Gitau Warigi
4 July 2009
opinion
Nairobi — It is impossible to talk of the Michael Jackson phenomenon without starting from Motown. This was the Detroit-based music label - indeed a hit-making machine - that first got the Jackson Five going.
Motown was founded by a brilliant impresario called Berry Gordy who, in African-American memory, remains a legend. Many people still retain indelible memories of some of the '60s and '70s products of the Motown machine: Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye.
It is Gordy who brought black music into the mainstream in America or, as they say, made it to "cross over". The Jackson Five and later the solo MJ would have a lot of influence in this "crossing over". Already under Motown's stable was a group, The Supremes, which counted Gordy's biggest star, a soul singer called Diana Ross. She is supposed to have watched MJ and his brothers perform at a talent show and asked Gordy to "check them out," which he did. The rest is history.
Diana Ross was to become MJ's most influential mentor who, he in turn, would later describe, in his strange and weird way, as "my mother-lover-soulmate". His other friendship with actress Elizabeth Taylor, who has been marrying and divorcing at a rate as rapid as MJ was making songs, somewhat reeked of hype. Far from being the sweet little thing he was portrayed to be, MJ could be quite brutal with so-called friends. One such was the Beatle Paul MCartney, who felt betrayed when MJ coldly outbid him for the ownership of the sentimental but valuable Beatles song catalogue. Businesswise, it was a brilliant move.
The politics of music and star-manufacture is largely a business of hype and make-belief, like with Motown cheating about young MJ's age by proclaiming him two years younger in promotional materials so as to have him look "cute". Sadly, MJ never matured beyond this world of make-belief, of a fictional character called Peter Pan who remains a child forever.
The most sympathetic way to handle MJ is to separate the musician from the freak he later became, though this became a tall order for most people as MJ grew weirder. An early song like Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, off the album Off the Wall and later ones like Black Or White and Man in the Mirror were sensations to the '70s generation of teenagers who are now in middle age.
Then, in 1982, came the Thriller album and in it an epic song called Billie Jean. Anybody stating that MJ was not a phenomenal artiste after listening to this song has no idea of music. By then, there was somebody who had entered MJ's musical world who was just as important to the creation of this great album - the producer, Quincy Jones.
Besides the music, MJ's other groundbreaking contribution to contemporary entertainment was in the sublime music video packaging that he pioneered. It has now become the norm with all music stars, from Madonna to the young rap artistes. It needs no repeating that MJ was a spectacular performer, as Barack Obama grudgingly acknowledged. But, to give the real credit where it is due, MJ learnt a lot of his stagecraft from closely studying the original master of the stage - the soul icon James Brown. Their music was quite different, but their performing styles, the footwork, the stage moves, strongly resonated.
Everybody has serious doubts that MJ would have managed the marathon 50 concerts in London he died rehearsing for. There are credible tales that the promoters had already hired MJ look-alikes to step in for him when the going got too tough. As with everything about MJ, nothing can be dismissed as too outlandish.
For me, MJ died somewhere in the early '90s, when the horror tales of bleached skin, nose jobs, artificial chin clefts, oxygen tanks, and so on began to emerge.
I could not believe it when he visited Africa wearing a face mask, maybe to ward off disease. Then followed stranger tales of Bubbles, a chimpanzee pet he talked to and later, the ultimate disgrace - the accusations of child molestation which he implicitly affirmed by paying off one of the accusers.
Artistically, too, he had become diminished, at least to me, for I consider his last truly impressive album to be the one called Bad. The Invincible album was a total flop, though it is quite possible MJ's strange lifestyle was clouding the judgement of his fans and hurting his business.
Which is a pity, for MJ could now and again stand up against the greatest songwriting names in the business, like Stevie Wonder, as he showed in the We are the World anthem he co-wrote with Lionel Ritchie.
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