Saturday 27th Feb 1993 was the happiest day of my life. I had forced my dad to buy me a copy of the greatest music video the world had ever seen. I was 9 years old and I was in awe.
Michael Jackson was my idol as he was to millions of fans across the world and my childhood was defined by two things – football and Michael Jackson.
I remember that Saturday like it was yesterday. I had pestered my dad for weeks to buy me the
Thriller video. I was too young to see it during its peak – having being recorded a year before I was born and the video doing the rounds when I was merely vomiting over my mum’s shoulder as a baby. But I grew up with the Jackson phenomenon firmly entrenched in my mind. I am looking at my Thriller video now, still one of my most prized possessions. A rather battered case and darkened image but it holds a lot of memories. It cost £9.49 (a lot of
paise my gran would have said) and the price tag my mum left on the inside cover knowing I would look back in years to come and remember the time. Today I reminded her.
Other MJ films had the same effect as I teetered on the edge of pre-pubescent existence. When it comes to embarrassing moments in life, I have had my fair share of them but one that I don’t deem embarrassing is my love and adoration for the man known as the King of Pop. My appearance on the local Asian radio station during one school summer holiday serves as a reminder to me of how big an influence Michael Jackson really was to me – and for many others.
“So what have you been doing in the holidays? Playing football? Building a tree house? Having lots of fun?” the radio host asked in a light Indian twang.
“I’ve been wochin Moonwalker evriday” I exclaim excitedly in the way only we know in the Black Country.
“Oh really, how many times have you seen it?” “I’ve seen it baat 80 times now, it’s brilliant, ah love it. I gorrit at ‘ome on video”.
I plucked the number 80 from thin-air and truthfully it was probably a lot more times than that...My Moonwalker viewing rituals included recording the montage of early Jackson songs onto cassette whilst simultaneously hosting my
‘Michael Jackson’s Disco’ show as ‘Music and Me’, ‘The Love You Save’, ‘Whose Lovin You’, ‘Dancing Machine’, ‘Blame It On the Boogie’ and countless others ran in sequence. If the music that defined me was Michael Jackson, my devotion to the king of pop manifested itself in the form of Moonwalker in the visual arts. I didn’t watch anything but Moonwalker and follow Manchester United religiously on Match of the Day as a child. I absolutely adored that film (and maybe even more than Thriller). Sci-fi effects, sports cars, robots, space ships, gangsters, guns splattered with music videos and of course Smooth Criminal (I still cannot get over that lean!). It was ground breakingly original even though I accept now that it did ‘not make for a structured or professional movie’ as Variety pointed out in 1988. I was 8 years old at the time of watching it… come on.
Some of my ‘radio shows’ also consisted of bitter rants as I recorded speeches of the injustices of life – the one and only injustice being that my cousin had seen Michael Jackson in person having fun in Disney Land whilst on holiday there. It was enough to make me hate the world for a week or so…
“Why can they meet im and not may [me]? That’s all I wont. I wanna meet im but I car [can’t]”, cringeworthy indeed but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Those that know me well will know how passionate I was.
My recordings of life’s injustices were balanced with optimistic, heart felt personal mission statements about what I wanted to achieve in life most of which were to meet Michael Jackson. And a second opinion was always welcome with a little coaxing (forcing) of my brother to say his piece too – I recall whispering words to my brother to say aloud on my “tribute” tape of his
“ambulition” (translated "ambition" – a regrettable miscommunication on my part) to see Michael Jackson in person one day as well utilising his services as a back up singer on my ‘disco’ shows. Good times.
The three albums that influenced me most throughout my childhood was MJ’s
Thriller, Bad and
Dangerous. In the late 80’s / early 90's when I began to develop a sense of self whilst barely growing out of my nappies and still peeing the bed, I developed a keen interest in music and Michael Jackson was the indisputable driving influence on me. My first childhood memories irrevocably centre around MJ, my mum dressing me in the same clothes as my brother who was five years my junior and my cassette player which was the holy grail from which I spread the love (mainly out of my front window while I peered from a corner to see who would notice the heavenly melodies of Beat It, Smooth Criminal, Liberian Girl or PYT as they walked past). I am proud to be a child of 90’s – East 17 and Take That were good but MJ was great.
Michael Jackson was a genius. A man whose mystery and controversy nearly became as famous as the music. He was an enigma who transcended boundaries.
For a 9 year old Sikh lad from a conservative second generation Indian family living in the heart of Britain’s Black Country, with a top-knot and Sikh lifestyle, MJ was not out of place in my household.
It wasn’t like idolising the other greats. If you liked Bob Marley you were seen as a ganja smoking, gun toting rasta. If you liked the Beatles you were probably a pill-popping hippy who believed in free love and peace. If you liked Elvis you were probably – well, a big girl. Anyway, Elvis, the Beatles and Marley were before my time. But everyone loved Jackson – young white kids, black kids, brown kids – it just didn’t matter. Michael Jackson was uniting people before anyone. The Reverend Al Sharpton put it so eloquently the day Jackson died –
“Michael made culture accept a person of colour, way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama. Michael did with music what they let it do in sports, and in politics and in television. He used his strength to help people around the world”. Songs of identity made me question who I was:
‘I’m not gona spend my life being a colour’ (Black or White). What did it mean to be a colour? Why were people of different backgrounds, ethnicities and religions? Why was Jackson becoming whiter and whiter and was he proud of his own race? As Michael changed colour, did he appeal to more people? Did he really break the trans-culture trans-racial barrier and allow everyone to embrace him? I think so… even if he didn’t like himself or how he looked, his metamorphosis from black to white and then back to black (he was proclaimed to be a ‘black’ artist after his death) meant that he touched everyone. More importantly, his music did the talking. Colour shouldn’t be an issue anymore and much credit to Jackson for helping to mould this view.
Words from various Jackson tracks from hits across the board resonated with me and looking back those messages were real and true –
'Life aint so bad at all if you live it off the wall' (Off the Wall). Of remaining focused on your goals and dreams:
'Aint no mountain that I can’t climb baby, all is going my way' (Leave Me Alone);
‘I’m taking no shit though you really wanna fix me’ (This Time Around which featured another great – The Notorious B.I.G);
‘Don’t let no-one get you down, keep moving on higher ground' (HIStory). Of appreciating your fortune and what you have and to help the needy (an important facet of Sikhism):
'You got world hunger, not enough to eat, so there's really no time to be trippin' on me' (Why You Wanna Trip On Me). I could go on…
Michael Jackson was a flawed individual. I switched off somewhat to the media circus that surrounded him during the abuse trials. He was raped by the media – the same media tosspots that now revere him as the greatest musical legend the world has ever seen. The critics now understand his impact or at least now embrace the positivity he brought to the world through his music. He now tops the charts, breaks records posthumously and develops a new fan base – those that open their ears in the wake of his death. But the real fans mourn, knowing that no more MJ magic will be upon us and he leaves us amazed just as he did during his peak. Two weeks before his comeback tour, the world is stunned by his sudden departure. I for one am saddened that I didn’t get to see my childhood hero in person in London; an event that I looked forward to with tremendous excitement. We all know where we were and what we were doing the day the King of Pop was no more. The closest I got to MJ was a Jackson waxwork (a rather bad one) me and my brother posed with in the 90’s in Blackpool… a small (minuscule) consolation.
On this day, I write this post as Michael Jackson is laid to rest on 7th July 2009. Having just watched his memorial on TV like the millions if not the anticipated one billion viewers around the world I am reminded of why he was and will remain a legend, a great philanthropist and peaceful humanitarian. I’m sure my memories are like many other people’s and that is why we all connected with him and his music. These are just some of my memories at a time when he influenced me the most and I smile (and cringe) in equal measures.
Al Sharpton fittingly proclaimed at the memorial today that Michael
out-sang his cynics, he out-danced the dancers and he out-performed the pessimists. The greatest entertainer of all time is no more and my fond memories keep him alive for me. What are yours?
R.I.P Michael Jackson
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