What he meant to me*

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Naturally the news of his death was a shock. The last time I checked, he was a Jehovah’s Witness and was supposed to live forever ’cause he was vegetarian, sleeping in an oxygen tent and wearing that face mask to keep germs away from his system! But all that hype just shows why you should believe at most 30% of a ‘news’ story or celeb gossip. 

I’ve been listening to radio coverage of his death and legacy. All’s I got to say is that a large number of people (read radio personalities) should just shut up if they have no idea what they’re talking about. Better for us to assume you’re an idiot than for you to confirm it by talking a whole lot of smack. Ok, to be fair, I’ve been listening to just one station which today had a ‘music afficionado’ on to comment on MJ’s legacy. The guy in question, a Randall Abrahams, said that kina Ray Charles and James Brown did more for music than Michael did. And that in another 20-30 years this will be clear. Something about true legends/icons changing our sense of style, and changing our lives, and according to him Michael didn’t do that. Ok, I won’t attack Randall, ’cause what do I want from him? He grew up in segregated South Africa and that has CLEARLY informed his world view.

Or maybe only black people really ‘get’ MJ’s impact on the world and others don’t? There has never been an untruer statement. On that same radio station there were people from all races, who’d grown up in the same segregated South Africa, who got what Michael was about. 

But wait, I’m here to talk about what Michael meant to my life. When I play his earlier music, when he was with Jackson 5, I can literally smell what was cooking, and feel the air temperature and the taste of sunlight on my skin on the day that song got etched into my memory. Blame it on the Boogie has me, to this moment, moving and singing along as soon as I hear it. When I listen to ‘Off the Wall’ I remember early teenage crushes, and my introduction to poached eggs, and riding bicycles for what seemed a long distance to get to friends’ houses or to the shops.

Thriller reminds me of the Chelly Chellys (for the uninitiated, Seychellois) who ran a video store, and how I smiled and flirted with them (no pain experienced there ) to pleeease hold a copy for me as soon as it came in. Then a group of us crowded around the television paying rapt attention to the Thriller video and enjoying the dance moves. Naturally the zombies crept us out, but Michael, even as a zombie was gorgeous and light on his feet. I would point to the Thriller video as the precise point when I recognized (in retrospect) the power of American cultural hegemony. Anything American I’d watched before Thriller had not had the impact on me that that video had. It made me long to be part of that culture. And that was Michael’s impact on the world. His work reached into all the nooks and crannies of this planet and did more for America than any amount of rhetoric about democracy and land of the brave and free could ever have done. He built that door to the world, and made it possible for rap music and culture to ‘bust thru it’ and influence all ‘hip and young’ people in the world today. Michael did that. Do you ever wonder why Bollywood or Nollywood movies merely entertain and teach,  but do not elicit the same aspirational experience from you that a Hollywood movie does? (or am I the lone mind-colonized individual who thinks this?) I think Michael mastered the art of both teaching while entertaining and creating aspiration in his fans.

By the time I got to college, Michael now looked very light skinned, but was still good looking (though lacking in whip appeal), healthy and energetic. Of course many discussions were had about how he was selling out, about his rejection of blackness by bleaching his skin meant that black people should also reject him because he was rejecting us, etc. etc. Of course it was all about black folk and not about what he, Michael, felt or thought. But I still loved him. -ish. His ability to thrill and to bring joy with his beats and moves.

Then he did ‘Remember the time‘. I sat in a common room with friends, anxiously awaiting the world premier of the video, with all of us wanting to see if Michael’s ancient Egypt would be black or white. As the video started we were all tense, watching for the first infraction so that we could cut ties with him forever. After the first two minutes we relaxed (and why wouldn’t we with Iman, Eddie and Magic featuring prominently?), and by minute 6:15, when that stunningly choreographed dance sequence started, we were all flowing to the music. That was where I made up with Michael, in that incredible video. Anything he did after that was already forgiven because though he appeared to have rejected black folk by bleaching his skin, he still knew (acknowledged and promoted) where he’d come from. He was post-race a long time ago, his music said it, didn’t you feel it?  But because many of us were trapped in our mental cages, we saw it as a rejection of black people instead of interrogating the possibility of a post-race state of being.

[<begin digression> Sometimes I think we just cling to the history of victimization as a way to honor or acknowledge our ancestors, instead of moving beyond the victim posturing. Maybe we fear we'll incur ancestral wrath if we simply say "yes they suffered, however, we need to move on and not dwell upon it"? Then again, you're trying to tell me it can get worse than this? Sitting in the victim cage and refusing to leave it when the gate's been wide open for years, with the jailers having long moved on to other quests? A post for another day, no doubt.<end of digression>]

Any subsequent stories about ‘Wacko Jacko’ – and I am so offended that SA newspapers persist in using that ‘Jacko’ moniker even now in their headlines. I can only hope that a pox will attack whoever made the decision to dishonor Michael thus – were met (by me) with total disinterest. So Michael was weird. Big deal. You would be too if you’d been through what he’d been through (anyone heard Kanye rap that part in ‘Knock you down’ where he says “this is bad, real bad, Michael Jackson… now I’m mad, real mad, Joe Jackson”? Michael’s childhood’s in rap’s lexicon as shorthand for violence, right up there with Ike-n-Tina and Rodney King). The child molestation accusations were difficult. Extremely disturbing, and I found it interesting that no one ever asked those parents why they were retarded enough to leave their children with a man who got more disturbed by the year. No, not blaming the victims (or the boogie), but blaming their ‘genius’ guardians/parents.

Not a single one of these accusations at any time then or even now – as all the pitiful details of his life emerge – diminishes his brilliance and impact on music and on lives across the world. Ever. Folk clearly need to take more lessons in how to separate the artist and his/her influence, from the flawed  individual, and to quit throwing the baby out with the bath water. 

Hopefully Randall Abrahams and his ilk will pay close attention and learn about Michael’s legacy from those who know: the Gordys, Jones-es, the Jay-Zs, the Akons. And don’t let’s forget about the Japanese and the Filipino (prisoners), or the millions of individuals who continue to honor his memory.  

Psssht… didn’t change our lives or the world indeed!

 

[The short answer to the title is: a soundtrack to memories, and an exemplar of a consummate entertainer who had impact. O' to emulate even a fraction of that talent and work ethic]

 

*Yes, of course I’ve fallen on the sword of elevating a mortal to a deity now that he’s past tense. If I didn’t do it, wouldn’t that particular sword then be rendered obsolete?