Michael Jackson - Who’s Loving You?

Adrienne Maree Brown

Michael Jackson - Who’s Loving You?

While he lived, he was quite possibly the most listened to person alive. The most sampled and copied. The most played. The youngest person to make people move. The person most people tried to move like.

He made us move like zombies, like water, like freedom. He made us trip and fall backwards trying to moonwalk, and trip and fall forward trying to see if the lean in ‘Smooth Criminal’ was possible.

He showed us his mad genius world in videos, songs, movies, tv specials.

He injected sex into our hips. He got us wearing shiny gloves and overwought leather jackets. He taught us to walk with such rhythm that we lit up the sidewalks.

There are sung phrases that are of our collective history and can incite any crowd of several generations into vicious emotion or movement…1, 2, 3; I wanna rock with you; Make that change; Billie Jean is not my lover; the way you make me feel; Sha-mo (or whatever he was saying…); Mama se Mama sa… The opening chords to Thriller and Pretty Young Thing have made us move in ways we didn’t know were possible. His young voice out of nowhere singing, “When….I, had you. I treated you bad, and wrong my dear…”

He broke race barriers in the pop world which opened doors in the political world - he crossed over and back. He morphed.

When the signs started to become clear, that the boy wasn’t right, that he was too isolated, underdeveloped, imperfect - we laughed, we stared, we assumed. He was our first boyfriend before he became our crazy cousin - always family.

We didn’t see the pain, we saw the bizarre, and we are vultures for scandal.

Still, he kept producing for us. As he got lighter he brought us an image of black Egyptians. He made us scream, cry, faint, and mob.

When it became clear that the boy’s face we had loved had become the face of a man who didn’t love himself; we judged him. We tore at him and he fell apart. He was living proof of the impact of our rabid pop culture, an early sacrifice to the new mechanisms of fame which allow no privacy, no time to learn, no mistakes.

Still, he kept producing for us.

When the rumors and the truth were all too prevalent (the children, both his and others), and he wasn’t getting the psychological support and accountability he needed, we turned from him and derided him. We made the distinction of loving the child, but ridiculing the man.

How many times did his heart break before this? How many times did he experience happiness, community, belonging and love in his life, in his off-the-stage life?

My entire life is framed by his songs. I have had ecstatic moments to his music while high, while drunk, while sober, while sad, while in love, while in heartbreak. It seems silly to feel this way over a pop singer, and yet its crucial to feel this way over an artist who reshaped how we understand music, movement and communication. He was at every good party I ever attended (which is where I have felt more release and unity with other people than just about anywhere else).

I suspect he always will be.

I don’t know if he experienced peace in this life, much less joy. When I heard the news today, I looked out the window and a rainbow stood complete from one horizon to the other. I don’t know if nature follows the news, but I hope that one was for the kid and the man, and he’s over there.

For real, rest in peace Michael Jackson. Thank you.

Posted at 12:12 AM, Jun 26, 2009 in Pop Culture | Permalink | View Comments

Comments

He Was brilliant

An extraordinary entertainer that ever lived and I am an African! I only came to the US for graduate school last year but I, like so many people in Africa, knew of Neverland Ranch, we got to learn and still love the mystifying person he came to become over the years.

I do not think America will produce yet another superstar in his mould, one to captivate the world so much. When he visited Zimbabwe in 1995, the country declared a public holiday in his honour! In neighbouring South Africa, he was said to be a friend of anti-apartheid icon, former president Nelson Mandela.

Looking back, however, it is hilarious the stories we got to hear and readily beleive about the man-including that he would remain forever young because he slept in an 'oxygen chamber'!

Today, in my part of the world we do have a heavy influence of American music still-the R 'n B, the hip-hop and rap but no one artist has come to influence and shape a generation's taste as Jacko did.

We had quite a few Jacko impersonators out in Africa-they dressed, walked and danced like him. They are, together with the rest of the world, in mourning.

Well said! What a compassionate and mature piece! I'm tired of people ever ready to believe the worst about someone who's different. When someone's rich, successful -- and appears strange - she/he becomes an easy target. The guy couldn't have a childhood, and few people were ready to consider that maybe he was just trying to have one..later rather than never. Thanks for writing this.

I think I've finally read the tribute I've been searching for all day. Thank you.

NO NEED for the Coroner's Report- THIS is the true diagnosis. Thank you sista Adrienne!

What a wonderful tribute story! I love you for this & I totally connected your words to my own story.

Tafari

when you said that your entire life was framed by his songs - you said exactly what i was feeling. he was there during happy times and sad times. i am so sad today - i feel like a part of my life is gone forever. may he rest in peace.