This image hung on my bedroom wall throughout junior high and high school. By the time I reached high school I discovered hip hop and thought I was too sophisticated for Michael Jackson. His songs were too happy. They made me want to dance. Also, X-Clan and Public Enemy were helping me discover my "Blackness”. It wasn't until last Thursday that I realized that Michael Jackson's music was the soundtrack to my childhood. He built a musical bridge between my parents, grandparents and I. When I heard of his death I went to YouTube and watched his historic Motown 25 performance again and again. I could hear my grandmother's voice when she called my mom to say "Let those babies stay up to watch their people on TV." At the BET Awards last weekend Jamie Foxx said "Michael Jackson was ours and we shared him with everyone else." On a visceral level I know exactly what he means. Michael Jackson was the best of us. He embodied the creativity, talent, conflict, duality that lives in us all. And like many of us he struggled with how to present a public face when battling inner pain.
Inexplicably, the song I played over and over upon hearing of MJ's death was Donny Hathaway's Someday We'll All Be Free. Perhaps because I've always thought Michael Jackson was a prisoner of his fame and now there's no need for masks, bodyguards, or gates...he's free.
No comments:
Post a Comment