but the goodwill was brought to an abrupt stop when TheSmokingGun.com unearthed documents claiming that the 12-year-old incorporated company only recently filed tax returns, for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Wclef emphatically denied any malicious wrongdoing, stating he had not profited as a result of his efforts. “Did we make mistakes, yes,” Clef said, after the president of Yéle Haiti briefed the audience first citing that the group was founded in 2005, not earlier as reported. “Did I ever use any of Yéle’s money for personal benefit, no. Yéle’s books are open and transparent, and we have been a clean bill of health by an external auditor every year since we started.”

The Carnival star explained that he started Yéle Haiti out of his own pocket. But since the group began they have had a notable impact in Haiti, with an emphasis on arts, education, sports and the environment. Yéle Haiti’s president Huge Locke, told the gathered group, which included Russell Simmons and Andre Harrell, that the charitable endeavor has helped to assist over 27,000 students with scholarships and tuition aid.

Over the weekend, Wyclef first took to YouTube to address the Smoking Gun’s allegations. “After digging kids up and putting them, finding cemeteries for them and the mud being over flooded, this is what I come back to,” he said. “An attack on my integrity and my foundation.”

Wyclef entered the press conference — held on the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday — sporting a dark suit, blue dress shirt and striped tie. The toll of spending three days in Haiti seemed to be catching up to him. At one point he spoke directly to the cameras as he delivered remarks to Haiti in the country’s native tongue. Tears streamed down both sides of Wyclef’s cheeks as he spoke and a weariness set in around his darkened, red eyes. A loose translation of his speech relayed throughout the room explained his tears were not for him, but rather for the people of his country. Earlier Wyclef flashed his permanent green card and Haitian passport to illustrate how connected he still is to his country of birth.

After Wyclef’s remarks, he left and Locke took questions from the press, tackling inquiries about the Smoking Gun’s report head on, specifically the payouts from Yele Haiti to Wyclef’s for-profit companies, a recording studio in New York ($100,000) and a production company in Haiti ($250,000). (Currently, Locke said, the foundation has not spent any of the recently donated funds as they’ve been overwhelmed by the volume of the contributions.)

Wyclef is scheduled to participate in a televised telethon this Friday with George Clooney and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. After the event, he said, he plans to return back to Haiti on Saturday. He, along with his wife and his cousin Jerry “Wonder” Duplessis almost immediately ventured to Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. He called on the next phase of aid to the country to come in the form of providing security and safety as riots have begun to break out.

“When I was in Haiti I was working with the Yéle team on the ground to greatly expand our numbers so that we will be able to provide security for relief trucks after they leave the airport compound and are going to vary distribution sites or warehouse facilities,” he said.

Photo: Kambouris/WireImage

If it seems like Dr. Dre has spent more time promoting his signature Beats By Dre headphones than finishing up his long-awaited Detox, he has a good reason for it: according to the legendary West Coast producer and his label boss, Interscope, Geffen and A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine, they’re hard at work on a noble crusade — saving the music industry from digital sound.

“There’s two things happening at once, it’s very important that we fix digital sound,” Iovine tells Rolling Stone of the state of the record biz. “Digital sound is damaging music, it’s damaging the artists. It’s so degrading. We’re the first industry to ever downgrade the quality of our product. It’s crazy. You go from a master [recording] to a CD quality, which is somewhat downgrading in the first place. Then you go to a computer where these gigantic companies spend 50 cents on the sound [for each unit]. Then you rip it onto an MP3. It’s like taking the Beatles remasters and playing them through a portable television.”

The Death of High Fidelity: read more about the sound wars.

Sitting in a small make-shift greenroom inside a New York City retail space last week, Dre and Iovine chatted about the launch of Club Beats, an in-store technology hub created in partnership between Beats By Dre, Monster and Best Buy. Ever since the early 2000s, physical album sales have been on the decline. And digital sales haven’t exactly made the pie whole again for labels when it comes to the revenue that was once generated from selling CDs. So in the “360″ era, where music moguls are looking to partner with artists on a variety of things, from publishing to touring to merchandise, you can see why Iovine is eager to push Dr. Dre-endorsed headphones and laptops.

If technology companies aren’t going to invest much into developing better speakers for the computers they sell, who better to get into that market then music-industry execs? Iovine cites Robert Stigwood’s RSO Records as an example of a record label that operated more like a “music company,” where investments and operations ranged beyond releasing music and included everything from management deals to backing Broadway plays.

“It’s called a record company, but what it really is [though] is a music company,” Iovine explains. “And it should do whatever the people at that music company feels is the direction that they should go in. Where they feel emotion, where they feel passion. A music company should do whatever the person feels, that’s why the more entrepreneurial people that get into music and start pushing the boundaries of it, is what a music company should feel like.

“The health [of the overall industry] will automatically come,” he adds, as a result.

So far Beats By Dre seems like a stunning success story. (Although company sales numbers are not available.) In addition to the signature headphones (cross marketed in a number of music videos by Interscope artists), a laptop partnership with HP has been birthed and the Beats By Dre banner also has released a line of earbuds endorsed by Lady Gaga.

Next up, Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am will develop a DJ-based item through Beats By Dre, according to Iovine. Diddy and David Guetta are expected to get on board, too, with projects that will undoubtedly be showcased prominently at Club Beats.

To understand how important these ventures are now in an era where Jay-Z, Madonna, and Shakira are signing multimillion-dollar deals with a touring company and forgoing the record company route, just listen to the joke Iovine cracked during the preceding press conference, to little laughter.

“For those who are fans of Dr. Dre, these headphones weren’t coming out until they sounded perfect,” he tells the crowd. “Or else we would have had Detox five years ago.”

Dre, a notorious perfectionist, at this point in his career now has something new to be transfixed on in the studio besides mixing
records. “I just want people to hear the music the way it’s suppose to sound, the way we meant for them to hear it, ” he said of the audio equipment. “You sit in the studio all this time and make the music, tweak it, try to get it perfect. They should be able to hear it that way.”

Related Stories:

• The Death of High Fidelity
• Lady Gaga Unleashes “Monster” With Dr. Dre: Headphones First, Song Next? Singer on New Tracks
• Gadget Envy: Monster “Beats By Dr. Dre” Studio Headphones

More than any rapper and more than most pop stars, Jay-Z knows the significance of a moment.

The Brooklyn MC’s career is practically defined by them. There’s his Summer Jam obliteration of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy back in 2001, the same year he brought out Michael Jackson for Hot 97’s annual concert. There was his retirement show at Madison Square Garden captured in the documentary Fade to Black. And then there was his Radio City Music Hall show to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Reasonable Doubt. And who could forget the Best of Both Worlds fiasco with R. Kelly that turned into the celebrated Jay-Z and Friends jaunt. He’s even transformed festivals into his personal showcases, with his appearance at Glastonbury last year and All Points West this year.

But when Hov announced he’d be headlining a September 11th benefit show, to not only coincide with the anniversary of his classic album The Blueprint but also to mark the release of his latest effort, The Blueprint 3, one had to wonder if this ambitious slate reeked of opportunism.

It did not.

Last night at the Garden, Jay-Z delivered a carefully orchestrated and riveting show striking the the impossibly difficult balance of serving the cause and seizing another night that will stand out in his long list of historic performances.

“We celebrating life tonight, we having a good time,” Jay-Z told the sold-out audience, which included Diddy, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry and Chris Rock, among other celebrities. “But let’s not forget in 2001 when the first Blueprint came out terrorist attacked New York. They thought they would weaken us. They were sadly mistaken. We stand here even stronger. This is our town. We run New York City. We run this town.”

And with that, the blaring Rihanna’s wailing voice boomed over the sound system. The “Umbrella” star then appeared under the spotlight decked out in a dominatrix-like black outfit. “We are, yeah I said it, We are, This is Roc Nation, pledge your allegiance,” Jay-Z rapped.

Kanye West joined the pair toward the end of the song, completing the triumvirate as he jumped from the stairs on the middle of the stage. ‘Ye stuck around for a few more songs, diving into “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” before asking Big Brother if he can keep going.

“Let’s do it,” Jay replied.

“Good Life” then came on, sans T-Pain, and an animated West — complete with a new ‘do, with zig-zag lines cut into his hair — fumbled a few of his lines but saved himself with an impromptu freestyle. “I fucked up the flow, but everybody know, I gotta give a shout out to my big bro,” he spit, drawing a smile from Jay.

The parade of guest appearances continued with Pharell Williams, Swizz Beatz and Mary J. Blige joining Jay-Z. John Mayer also popped up to play guitar for Jay-Z on “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).”

Throughout the set, Jay-Z dipped into catalog but also performed new songs from his recently released BP3. Upstart Kid Cudi arrived onstage to assist Hov on “Already Home,” where the legendary rapper eviscerates mouthy MCs who say Jay-Z’s tenure on top is in the way of their rise to fame.

“These niggas want me to go, don’t they know that I’m gone/ They know that I’m space shuttle level, they need oxyggggon/Don’t they know that I yawn/ Only time they exciting is when they mentioning Shawn,” he rapped.

The Timbaland-produced “Venus vs. Mars” was another new tracked Jay-Z performed. He closed the song out with a new freestyled verse at the end where he name-checked Kanye’s lady friend Amber Rose and financial villain Bernie Madoff. Seconds after he finished, Beyoncé, featured on the song’s chorus, emerged from the bowels of the Garden rising up through a trap door to perform “Diva.”

The star wattage was bright but the greatest applause of the night came in honor of the service men and women who protect our country on this tragic date eight years ago.

As “Young Forever” spilled out over the arena speakers, a beautiful montage of firefighters and police officers who lost their lives on 9/11 eight years ago appeared behind Jay-Z on a huge screen. “Make some noise for those that lost their lives so we could live ours,” Jay-Z said.