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Here's the story of how Michael Jackson tried to bring peace between the Crips & the Bloods on the set of ‘Beat It’ from the director:

Michael Jackson's music had impact around the globe

EW YORK (Billboard) - Michael Jackson went from being Gary, Ind.'s most talented kid to one of the most recognizable human beings on the planet. While his worldwide album sales were astounding, that wasn't the sole reason for his fame. His ascendancy went far beyond the cash register -- he inspired dance moves, dictated fashion trends and raised awareness for social causes around the globe.

Following is a roundup of international reaction to the pop star's death and recollections of him.

BRAZIL

Less than a day after Michael Jackson's death, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, announced that the city would erect a statue of the singer in Dona Marta, a favela that was once notorious for drug dealing and is now a model for social development. The change was spurred partly by Jackson's 1996 visit to film the video for "They Don't Care About Us."

Jackson shot two videos for "They Don't Care About Us," the fourth single from "HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I": one in a prison and another in Dona Marta and Salvador da Bahia, a colonial Brazilian city known for its Afro-Brazilian culture and music.

When Jackson came to Brazil to shoot the video, directed by Spike Lee, Rio's local government became concerned that the singer would show the world an unflattering picture of poverty. At the time, Brazilians, like people the world over, saw Jackson as an idol. He'd been to the country twice before, once with the Jackson 5 in the '70s and again in 1993, when he played two concerts in Sao Paulo to 100,000 people each night.

At the time, the concert promoter Dodi Sirena recalls a "sensitive" artist who asked for an amusement park to be reserved for his use, then invited children from the poorest public schools. "He displayed great concern for everything in the country, with poverty, with street children," Sirena says.

In that context, Jackson's choice of locale for his video made sense. "The video is about the people no one cares about," says Claudia Silva, press liaison for Rio's office of tourism.

When Jackson shot the video in Rio, Silva was a journalist for the daily newspaper O Globo. Lee and his staff had banned journalists from the shoot because Dona Marta drug dealers didn't want the attention, but Silva found a family that let her spend the night at their home and saw the favela residents washing the streets to prepare for Jackson's arrival. "The people were so proud," Silva says. "That was the best thing for me. People got up early to clean the area, they prepared for him, they took out the trash."

Jackson arrived by helicopter but walked the streets of Dona Marta shaking hands and distributing candy. "People were very surprised in the end, because they were expecting an extraterrestrial guy," Silva says. "And he was -- it sounds strange to say this -- a normal guy."

Jackson shot scenes in Salvador, alongside throngs of people, accompanied by the Afro-Brazilian cultural group Olodum. In the video, he can be seen dancing to the beat of hundreds of Olodum's drummers and with cheering fans who reach out to touch him -- and at one point burst through security and push him to the floor.

"This process to make Dona Marta better started with Michael Jackson," Silva says. "Now it's a safe favela. There are no drug dealers anymore, and there's a massive social project. But all the attention started with Michael Jackson."

-- Leila Cobo

SOUTH AFRICA

"Growing up as a young black kid in a township, you either dreamed of being a freedom fighter or being Michael Jackson. It was as simple as that."

So recalls leading South African R&B artist Loyiso Bala, whose five South African Music Awards are a testament to the fact that he chose to follow the King of Pop.

The 29-year-old likens Jackson's impact on his family -- which includes his high-profile musician brothers Zwai and Phelo -- to that of former President Nelson Mandela.

"The whole family would drop what they were doing and watch, mesmerized whenever Michael or (Mandela) came on," he says of life in his Kwa-Nobuhle township home, located outside the Eastern Cape town of Uitenhage.

Lupi Ngcayisa, a DJ on Metro FM, South Africa's biggest national urban commercial station, says Jackson's "rich lyrics changed the complexion of black radio."

"He forced black families to debate issues surrounding individualism and race, so his cultural impact here extended beyond simply the music," he says.

That impact was most visible in 1997 when the HIStory tour came to the country for a five-date run that ended October 15 at Durban's King's Park Stadium, the performer's final full-scale concert in support of a studio album. The shows are still the largest the country has ever seen, attracting 230,000 people, according to Attie Van Wyk, CEO of the presenting promoter, Cape Town-based Big Concerts.

Equally notable for a country just three years into post-apartheid democracy was the audience mix. "Black and white, young and old, Michael drew a huge crossover audience that we still don't see often at shows," tour publicist Penny Stein says.

Duncan Gibbon, now strategic marketing director at Sony Music Entertainment South Africa, who worked Jackson's catalog as far back as the apartheid era, says Jackson sold more than 2 million albums in South Africa. More important, he says, Jackson's music was a unifying point for a deeply divided society.

"South African radio was very racially segmented in the years before 1994," he says. "But Michael proved to be the one artist whose music was played on white pop stations and black R&B stations. It doesn't sound like much now, but it was a very potent thing when you think back to how apartheid attempted to keep everything about black and white society separate."

-- Diane Coetzer

CHINA

After 30 years of vilifying everything American, Beijing re-established diplomatic relations with Washington, D.C., at the beginning of 1979, the same year Jackson released "Off the Wall." At the time, most of China was still clad in drab blue Mao suits, state-controlled radio was almost devoid of Western pop music, and record companies had little distribution. But Jackson's music soon took root -- with a vengeance.

Beijing-based musician Kaiser Kuo says that the only time he felt physically threatened during the volatile spring of 1989 was an indirect result of Jackson's popularity.

On June 3, 1989 -- just as pro-democracy students reached what would prove a fatal deadlock with the government in Tiananmen Square -- Kuo's heavy rock band, Tang Dynasty, was playing a show in Jilin Province, unaware it had been billed as "Michael Jackson's backup band." Realizing they'd been scammed, the audience "went nuts and burned down the ticket booth," Kuo says. "Jackson was just that popular."

For many in China, reflecting on Jackson means dredging up memories of that era of dashed hopes. Blogger Hong Huang lived much of her childhood in the '70s and '80s in the United States, where her father was a Chinese diplomat. "Back then, I thought nobody in China could be listening to Michael Jackson," she says. Yet Hong hosted three evenings of her late-night TV talk show "Straight Talk" about Jackson's death while the Chinese Internet lit up with discussion of his life and music. The top video-sharing Web site Youku.com has dozens of posts of Chinese youths moonwalking to his songs in black loafers, white socks and high-water pants.

Jackson's sales in Asia have been strong despite rampant piracy, according to Adam Tsuei, president of Sony Music Entertainment Greater China. Sony says that since 1994 it has sold about 1.2 million Jackson albums in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Jackson never visited mainland China, but Sony says it has sold about 300,000 albums there since 2002, although censorship has prevented the release of his entire catalog.

There had been unconfirmed reports that AEG Live planned to bring Jackson to China after his sold-out London dates. Instead, Shanghai warehouse manager Jin Hailiang says the 150 regular members of the local Jackson fan club he helps manage will host a party August 29, Jackson's birthday.

"His music is so important because it's about love," he says, "and it makes us feel free to dance."

-- Jonathan Landreth

INDIA

For many people in India -- a market where international repertoire accounts for just 5 percent of physical music sales -- Michael Jackson is Western pop.

Alone among Western artists, his popularity isn't confined to English-speaking urban Indians. Among the country's rural youth his celebrity competes with Bollywood stars for one reason: his trademark dance moves.

"Anybody who dances well is compared with Michael Jackson," says Nikhil Gangavane, who founded India's official, 13,000-member Jackson fan club. "The moonwalk made Michael reach from the classes to the masses in India."

The way Bollywood appropriated Jackson's moves and style connected with Indian fans. "Actors, established choreographers, aspiring composers, kids in dance shows -- everybody borrowed ideas," says British-born hip-hop star Hard Kaur, now a Bollywood star.

Indian actors, from Javed Jaffrey to Hrithik Roshan, say they were inspired by Jackson's dancing. And the southern Indian movie industry still uses Jackson-esque routines, thanks to the influence of dancers and choreographers like Prabhu Deva, known as "India's Michael Jackson" for his lightning-fast moves.

Jackson's recorded-music sales are also significant. Arjun Sankalia, associate director of Sony Music Entertainment India, says the 25th-anniversary edition of "Thriller" sold 15,000 copies. The album's initial release sold more than 100,000, according to Suresh Thomas, former branch manager of the southern region for CBS India -- a joint venture between India's Tata Group and CBS America. "Bad," which had an inlay card translated into regional languages, sold 200,000. None of the totals include the millions of pirated versions that have been sold.

Jackson proved his popularity on the subcontinent with the one show he performed in India -- November 1, 1996, at Mumbai's Andheri Sports Complex. A 70,000-seat sellout, it was organized by Shiv Sena political party leader Raj Thackeray to raise funds to provide jobs for young people in the state of Maharashtra -- and boost the party's popularity among young urban voters.

Jackson arrived at Mumbai airport October 30 and was greeted by actress Sonali Bendre, who put the traditional Hindu "tilak" mark on his forehead. A motorcade escorted him to the concert, and he stepped out of the car several times during the journey to wave at the thousands of fans lining the streets between the airport and his hotel lobby.

Fans still remember. "Go to any village, any corner in India and you'll find everyone is familiar with the name Michael Jackson," Kaur says. "There is no musician who can replace MJ."

-- Ahir Bhairab Borthakur

JAPAN

The news of Michael Jackson's death caused such a stir in Japanese society that three Cabinet ministers took the unusual step of commenting on his passing.

Fans ranging from teenagers to 50-somethings -- many dressed in Jackson's trademark outfits -- staged an impromptu candlelit memorial June 27 in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park. While some showed off dance moves and sang songs, others wept openly and prayed at makeshift altars.

"It's funny," one attendee said. "The gathering at (Harlem's) Apollo Theater was like a celebration of his life, but Japanese people go straight into mourning."

Jackson won over Japan like few Western stars before or since. Famous in the country since the release of "Off the Wall," he became even bigger in 1987, when he started his "Bad" world tour at the Tokyo Dome. He sold out 14 shows, drawing about 450,000 fans and taking in an estimated 5 billion yen ($52 million). Hundreds of screaming girls greeted his arrival at Tokyo's Narita Airport, which was covered by 1,000 journalists; another 300 covered the arrival of Bubbles, Jackson's chimp, who came on a separate flight.

"No other performer had Michael Jackson's star power in Japan," says Archie Meguro, senior VP of Sony Music Japan International. "He was so loved for his talent, his music, his dance and his gentle soul."

Sony reports career album sales of at least 4.9 million for Jackson in Japan, making him one of the top-selling international artists. "Thriller" alone sold 2.5 million copies. But his impact went beyond sales. His 1987 tour helped reshape J-pop's choreography, as performers tried to appropriate his moves.

Sales of Jackson's catalog have spiked, and six of his albums made SoundScan Japan's Top 200 Albums chart. By the morning of June 27, Tower Records' seven-story flagship store in Shibuya had three displays of his albums and DVDs. Jackson had attended an event there in 1996, presided over by then-Tower Records Japan president Keith Cahoon. "The fan club members who attended were mostly young girls who shrieked 'Michael!' in incredibly loud and high-pitched voices," he recalls, "and Michael replied in a soft voice that was nearly as high."

"Michael is the biggest entertainment influence on the Japanese people after the Beatles," says Ken Ohtake, president of Sony Music Publishing Japan. "He will always remain in the hearts of the Japanese people as an extraordinary and unparalleled artist."

-- Rob Schwartz

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-jackson-global-idUSTRE5624OT20090703

HAPPYPERSON said:

sorry....MJ was NOT a musical genius.... he sang, he danced and he performed,,,granted was the same tired moves the last 25 years of his life.

Seeing Voices. Unreleased song from 1997

Evan Yagel presents on the cultural impact of Michael Jackson in History class @metalmancave @piw13 @MSJMUN @rlpeace1876 @jharris_charles

bboy87 said:

Seeing Voices. Unreleased song from 1997

Beautiful song, i can picture in my mind the video of it.

How Michael Jackson Made 'Bad'

The story of how the landmark album, which just turned 25 and will soon be re-released in a three-disc set, was forged by the "Wacko Jacko" backlash against the pop star

At the height of his fame, Michael Jackson disappeared.

In 1984, he seemed to be everywhere: on MTV and in Pepsi commercials, at the Grammys and the White House, on Rolling Stone and Time magazine, and all across the United States on the Victory Tour. The next year, however, besides a brief appearance in "We Are the World," he was nowhere to be seen. "The year 1985," wrote Gerri Hirshey for Rolling Stone, "has been a black hole for Michael watchers, who witnessed the most spectacular disappearing act since Halley's comet headed for the far side of the solar system in 1910." It was a strategic move from a performer who understood the power of anticipation and mystique. 1986 was much the same. Jackson was said to be a recluse "in hiding" and made few public appearances.

A British tabloid deemed him "Wacko Jacko" in 1985, but the nickname's etymology goes back further: "Jacco" or "Jacco Macacco" was Cockney slang for "monkey."

In his absence came a flood of fantastical stories about shrines, hyperbaric chambers, and Elephant Man's bones. Most of these were harmless (and actually amused Jackson), but there was a darker side to the media backlash. Jackson had become the most powerful African American in the history of the entertainment industry. Not only had he built an empire through his own record-shattering albums, videos and performances, he had resurrected the fortunes of CBS/Epic Records, surged life into MTV, and set the bar for live entertainment. He also smartly retained full ownership of his master recordings and with the help of his attorney, John Branca, actively acquired publishing rights, including songs by Sly and the Family Stone, Ray Charles, and of course, the crown jewel of popular music: the ATV/Beatles catalog.

It is no coincidence that this was the precise moment when the tide began to shift. From industry heavyweights and media alike, there was now suspicion, resentment, and jealousy. It was clear Jackson was not merely a naive man-child (as he was often presented), or a song-and-dance man who knew and accepted his place as a static, submissive "entertainer." He was outwitting some of the most powerful figures in the industry. He was growing artistically and financially. And he was beginning to learn how to wield his considerable power and cultural influence for more social and political ends.

"He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables," wrote James Baldwin in 1985, "for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring, and the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo has nothing on Michael. All that noise is about America, as the dishonest custodian of black life and wealth; the blacks, especially males, in America; and the burning, buried American guilt; and sex and sexual roles and sexual panic; money, success and despair..."

The backlash, then, was not merely about Jackson's perceived eccentricities. It was also about power, money, and more subtle forms of institutional and cultural dominance. In the decades preceding Jackson, as James Brown put it, black recording artists were all-too-often "in the show, but not in show business." Now Jackson was a financial force to be reckoned with. His status, however, also turned him into an enormous target.

Beginning in 1985, the media became increasingly vicious toward the artist. "They desire our blood, not our pain," Jackson wrote in a note in 1987. Tabloids soon began disparaging him with the nickname "Wacko Jacko" (a term Jackson despised). It was a term first applied to the pop star by the British tabloid, The Sun, in 1985, but its etymology goes back further. "Jacko Macacco" was the name of a famous monkey used in monkey-baiting matches at the Westminster Pit in London in the early 1820s. Subsequently, the term "Jacco" or "Jacco Macacco" was Cockney slang to refer to monkeys in general. The term persisted into the 20th century as "Jacko Monkeys" became popular children's toys in Great Britain in the 1950s. They remained common in British households into the 1980s (and can still be found on Ebay today).

The term "Jacko," then, didn't arise out of a vacuum, and certainly wasn't meant as a term of endearment. In the ensuing years, it would be used by the tabloid and mainstream media alike with a contempt that left no doubt about its intent. Even for those with no knowledge of its racist roots and connotations, it was obviously used to "otherize," humiliate and demean its target. Like Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal" scene in Invisible Man, it was a process by which to reduce Michael Jackson the human being and artist, to "Jacko" the minstrelized spectacle for avaricious amusement. (It is significant to note that, while the term was used widely by the white media, it was rarely, if ever used by black journalists.)

This was the ominous undercurrent beginning to swirl around Jackson and it had an impact on both his own psyche and that of the public (particularly in the U.S.). The tension between control and liberation or escape percolates throughout the Bad album and its accompanying music videos.

In the short film for "Leave Me Alone," for example, Jackson keenly conveys the carnivalesque reality of his life as an objectified entertainer. Inspired in part by Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, a larger-than-life Jackson is literally trapped in an amusement park attraction as dogs in corporate suits pound pegs in the ground to keep him in place. Later in the video he sings out of newspapers, dollar bills, and within reenactments of tabloid stories. It is a shrewdly self-aware (and socially aware) examination of entrapment, exploitation, and double consciousness in the postmodern age.

Story continues below.

Part of Jackson's "disappearance," then, also had to do with the realities of his life. He could no longer walk freely anywhere in the world without being mobbed, scrutinized, and dissected.

His retreat was in his art. From 1985 to 1987, away from the public eye, he was writing and recording prolifically. The Bad sessions would ultimately generate more than 60 songs in various states of completion. At one point he considered releasing it as a triple-disc album.

It's become legend that Jackson wrote "100 million" on his bathroom mirror, the number of albums he expected 'Bad' to sell: more than double the number of what 'Thriller' had done.

Jackson called his home studio at Hayvenhurst "the Laboratory." This is where the magic was created with a small group of musicians and engineers, including Matt Forger, John Barnes, Chris Currell, and Bill Bottrell (often referred to as the "B-Team"). It has now become the stuff of legend that Jackson wrote "100 million" on his bathroom mirror, the number of albums he expected Bad to sell. The figure was more than double the number of what Thriller had sold to that point. Such was the scope of Jackson's ambition.'

However, it wasn't just commercial success he was after. Jackson wanted to innovate. He told collaborators he wanted to create sounds the ear had never heard. Exciting new synthesizers were coming on the scene at the time, including the Fairlight CMI and the Synclavier PSMT. "It really opened up another realm of creativity," recalls recording engineer Matt Forger. "The Fairlight had this light pen that could draw a waveform on the screen and allow you to modify the shape of it. The Synclavier was just an extension of that. Very often we would end up combining two synthesizer elements together to create a unique character. You could do that within the Synclavier, but you also had the ability in a very fine increment to adjust the attack of each sound character. And by doing that you could really tailor the sound. We were doing a lot of sampling and creating new sound characters and then creating a combination of sample sounds mixed with FM synthesis."

Jackson was fascinated with these new technologies and constantly on the lookout for fresh sounds. The opening sound character for "Dirty Diana," for example, was created by Denny Jaeger, a Synclavier expert and designer from the Bay Area. When Jackson heard about Jaeger and his library of new sound characters and soundscapes, he reached out and enlisted him for Bad. Jaeger's sounds ultimately appeared on both "Dirty Diana" and "Smooth Criminal." "Michael was always searching for something new," Forger says. "How much stuff could we invent ourselves or research and find? There was a whole lot of that going on. That was what the Laboratory was about."

Story continues below.

What makes the Bad album so timeless, however, is the way Jackson was able to compliment this technological innovation with more organic, soulful qualities. In "The Way You Make Me Feel," for example, the relentless steel-shuffling motion of the beat is juxtaposed with all kinds of natural, improvisational qualities that give the song its charm: the vocal ad libs, the finger snapping, the blues harmonies, the percussive grunts and gasps, the exclamations. Recording engineer Bruce Swedien speaks of how he left all of Jackson's vocal habits in as part of the "overall sonic picture." He didn't want to make the song "antiseptically clean" because it would lose its visceral effect.

In so many ways, Bad was Jackson's coming-of-age as an artist. Quincy Jones challenged him at the outset to write all the material and Jackson responded, writing nine of the 11 tracks that made the album and dozens more that were left off. "Study the greats," he wrote in one note to himself, "and become greater." He spoke of the "anatomy" of music, of dissecting its parts. He was also reading a great deal, including the work of Joseph Campbell. He wanted to understand what symbolism, myths, and motifs resonated over time and why.

By the time he brought demos to Westlake Studio to work on with Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien (the A-Team), most of the key elements of the songs were in place. Now it was a matter of details: small-brush coloring, polishing, augmenting, and to Jackson's chagrin, paring down. Assistant engineer Russ Ragsdale estimates that more than 800 multi-track tapes were made to create Bad, an extraordinary number. Synth stacks filled the tracking room, where Jackson often worked with synth programer John Barnes. Vocals were rerecorded until Jackson felt satisfied. Jackson, Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien continued to tweak and debate decisions until the final minute before the deadline.

Just as much attention went into the short films. In his notes following the Badvideo, Jackson indicated that he still wasn't completely satisfied with the choreography. The moves had to be so internalized that there was no thinking whatsoever. He had to dissolve into the steps and the music until it became pure feeling.

Many people still don't realize the input Jackson had on every detail of his work, from choreography to lighting to costumes to story. While rehearsing for the short film for "Smooth Criminal," Jackson eloquently explained to director Colin Chivers and choreographer Vincent Paterson the tension and release he hoped to achieve in the bridge. "That's why we build it to a mountain and we bring it back down," he instructed. "Then at the top [mouths sounds effect] with the high strings. Something to just ride the emotion that we didn't put into it [mouths sound effect]. Just a horn or something, you know... To ride the feeling of it... I want the music to represent the way we feel... It's gotta dictate our emotion, our moods. We're expressing the way everybody feels. It's rebellion. You know what I mean? We're letting out what we always wanted to say to the world. Passion and anger and fire!"

Twenty-five years later, the results speak for themselves. Videos like "Bad" and "Smooth Criminal" are among the finest the medium has to offer. Songs like "Man in the Mirror," "The Way You Make Me Feel," "Dirty Diana," and "Another Part of Me" remain staples in Jackson's vast catalog. Hearing the remastered album, included in the three-CD Bad25 set out September 18, is a reminder of its singular personality and pleasure. Listen to the propulsive bass lines, the layers of rhythm, the vocal experimentation, the cinematic narratives, the signature exclamations and invented vocabulary, the sheer vitality and joy. This is pop at its most dynamic, and it stands, along with the best work of Prince, as one of the best albums of the 1980s.

Bad is a portrait of the artist in peak form—bold, creative and confident. Now as then, "the whole world has to answer."

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/09/how-michael-jackson-made-bad/262162/

Human Nature:

Steve's Demo:

MJ's original Demo

Extended Mix (Fan-made from multitrack stems)

Extended Mix (Instrumental)