Posts tagged sci-fi generation

When I heard the news about Michael’s passing, I was, of course, outside a movie theater. I’d just hung up the phone with one of my writers in LA, and then my wife let me know. Then my mom called. It was the 25th anniversary of “Purple Rain”, and I joked about how this rivalry had been taken to new heights. But then it hit me. This was a guy who influenced more pop culture than anybody I could think of. Some of my heroes in music had been these guys who appeared to be larger than life, but none of them did the show all day. There was a marked “other side” that was either dark or “mild mannered”. Michael Jackson was Michael Jackson at all times.

One of my first clients when I launched my marketing firm was MJJ Records through Sony. There’s a long and storied connection between Sony and I, which I don’t know if I’ll ever get into because I’m not really sure how it started. But having MJJ as a client was great. i learned a lot through that experience, and the lessons I learned from that experience I still keep with me today. Michael wasn’t often involved in the operation of the label, and I doubt he even knew we’d been contracted. But there was a pride in the artists who were signed there. Tatyana Ali was already a big star because of her being on “Fresh Prince of Bel Air”, but she had a certain royalty to her when she did our in-store with Kenneth Cole in Boston.

As time went on, I learned a lot about Michael. I learned that his appearance, which in the community was originally described as self hatred, was actually performance art. Michael was saying that he was not (just) Joseph Jackson’s son, but that he was his own man. He was VERY aware of his Blackness, and hired more people of color around him than a lot of stars at his level.

Michael was also a pretty decent illustrator, a fact that is often forgotten, unless you have the record version of “Thriller”, where his drawings of he and Paul McCartney are in the inside sleeve.

And then there was his main art — the music, and the visual impact of that music. And I think that it’s here that Michael becomes an asset and ally to the sci-fi generation. Michael turned an industry that had become entirely too transparent and put magic back into it. I mean, he really was one of the only artists who would shut 550 Madison (Sony Music’s HQ in New York) down when he came for a meeting. He did music that nobody else was doing. Rarely following trends. Who else could get hits out of Teddy Riley in the late 90s? Even his visuals were original. He worked like a true artist — insulated from the BS until he needed inspiration.

And then, the movies. I’ve seen a lot of talk this past week about his presence in “The Wiz”, but close to nothing about “Captain Eo”. Now, to be real, “Eo” was a horrible script. And an awkward film. But it was in 3D in the 80s – at Disney. Here was this Black dude from Gary, Indiana in a 3-d sci-fi musical – at Disney. This was massive, and any crossover success any of us will have in the genre can, and should, be traced back to Eo.

Michael Jackson was quite possibly a glimpse into humanity’s future, a future where race, and individual self expression, is redefined somehow.

I’ve seen him in concert, but I’d never met him personally. I have met his personal assistant, Grace, which, is its own show. She’s really an awesome person and I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned into a serious force to be reckoned with in entertainment. There’s nothing in the world that Grace can’t get or do.

Everyone who has been remotely associated with Michael has had their life changed in one way or another. What peopel have chosen to do with that change — well, that’s up to them. But for many of us – we won’t stop ’til we get enough.