Stephen Thompson of "The A.V. Club", in a favorable review, called "The Carnival" "a stunning solo album that's light years beyond "The Score"". He also wrote "In his universalist embrace of music of all forms, Wyclef Jean makes a more powerful call for peace and unity than a thousand East Coast–West Coast 'Stop the violence, y'all' intros put together.""The Carnival" was voted the sixteenth best album of the year in "The Village Voice"s annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1997. Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it twentieth on his own list.