Bonus material taken from the deluxe edition of the Bad album celebrating its 25 years of existence.
Big tune from 1996 taken from the Sunset Park movie soundtrack and sampling Michael Jackson’s Liberian Girl.
One of the videos I’ve taken from this intimate gig in East London on the 1st of December for the return of Quadron in Europe.
On this Election Day 2010, Bilal teams up with French director Mikael Colombu to bring you “Robots”. Finally an original clip for a thought-provoking track. It reminds me a bit of Peter Gabriel’s video Sledgehammer and Michael Jackson’s Leave Me Alone video.
I Can’t Help It is my favourite song out of the Off The Wall album by Michael Jackson. Produced by Stevie Wonder, it has the perfect mellow groove and MJ’s vocals are flawless.
In 2004, Fabolous decided to sample this track for his single Baby. And it actually works for him. Fabolous has never been able to have a fully consistent album but he has always managed to come up with some dance-floor bangers and tracks for the ladies from time to time. So peep the video below to judge if sampling MJ was a success or a fail.
This song is probably one of the most slept on songs of Michael’s repertoire but is nonetheless a classic. It started the opening credits of the Spike Lee movie Get On The Bus however and very sadly was not contained on the music soundtrack.
Michael Jackson was always seen as a Pop icon and liked to mix the genres. But I always felt he was at his best when he found his inspiration from his roots. On The Line has this perfect gospel feel and MJ fits in superbly. The person who posted the video had the brilliant idea to use Spike Lee’s tribute to MJ for the “This Is It” track and replace it by the “On The Line” song which in a way suits the video better.
One year already since you’re gone. But we still love you MJ. R.I.P
On saturday 29th and sunday 30th of august, the soulful venue that is a the Jazz Cafe in London, decided to hold two tributes concert to celebrate Michael Jackson’s birthday and career. It was hosted by Eric Roberson and featured Kym Mazelle who used to live on the same street as the Jackson family, Chris Ballin, Donna Gardier, Lennox Cameron and Phonte of Little Brother and Foreign Exchange.
I was most familiar with Eric Roberson and Phonte, two artists that I really respect. Their presence was an immediate guaranty for a good night. I decided to go for the sunday night and I didn’t regret it at all. Eric Roberson (or commonly called Erro) was a wonderful host. He was funny and made sure the event ran smoothly. And as he was rightfully saying at the start of the event: “There is not an artist out there who can even dare say they weren’t influenced by Michael Jackson. Even a person who thinks they weren’t influenced by him was influenced by someone who was influenced by him.” And it is true.
This night was not about mourning but about celebrating the music Michael blessed us with. Erro then got straight into the business of things and performed Pretty Young Things. It was a real pleasure to see him performed some of MJ songs. He didn’t try to copy the Master but delivered his own versions. The funniest moment was definitely when performing Lady in my life, Erro grabbed a camera from someone and recorded an up close shot of his singing as if the camera was the lady of his life. It was hilarious because Erro was mimicking all the faces a man could do when trying to impress a woman and then when he gave a kiss to the camera that was the moment that got us killed.
Phonte, the other big name of the night, didn’t disappoint as well. His renditions of Man in the Mirror and Billie Jean were touching, honest and full of energy. On Billie Jean, he brought the MJ attire and included some smooth dance moves. And to finish he did a freestyle that finished conquering the crowd.
The other artists did their job as well. Donna Gardier who was the background singer, was full of energy and enthusiasm. I enjoyed her version of Never Can Say Goodbye.
Lennox Cameron who was one of the musicians, performed a touching Gone Too Soon and a bouncy Don’t stop til I get enough.
Kym Mazelle was quite explosive as well. You could feel she was enjoying herself. Rock my world and the reggae version of The way you make me feel were performances to remember. To one point Kym decided to come back to give us some more because she was having too much fun and could see the crowd was responding.
The event went so fast that it was already time to say goodbye. All the artists came back for an encore and we all started to sing I’ll be there.
Yes, Michael, we will never forget you and carry on listening to your music forever. Long live the King. Enjoy some videos that I’ve taken from the concert below.
