All language subtitles for Michael.Jacksons.Journey.From.Motown.To.Off.The.Wall.2016.DOCU.1080p.BluRay.x264-TREBLE.en

This is really true. People say you just
made it up to have something to say.

But one day, our television broke down,

and we didn't have anything, really,
to do in the morning times.

So what we started doing,
we started singing,

my mother, my brothers,

and we started making harmony.

The next thing we know is
we were singing in talent shows,

winning awards and trophies.

That's how we got started.

Hey, hey, hey. Stop the film! Hey!

Stop the film, please.

Hey, stop the film! Come on. Thank you.

They wanna hear I Want You Back, ABC
and The Love You Save.

And Dancing Machine, Sugar Daddy,
I'll be There, Got To Be There.

Rockin' Robin.
You want to hear Daddy's Home?

Do you want to hear all the old stuff?

The number one reason
I don't want to do the old stuff,

number one, it's old, okay?

Number two, the choreography is old.

Jackie's old.

Do you care about that?

Do you care?

I'll tell you what...

I'll do the old stuff for you, okay?

But I'm doing it for you.
I'm not doing it for them.

I'm doing it for you.

Their first four songs
broke historical records.

Because they all went to number one,
the very first four songs.

Their record, which was I Want You Back...

-ABC, The Love You Save...
-I'll Be There.

What happened after that was
we went from being able to go anywhere,

get a hamburger, go to a movie, you know,
go shopping, to being able to go nowhere.

They became so successful so quickly

that none of us were prepared for it.

He used to sing songs with a lot of feeling,

and he would sing them with a lot of feeling

and a lot of mood like
he had been there before.

Like he had lived it before.

Vocally, he was just leaps
and bounds ahead

of what anybody could teach him.
He came here knowing that stuff.

It was in his DNA.

I discovered that Michael was very talented

when he was just
about two or three years old.

Michael had a lot of rhythm,
and he loved to dance.

I think he was born dancing.

Michael told me way back, he said,
"Steve, I'm not gonna be poor."

Imagine 11 kids living in
a two-bedroom house in Gary, Indiana.

And Gary, Indiana, is no Beverly Hills.

It was hard. When you have all those kids,
like I had,

and kids, you know, they like to eat,
so when they holler,

they want some food, you gotta put
something in their hand,

and I kept food on the table, plenty of food,
Spike.

Joseph had done a remarkable job
creating the group.

I can remember
how much it meant to all of them,

but particularly Michael, to make it.

I would say to this day,
Motown was the greatest school for me.

Really, it was the best.

I learned how to cut a track,
as well as producing.

I've learned so many things about writing.

Pretty much like a college.

They taught us everything about
songwriting and producing and everything.

And we learned so much
about lyrical content,

how to produce songs
and just being a great artist.

They had the best songwriters
and artists in the world.

Here we are in Chicago.

You see here the members
of The Temptations.

Down here on the bottom,
is little Michael with his Afro,

and I'm right next to him, that's me, y'all.

What Michael learned is, to be great,

you had to be persistent, you had to work.

He got to watch people like Diana Ross,
Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder.

-The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson.
-Smokey Robinson.

All those wonderful guys that we idolized.

These were legends in the music industry

that he was able to observe up close
in the studio, in their element.

I get my degree from
the Motown university, and I just...

There was really an atmosphere
of competition.

Competition breeds champions
but you can't let the competition

overcome the love.

And so it was all built on love,
and Michael was full of love.

And the atmosphere
just suited him very well.

We learned so much being with all those
great songwriters and producers.

And at that time when it's taking place
you don't realize that.

We were kids ourselves.
I didn't know how to do this.

And we were learning as we went, together.

Yes, it's the same nerve The Beatles
touched lo these many years ago.

Only this time,
it's a group of black teenagers

fronted by an 11 -year-old soul brother.

It was so intense this fan worship.
You have to understand,

that all the kids who were responding
to the Jackson 5

hadn't had a Mickey Mouse Club
with kids like them on camera.

They represented the first youth group

of our contemporary times

for all these kids to identify with.

And initially, they were all the black kids.

Beginning is when I first saw him,

and that's the reason why I'm here,
is that that's what motivated me

and wanted me to do whatever it is
that I'm doing right now.

He's everything that I aspired to be.

Those boys just practice
most of the time with us

while other kids were out there

running in the streets and playing.

They was in there trying to get a song down
or something.

He wanted to be the best
at everything he ever did.

They were not at all concerned
about the working.

We worked all day and all night.

This kid, at nine, meant serious business.

I mean, this kid meant
serious, serious business.

I mean, he was not kidding.

He questioned Nick and I
about our early Motown songs.

He always wanted to know.
"How'd you come up with this idea?"

"What was this?" "What made you say that?"

Songs like Ain't Nothing Like
the Real Thing. He was a real student.

I was fascinated by the fact
that he had this kind of commitment,

this kind of dedication
and was inquisitive about...

And was always watching.
He would always be watching.

Well, who else do you think makes
the stage come to real life

besides me and Ed Sullivan?

Hold it, hold it. Hold it, hold it. Hold it.

You're beginning to steam me, kid.
You understand that?

Best experience in the world.

I was sitting in the wings and learning.

I ate that up.

He would sit with me at mixing sessions
because I did a lot of mixing.

He would sit there for hours and hours.

I would tell somebody, one of my assistants,
I said, "Well, my back is turned,

"but I know Michael is staring at me."

The thing I loved about Motown
was that Berry Gordy,

if he didn't like a song,
he'd go in the studio and cut one himself.

And so Berry Gordy, in my opinion,

is probably the greatest record man
that ever was.

Berry was wonderful with taking a song

and leading it to the right direction,
giving it the right flavors.

To make it a hit, he knew just what it takes,

and everybody can't do that.

Ben is coming.

And this time, he's not alone.

And then came Ben, which was
a soundtrack to a movie about rats.

And wherever we tour,
the whole world demand to hear it.

We can't get offstage.
People will start chanting for Ben.

This performance of Ben
at the Academy Awards in 1973

was the first time
that Michael really stepped out on his own.

The first nominated song is Ben
from the picture Ben.

It will be sung by a young man
whose talent is mature

but whose age suggests that
maybe he shouldn't even be up this late.

He was part of your whole life.

It was crazy, man, when you were a little kid,

with all the Jackson 5 songs...

Then when you're a little older,
then through your puberty,

your adolescence.

And then when you go to college...
He was always around,

defining a part of your life.

There's so many steps in between
that first day and Off the Wall.

For me, the most heartbreaking
was when they left Motown.

They came in as bubble gum.

No one ever graduates from being
a cute kid group to being taken seriously.

There's no child singer that you can point
to besides Michael Jackson that went

from being really big
to the biggest pop star ever.

Thank God for Dancing Machine.

What they were observing at the time,
at Motown,

what the Jacksons were observing
were a lot of artists having creative freedom.

We wanted to write,
we wanted to produce ourselves

and our contract at Motown
didn't let us do that.

And plus, our contract was expiring
at the time

and it was time to make a new change.

Two guys named Ron Alexenburg
and Steve Popovich...

They were with Epic, one was head
of promotion and one was head of A&R.

And they came to me and said,

"We're gonna sign The Jacksons
as a group."

It all started at the Warwick Hotel

and there's nothing
but kids around the whole hotel.

I went to the doorman and asked,
"What's going on here?"

And he said, "The Jackson 5 are here."

That gave me the opportunity
to go just the way I am into the lobby.

I picked up the house phone and I called,
I said, "Michael Jackson, please."

And they rang right through to room 805,
and he came downstairs with his dad.

And I looked at him and I said,
"What do you wanna do?"

And he said, "Someday, I'd like
to do my own music."

I said, "Really? What about now?"

The group wanted
to leave Motown. Joseph...

My name is Joe Jackson.

...thought that he wanted to bring them
and take them to a whole other level

that Motown just couldn't do.

I was told not to sign 'em.
And I was told that they were a cartoon act.

And I went to Walter Yetnikoff, who was
my boss and I said, "Hold on.

"The Jacksons belong on this label.
We call ourselves the family of music.

"This is the family. I want to sign them."

I said, "Well, I don't know
how many records they've sold."

So I went to hear at the Westbury Music Fair.
Michael was 15 years old at the time.

He's singing a song to a dead rat,
which you remember, named Ben, okay?

I come back and I said to these guys,
"Are you crazy?

"Sign him and give him three and a half
million dollars?"

I said, "Walter, please.

"You're new in your job and you're really
not qualified to judge this."

I was in the job, like, three weeks
when that happened.

He was like,
"Okay, I'll go along with you guys.

"You seem to know what you're doing."

I said, "You know, you're probably right."

That was my brilliant move
in signing The Jacksons.

The most tense time of life for me

was the changing from Motown

to CBS. I was in a whole another world,
I was... Gosh.

It was... I didn't know what was happening.

Understanding the challenge
of a child prodigy

having to make a transition from now being
a serious, serious artist.

How much courage it takes
to actually step outside of that,

and to come with a new sound.

That can be pretty damn scary.

Kind of a critical decision

that The Jackson 5 with their father,
Joe Jackson, made to leave Motown,

and it resulted in a lawsuit

out of which came a name change
to The Jacksons.

I was told I couldn't use
the name Jackson 5,

and I said, "It's okay, we'll call them
The Jacksons."

'Cause Berry Gordy would not let that
name go.

We were all sad that he was gone
and Jermaine stayed.

Jermaine Jackson was married
to the daughter of Berry Gordy.

So, probably not a good idea for him
to leave Motown with the rest of his family.

We respect Jermaine's decision

because that was a very difficult decision
for him to make.

And I respect him for that
because he did what he wants to do.

I want people to do what they want to do.

Don't do what I want you to do,
do what you feel that's best for you.

There's so much going on, so much tension.

I wasn't sure what was gonna happen.

I asked Michael,

"What's gonna happen
when people ask you,

"'Why are you leaving Motown?"'

He said, "Because everything is possible
with you at Epic Records.

"And there's nothing more to be said."

And with Columbia Records,
we wanna sell twice as many records.

We want to do the things
that we've dreamed of.

That was not a popular signing
in the business.

Nor was it in the building.

Ron's lost his mind.

You know, The Jacksons have had it.
They're done.

The problem at that time,
is they had had a cartoon series

and the credibility was questionable.

I'm gonna give them as much credibility
as I possibly can.

We got on the train, went to Philadelphia,

Gamble and Huff opened
their drawer full of hits.

When you think of disco
and when you think of quality disco,

you came to Philadelphia.

Two of the people that Michael Jackson
learned from, immensely,

were Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff,

who were the creators and entrepreneurs
behind Philly International

The proprietors of the disco sound.

They had always wanted to write
and produce

their own records.

You know what I mean,
and be a part of the process.

And that's pretty much
what Philly International was.

It was a place where we had
a lot of creative freedom.

They wrote tons of hits. Tons, tons of hits.

We had Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.

-We had The O'Jays.
-Go through the roster.

We had Patti LaBelle.

Archie Bell & The Drells.

-Phyllis Hyman.
-Billy Paul.

-Lou Rawls. We had Teddy Pendergrass.
-Three Degrees.

Three Degrees.

We had to style these songs
to fit these guys' voices.

-And that's what great producers do, right?
-Sure.

We're right almost in the middle
of a recording session with The Jacksons.

And guess who is producing
their brand new album.

-Gamble and Huff.
-That's right.

Now, why would you guys come
all the way in from California

to cut some sides in an album
in Philadelphia?

Because Gamble & Huff's
Organization is here

and they're two of the best producers
in the world.

Working with Gamble and Huff
they do it in a little quicker pace.

It takes three weeks to make a record.

I didn't know you could make a record
in three weeks, a whole album.

They were the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
of the '70s.

And Michael always says
that he learned a lot

about the songwriting process
from Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

How to structure a song,
how to create great arrangements.

The Jacksons came to Philadelphia
for two years

to record two records,
The Jacksons and Goin' Places.

We try to write songs
that people do all the time,

or people say things all the time.

People say that all the time,
you know, "Enjoy yourself."

He was driven by the music,
he loved the music and...

Eager to learn.

One of the most important things
to being successful is listening.

It's listening and watching
and being a good person to work with.

Easy to work with.

Every song is a negotiation.

Every production is a negotiation
if you are co-doing it with someone.

The producer wanted me
to pronounce words a certain way.

There was a song
and there's a line in it where he sings...

"Ain't naturally," he sings that and I go,
"That's bad English."

So, I say, "Hang on, Mike," and I come out.

And I said, "So, it's like, 'Isn't naturally.'
Naturally. Or 'Isn't natural."'

I told him,
you pronounce the word so precisely,

it takes away from the feeling of the song

and we got into a little thing with that.

There's a lot of give and take
and sometimes you don't wanna give.

Or sometimes you give but you feel like,
"I should have left it the way it was."

Something said, in my brain,
"Shut the fuck up.

"Stop being the grammar police.

"This guy is a genius.
Just get out of his way."

I was right, and I won.

But it was a good learning point.

You want to 100% express your idea.

It's just 100% expression of me.

We have two albums...

I mean, two singles on the album
coming out in December on Epic.

First time we've written some songs
on the album.

It was a different style,
but still it was a hit record

so when we start putting that together
with what we heard amongst the brothers,

it created our own style of music.

It's time to write.

Something let you know that it's time
for you to go out and do it yourself.

So we decided to write
and produce our own songs.

And we finally did.

And we went through so much

with people not believing in your work
or saying, "Are you sure? You sure?"

And we said, "Yeah, we know we can.
We know what we can do."

We went in and we wrote the Destiny album.

I felt it was something that came within,
from us.

And this is The Jacksons.

This is us today.

On the Destiny album, which is the album
that comes out in 1978,

a year prior to Off the Wall,

he's starting to make those moves.

He wrote
Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground).

Where were you
when you first heard about that record?

-How did it happen?
-He was at home

and Randy was playing this groove
on the piano.

I said, "What is that?"
He said, "This is nothing."

I said, "Don't say that. It is something."

And I just started singing to his playing.

And it came about.

I called some of my friends out here
that I had a lot of respect for

that knew how to arrange.

I thought the key to really making an album,
of a vocal band like this,

is obviously great musicians,
great arrangements.

Bobby Colomby convinced me
that I should get more into arranging.

He said,
"And here's who you're gonna do it with."

And next thing you know,
I'm in a room with The Jacksons.

Then we brought Greg in
to come and help us with the record

on Destiny album again.

-Yeah. Amazing.
-Then...

Everybody was using Greg Phillinganes.

It was...

When I first heard the demo
for Shake Your Body, it was...

Obviously, the melody was there.

Which was very strong.

And they had the basic piano part.

That you hear...

All that rhythm was there.

But there wasn't as much
going on rhythmically.

Greg came up with this...

That's the rhythm of
Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)

which the average song was more like...

It fit perfectly.

At first, when he came up with that beat,
I said, "What is this guy doing?"

I said that to myself. I didn't say anything.

But I waited until he played it.

And when he played it,
when we heard it in the record,

I said, "Oh, my God! This is the bomb."

'Cause I had never heard
a beat like that before.

It was incredible. Great beat.

I said,
"If The Jacksons ever need a drummer,

"let them know your friend is in town."

The guy's name is James McField,
keyboard player,

who got me the audition.

And Tito said, he had his arm on his guitar
and he said,

"Let's play Shake Your Body Down."

Like this kinda look he said,
"You know that one?"

So I start playing the beat.

And they're looking at each other,

the Jackson brothers are whispering
in each other's ears.

And he's looking, and I'm like saying,
"Oh, no. I'm blowing it."

Because that beat is very tricky.

You have to know when and how to cross
your arms to make the times happen,

the intricate hi-hat happen,

and keep the beat going
without losing any of the elements.

And then Randy said,
"Nobody can play that beat.

"That was a three-part overdub."

And I said, "Really? I thought the guy
played it at one time."

And he was shocked and amazed
I could play it.

And he said, "You're our drummer."

We had Tom Tom 84
doing the horn arrangements,

who is a horn arranger out of Chicago,

who did all the Earth, Wind & Fire's.

And then we got
Earth, Wind & Fire horn players to come in

and play...

Horn players love that lick.

It's as dissonant
and tension-provoking a verse...

Musically... I'm like, "What's going on?

"Where is the bridge? Where's the solo?
When do we..."

I'm just used to other form.

Epic's really not interested in them at all.

At this point, it was like,
"God, we gotta put this out."

I get a call from Paris Eley.

He's head of promotion
for the R&B department.

And he says, "Hey, man.

"Shake Your Body's a hit."

I wanna show you first of all the album
and then show you the inside.

If I may, and from left to right,
they are Randy and Tito

and Jackie and Marlon and Michael
and they are The Jacksons.

That enabled people
to see Michael Jackson finally as an adult.

Because it was musical,
it was a long way from ABC

and I Want You Back.

There's a moment in the demo
of Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)

which clearly let me know that
they had their eyes on the bigger prize.

It's 1978 and the biggest selling album
of all time is Saturday Night Fever.

And there's a moment that you can hear
Jackie in the background say,

"I can't wait till the Bee Gees hear this shit."

I want the Bee Gees to hear this shit.

Everybody!

We wrote, "Produced by The Jacksons."

"All songs written by The Jacksons."

Well, Mick Jackson,
a white kid that lived in England,

wrote Blame It On the Boogie.

I didn't lie. His name is Jackson.

So, Michael starts singing.

He throws the headphones down
and bolts out of the studio.

I turn to the engineer.
"Did he get feedback?"

He goes, "No, nothing."

I go out to the hall, he's dancing.

It was unbelievable, he's spinning around.

He goes, "I'm sorry, sir.
I can't stand still and sing that section.

"I gotta get this out."

He'd watched James Brown,
The Nicholas Brothers and Sammy Davis.

He'd see somebody dance one time, like
Fred Astaire, some of the other stars,

and he can do exactly what they...

Easy to catch on.

Jackie Wilson, which I used to watch
on the wings every day at the stage,

we would play at the Regal Theater.
Six shows a day.

We would come on amateur hour.

Oh, my gosh.

I would just watch him,

and Sammy Davis, Jr.,
is another one of my favorites.

You can't go wrong watching
Sammy Davis, Jr.

Yeah.

To watch him,
and suddenly see little flashes...

Flatteringly I say this about myself.

Little flashes of me there and go...

But he's extended it.
He's changed it, he's colored it

till it becomes his own.

He introduced me to Fred Astaire
and all these movies.

I had no idea
who the hell these people were prior to that.

And he just opened up my eyes
to a whole other world of inspiration.

I just wanna let you know
I have all your films on tape

and I watch them all the time.
And I wanna ask you one question.

How do you do that thing
when you walk on the ceiling

and you dance...

Really, I wanna know how did that work?

The whole room and the camera turned.

-So they both turned, right?
-Yes.

Michael's dance is based on energy
and he moves like an electric eel.

I think the adjective
"electric" is good for him.

He's charged with energy,
but he has the good inner sense,

or wherever it comes from,
his brain or wherever,

to just take it down
and then up again, quickly,

which good dancers naturally have.

I came out after the war,
after I was in the navy,

and I wanted to dance the common man.

I didn't want to dance in white tie
or a tuxedo and dressed up.

I wanted to roll up my sleeves,
and wear jeans and t-shirts.

The nearest thing I could get
to dancing shoes were loafers,

and the white socks and the rolled-up jeans.

And he's dancing from the streets,
like I was. I believe that.

I was a teenager, and I was getting older.
I started to really understand

the power of dance.

The way he could spin, stop on a dime
and point with such intensity,

that's the power I'm talking about.

When I perfect a certain amount of moves,

there is beauty in simplicity,
in really stripping things down

and I learned that from him.

He impacted everything for me, absolutely.

He impacted my game on the court,

he impacted me now, to this day,
and how I learn.

Watching him was like
something I'd never seen before.

It was something that was magical,
that was creative,

that seemed like
something that I could mimic.

That's how I found my love for dance
before I found classical ballet.

I used to ask him, I said,
"Man, how much do you practice?"

He said, "You know, I would dance
until I can't dance no more."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "I dance till my legs...
I physically could not move."

There's a lot of people
who just don't have that same type of drive.

You see it in an artist like Beyoncé,
that kind of drive.

A lot of times,
when it comes to black artists,

this happens with Basquiat,
it happened with Miles Davis,

with Michael Jackson,

people talk about their natural gifts,

as if there's not strategy and skill and craft,

as if Miles Davis didn't go to Juilliard,

or Basquiat didn't know
who Monet and Renoir were,

or Michael Jackson hadn't been doing this
his entire life.

Some of my favorite writers are
Johnny Mercer,

Irving Berlin, George Gershwin,
Duke Ellington, Count Basie.

No, no, no, you gotta put the work in, man.
You gotta put the time in.

And really, man,
it's love that you put in there.

You know, 'cause people that do
this kind of stuff, man, we love what we do.

This is dated November 6, 1979.

He was on the road with his brothers
on the "Destiny" tour.

"MJ will be my new name.
No more Michael Jackson.

"I want a whole new character,
a whole new look,

"I should be a totally different person.

"People should never think of me as the kid
who sang ABC, I Want You Back.

"I should be a new, incredible actor,
singer, dancer that will shock the world.

"I will do no interviews. I will be magic.

"I will be a perfectionist,
a researcher, a trainer, a masterer.

"I will be better
than every great actor roped in one.

"I must have
the most incredible training system,

"to dig and dig and dig until I find.

"I will study and look back

"on the whole world of entertainment,
and perfect it,

"take it steps further
from where the greatest left off."

You guys are really riding a big high now
as far as producing records and so on.

You think this is the peak
of your career now,

or have you gone down a little bit,

or are you expecting
bigger and better things?

What are you looking forward to
in the future, Michael?

Recording other artists
and going into acting.

We get a lot of scripts in,

but we haven't found the exact script
that we want to use.

So, we're picking and deciding.

Think you may be a big movie star one day?

Yeah, I'd like to give it a try.

Yeah, it's a good business to be in.
You've got the looks, you know.

Fortunately, I didn't...

What?

With the advent of motion pictures,
came an abundance of Oz films.

A 1925 version
starred Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man.

And who'll ever forget the 1939
MGM musical version starring Judy Garland.

ln 1974, The Wiz opened on Broadway,
winning seven Tony Awards.

I was a senior in high school,

and there was this girl
named Barbara Hampton, who I liked,

and I wanted to impress her.

I was working at Baskin-Robbins.

I just saved my money,
I finally got enough courage to ask her,

"Would you like to go see The Wiz with me?

"I got two great seats. They're center aisle."

She said, "No, I don't think so."

Scalped them for double the price.

I took Michael the first time to see The Wiz,
he went back 30 more times.

The Wiz, when it came out in 1978,

was Lumet's movie adaptation
of that great, long-running play

that was on Broadway with Stephanie Mills.

There was a great debate,
at least in my neighborhood,

that, Diana Ross was dope, but

the only reason why they cast her
is 'cause she's Diana Ross.

Stephanie Mills would have been
a better fit for the film,

but for whatever reason,
she didn't get the job.

We're not gonna do it
with an unknown, young actress.

We have to have the star power
to make it "cross over."

It also was

the most expensive movie ever made
with an all African-American cast.

So, because of Car Wash and Sparkle,

you know, this happens in Hollywood,

were you designated
as the go-to guy for black material?

-I was the black writer.
-The black writer, huh?

And Sidney was probably the number one
American director right then,

'cause he had done
Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon,

Network, Murder on the Orient Express,

I think, all in a row.

-He was king.
-Right.

And definitely, king of New York.

Michael was desperate
to play the Scarecrow.

He always wanted to have a film career.

There was some rumor
that he was supposed to star

in the Frankie Lymon story.
That never happened.

The Wiz was supposed to be a huge film.

Diana Ross, his longtime pal,
was starring in it.

He's no longer at Motown,
and Michael called Berry Gordy.

We were doing The Wiz.

Rob Cohen was handling it.

He was working for me at the time
with Motown Productions.

It would have been very easy for him to say,

"Well, you know, Michael, you're gone now,
and I think we'll find somebody else."

Sidney was adamant
that he didn't want Michael.

He felt Michael was over,

and had been a cute, little kid, musical star,
but hadn't grown into it.

And I just said, "You're making a mistake,
and I want you to meet him."

Of course, Lumet fell in love with Michael.

Michael may be
the purest talent I've ever seen.

He's incapable of a false moment.

He's so true that anything around him
has to become true.

If you don't work honestly around him,
you're gonna look as if you're faking it.

Well, yeah, he's all those things,

plus, this kid can dance and sing
like nobody else.

It was so obvious, the genius of this boy,
I mean, it was so effortless.

When I was real small,
when I saw the original Wizard of Oz,

the Judy Garland version,

I always fell in love with the Scarecrow,
I think most kids do,

because you feel sorry for him,
and everything, and his character.

And I always watched him.

Matter of fact, I had the step down they did,

when I was around six,
I would do it all around the house.

"Follow the yellow brick road."

Come on, Dorothy! Come on!

Matter of fact, that hill that we do
Ease on Down the Road was going uphill.

And, Diana and me,
we were so out of breath,

we had to do it a couple of times, really.

I mean, it was going straight up.

He'd come in
for a five-hour makeup call in the morning,

get the makeup out of the way,

right on the case, he knew
everybody's lines, everybody's songs

he knew everybody's position,
and he stood there, almost at attention.

I saw this uncanny type of discipline
in such a young person.

Quincy, of course, was the musical director.
He was doing the score for The Wiz.

You see him for a minute, right?

You see him for a minute
conducting the band in the movie.

And I was a Quincy fan.

You know, Smackwater Jack,
Walking ln Space, Body Heat, all that stuff.

The Wiz seemed like a great combination
of all these things that he could do.

Lumet was very happy to have Quincy.
We all were.

That just, kind of, guaranteed

the musical portion
would hit a strong, popular chord.

He didn't actually have a feature number
in the film when they hired him.

They didn't know about the dancing,
a lot of things...

Eventually, everybody came to understand
what he was all about.

But I don't think
they showed enough of his dancing.

The real night that Off the Wall was born,

we were doing
the pre-records for the movie.

Quincy had, like, tunnel-vision
on Diana Ross.

Finally, about 2:00 a.m.,
Q had what he wanted from Diana,

and he goes,
"Okay, Michael, you come in on bar 6."

And Michael's part, like,
had a thousand watts.

He's doing everything
that became the signature Michael Jackson.

Come on, Dorothy! Come on!

And, it was like a lioness
who just suddenly sees a baby goat.

It was just...

The more I knew him,

and the more I became fascinated
with the idea of, maybe, working with him.

It was a lot of fun
working with all the greats,

Sidney Lumet, Quincy Jones, everybody.

I may be one of the few people
who really loved The Wiz.

There's some great representation, on film,
that we hadn't seen before.

When The Wiz came out,
I was seven years old.

That was an event for black America.

I can't speak for all of New York City,
I can't speak for all of the country.

But everybody
in my neighborhood, in Harlem,

was going to see The Wiz
because of Mike Jackson.

So, this is a big moment
for Michael Jackson.

He gets to fulfill his acting desires,
and he's finally in a big Hollywood film.

So, he and his sister, La Toya,
move to New York.

I found them an apartment
on 400 East 56th Street off 4th Avenue.

ln the summer of '77, a legendary summer,

there were blackouts,
there was a serial killer,

David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam,
who was doing all these random killings,

people were terrified.

The first summer of disco, it was the time

in which all of these nascent music forms
were coming up.

Punk, hip-hop, disco was huge,

and there were all these different elements

that were happening in New York
at the same time,

that were sort of coming in contact
with each other or clashing with each other.

I have a feeling that's probably where
he first heard a lot of early hip-hop,

the beatboxing that he's basically doing
on a song like Workin' Day And Night.

Even though he was only 19, he was going
to Studio 54 on a regular basis.

Perhaps you've heard the name Studio 54.

It attracts the rich and the famous,
the glamorous and the powerful.

They come to this disco palace
in New York City

just about any night of the week.

He was making
all kinds of eccentric and unusual friends

that now we see the photos of
and it looks really strange.

He's hanging out with Liza Minnelli.

Hi, sweetheart.

Are you just hanging out in New York?

Yes, Studio 54.

-Come here a lot?
-Oh, God, yes.

-Why?
-Because I like the atmosphere of Studio 54.

I've been to a lot of discotheques,
and I don't like them.

-What's the difference?
-I don't know. The feeling.

I mean, the excitement of the props
coming down, and the balcony,

it's just exciting, honestly.

I'm certain that his experience
in going to Studio 54,

during the filming of The Wiz,

played a big part
in where he wanted this album played.

And it doesn't mean
that he wanted to make a disco record.

He is a dancer. He's a marvelous dancer.
He's an influential, innovative dancer.

But why do you dance for fun?

Because you're just being free then.

Most of the time, it's set choreography
when we're on stage,

it's stuff you have to do every night.

When you dance here, you're just free,
you dance with whoever you want to.

You just go wild.

What about the craziness?
It gets crazy and wild...

No, it doesn't. No.

Not only is it fun to dance,
it's fun to look at other people.

You walk around,
and you see all kinds of things.

Like, Darth Vader was here the other night.
It was incredible.

I'm sure he was making these observations
of what was going on around him.

He was, kind of, self-conscious
about himself, and kind of shy.

So he wasn't trying to be around
all of the wildness,

all of the freakness,
you know what I'm saying?

He would go in the DJ booth
and just watch people,

and make these mental notes,
and I'm sure, musical notes, also.

And I think all of that
shows up on Off the Wall,

because it's certainly one of the most
sensual albums he ever released.

It contains
a sort of exuberance and sexuality.

It's where you come
when you want to escape.

It's really escapism.

When we left Motown,

a certain amount of albums
for The Jacksons,

and a certain amount for me, as a solo artist.

He's coming out as an autonomous figure,

separate from his father,
separate from his brothers,

and really establishing himself as a solo act.

I mean, there was some speculation.
Would Quincy be the right guy?

He's a jazz guy, would he be...

They didn't think that he could make
a contemporary hit record

that everybody
in the whole world would like.

I don't think that it's possible

to sit down
and try to intellectualize and theorize

about how you can make a record
that can appeal to many, many people.

With the people in this room...

It's very difficult to try to make a record
that everybody in this room would like.

The label had other ideas
about who he should go with.

They wanted Maurice White,
he was one of the people,

and they also wanted
Gamble and Huff to work with him.

Michael came back all teary-eyed one day
and said,

"The people at Epic don't want to use you.

"They said you're too jazzy,
you don't understand this kind of music."

-But they don't know.
-These guys, they don't know.

They're A&R men, they don't know.

Thank God he went back,
with Freddy DeMann and Ron Weisner,

and they fought, and they said,
"He's doing it."

Quincy called me one day and said,

"We're going to do Michael Jackson's
album, his first solo album."

And I thought to myself,
"Holy cow, I better get serious."

'Cause I don't get
those kind of calls very often.

When you discover Off the Wall
for the first time,

forget all the music for a second,

let's just talk about the sonics,
the sound of it.

The sonic of that album stands up
against any album right now. Period.

Because it's raw.

It was before drum machines,
before heavy computer programing.

Making an album is totally different today
than what it was.

Because when we made those albums,
back in the day,

we had live musicians, live drummer.

That way, you get magic.
You get a little bit of magic,

and if somebody's playing
just a little bit under or something like that,

that's all part of making a record breathe.

-That's the pulse.
-Yeah, it's the pulse.

But today, everything is right on.

-Today...
-'Cause they quantize every damn thing.

Everything is right on today.

These were, like,
living, breathing recordings

that were for the dance floor.

Machines are great,

but incredible musicians,
I feel like, will beat it everytime.

I'm always telling engineers, like,
"You better study and listen.

"If they were able to accomplish
that type of fullness and that type of sound,

"they were able to do that then, you better
be able to do something great now,

"or you're fired."

What Quincy has is an extraordinary history.

He's leading the band behind Count Basie.

Working with Frank Sinatra...

Sammy Davis Jr...

-Pawnbroker.
-ln The Heat Of The Night,

Sanford and Son...

He studied in France
under a great orchestration.

Nadia Boulanger, who taught Ravel.

He's unlimited musically, he can...

God, you want anything, he can do it.

Jazz, folk, pop, classical,
soul, gospel, anything.

Michael wrote three songs
on the Off the Wall album,

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough,

Workin' Day and Night,
and Get on the Floor.

He wanted the freedom
to develop as an artist,

and writing these three songs
was very important to him.

The demos are kind of a revelation,

in that they really illuminate
Michael's abilities as a songwriter,

and show how developed his songs were
when he brought them to Quincy Jones.

You really see
Michael's rhythmic sophistication.

That's what did it.

That's the phrase that pays.
That's the hook right there.

Michael ain't got to say a word yet.

They could play that baseline,

and they could run it non-stop,
and we're good.

The opening bars of that record is just like,

you could be playing
the worst set of your life,

or you're at a wedding, or you're at a club,
it doesn't matter,

and you just first...

It's just like...

You, kind of, get this little tick,
you know, that's going on,

anybody you're around, you know,
they're just down for it.

Even the guy that's trying to be hard, like...

You know, you're just in there.

It's the song I use to reset my day.

It's the song that I use
when I need to be motivated.

It's my absolute favorite
Michael Jackson song.

These are my own songs.

I'm gonna communicate my own thoughts,
my own emotions, my own ideas,

my own rhythmic sensibility,

vocal trademarks, I mean you hear
a lot of that in these songs,

completely uninhibited,
you just feel his energy coming through,

because you feel that freedom.

Man, that's the first time
we heard that iconic yell.

That's his "Free at last! Free at last!"

I was in Buffalo with you.

Fantastic show.
You darn near blinded me there, man.

That thing is dynamite when you come up.

They have to see that
with you jumping out of there.

Don't start.

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
had this opening groove, right,

and the opening groove kind of sets you off.

If you're a dancer, you know,
you'll let that sink in.

I always use Michael as, first and foremost,
a vocal inspiration.

And Off the Wall was definitely the one
that made me feel like I could sing.

I found my falsetto because of Off the Wall,
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.

It had these bizarre lyrics.
Well, to me, bizarre lyrics

that were quoting Star Wars.

I didn't even know he was saying,

"Keep on with the force, don't stop."

I thought it was about forks.

When I was a kid, I was just like,
"Keep on with the forks."

I didn't know what the forks were.

I remember the video, I mean,
he just looked like a million dollars.

I think that's before
they had a million dollars to spend, too.

So, it was done for relatively
a small amount of money

and yet he had to single-handedly sell it.

That was the skaters' anthem.

There was this skate obsession
in the United States in '79, '80

where it was like, "I'm gonna roller-skate."

A good song to roller-skate,
it should feel like the floor to your skate.

It should be the foundation
for all of that flowing.

Rock With You seemed like
there was symbolism behind the video.

They had, like, the halo around the angels.

The shiny suit, I mean,
he made that look cool.

I can never pull that off, but...

I can listen to Rock With You,

and know where I was
the first time I heard it, at Pegasus.

When that song came on,
people just stopped in the club.

They just froze.

You know, and then slowly,
one by one, they got on the dance floor.

It's up-tempo, but it's smooth.

That's fast. That's fast.

It's hard to make up-tempo music.

When you can dance,
be emotional at the same time.

Most people just get into a groove,
so you don't...

Most of the times you don't get
that much of a real song.

So they don't stand up
as well as a good storytelling ballad.

Through the years you want stuff that's
gonna have legs, that's gonna hold on,

and his up-tempo really does hold on

because he really crafted a real song
on top of a great groove.

I loop that breathing exercise on
Workin' Day and Night,

I loop that for at least a minute
before I let that song go.

I just hold people at bay, like,
I'm holding back, like, 1 2 pit bulls.

You know what's going... Get 'em!

I'm embarrassed to even say this,
but I used to dance by myself.

To that song.

You could tell where he was rhythmically
just by the ones he was writing.

Really catchy, rhythmic dance songs.

Michael's reference is certainly
American R&B and soul and funk.

But I also hear Africa in there.

And you have to also remember
the Jackson 5 toured Africa in the '70s.

Everybody!

It's crazy, the line.

That was just the high-water mark
of horn lines, to me.

There's all these instrumental stretches
and breaks in these songs

that give the musicians some shine, too.

-David had this... David Williams...
-Certain sound.

Had this certain sound that bites.
He picked... He hit 'em so hard.

Okay, David! You got it!

Sometimes he'd take it upon himself
to bring the rhythm he wanted

and that really influenced me.

He always had an idea of what he wanted
every instrument to sound like.

And that's how he recorded.

You came in the studio
and he told the guitar player...

-He would sing the part?
-He would sing every part.

He didn't play it, but he can sing it.

And if you didn't play it like he sang it,

he would sing it
till you played it like he sang it.

Goddamnit.

I'm never satisfied.

I'll cut a track, and go back and back, and,

"Darn it! I should've done this!
I should've..."

It's number one on the charts, you're still
screaming about what you should've done.

It's evident when you see somebody's work.

You can see the details,
and if they actually, truly love what they do,

if they really do pay attention to the craft.

Perfection was the name of the game.

It was about the content of what you do,
the quality, the heart, the soul, the love.

I think this generation has just become...
The perception's become skewed.

The love for the craft becomes secondary
to the love of fame and notoriety.

My generation, the Jordan generation,

Bird, Magic, you know, Michael Jackson,

they focused on what they loved to do.

One of the hidden gems is Get On the Floor,

which was co-penned
by Louis Johnson from Brothers Johnson,

and co-written with Michael.

I don't know if everybody knows this,
but you're also a composer.

One of my favorites was Michael Jackson's
Get On the Floor and Dance.

Originally, that song was created
by the bass, I just had that groove.

There were teens in the playgrounds.

And you know, like, I'm dating myself, okay.

But, you know,
you would bring the little radio,

or sometimes, if you were really tacky, you
would bring the little portable record player,

plop it down in the park, drop the needle,

"Heck, yeah."

If you were dancing to that song,

more than likely you were
going home with somebody.

Because that's not a song
you dance on your own to, you know.

You don't dance
to Get On The Floor by yourself.

Off the Wall is a DJ's dream.

The A-side seems to have been
tailor-made for the dance floor.

You basically have five songs,

the first four songs on side one,

and the first song on side two, Off the Wall.

My favorite record on Off the Wall...

I like Off the Wall,
that's one of my favorite records.

I took a chance with a composer,
I had loved his work for a long time.

And I could never figure out how
he could be from Grimsby, England,

living in Worms, Germany, and
understand Ain't No Half Steppin'

and, you know, all of those
different terms that he was writing.

It was just incredible talent.

He ended up in Germany
and being turned onto soul music

by a bunch of the black army people
that were there.

-Black American soldiers?
-Black American soldiers.

And going, "Wow, this is a lot more
interesting than what I'm doing,

"and girls come to these shows."

ln early Heatwave, you can hear those
influences in songs he wrote for Michael.

I mean, it's just a natural progression.

And we recorded Burn This Disco Out,
Off the Wall and Rock With You.

Rod Temperton did good.

Off the Wall is an example of him bringing
that slightly proggy-fusion aspect to it.

It's a really unconventional start
for a disco record,

especially, like, the title track of an album.

It starts on the off-beat, it starts on the two,

it has that weird vocal thing
in the background, it's totally proggy.

That intro with that kind of ghoulish voices,

you start to hear that again, of course,
on Thriller, with Vincent Price.

Girlfriend was a song on
the London Town album by Paul McCartney.

"girlfriend, i'm gonna tell your boyfriend."
i love it!

I felt like Michael was singing
to me on that one, I did.

If we go out together,
and a bunch of girls start following me,

let's hear what you'd say to them
to make them go away.

Get away from him. He's mine, not yours.

Same question, number two.

Yo, listen, okay? Michael Jackson is mine.

Some of the songs that I sing,
my favorite is ballads.

I kinda listen to the words,
and it's really relating something.

I wrote She's Out of My Life

as a result of being very much in love
with a wonderful young woman.

You ever get so upset that
you're speaking to yourself out loud?

Well, I was. I was in the car
on the Pasadena Freeway, and I'm saying,

"Man, she was there for you,
she loved you, she wanted to marry you.

"You're the one who said no.
Face it, she's out of your life."

Saturday morning,
the phone rings and it's Q,

and he says, "Hey, man, you been writing?"

And I played the song, and it's ringing out,
and he said, "Play it again."

I played it again.
Played it eight times in a row.

And at the end of it, he said,
"What're you gonna do with it?"

And I said, "Well, I made a deal
with Snuffy yesterday.

"He's gonna do it with Sinatra."

And he says this Q-ism,
"Sinatra will do it anyway."

And I said, "Okay, Q, who do you wanna
do it with?" He said, "I haven't got a clue."

Then he said, "Man, if you'll trust me,

"I promise you

"an unforgettable recording of this song."

And we sat on it for almost two years, Spike.

To write a great ballad, first of all, lyrically,
the content has to connect.

And, to me, part of
what makes a song connect

is that it's personal, but it's also universal.

Michael Jackson, yes, he's
a great entertainer, he was a great dancer,

but he was also a great singer.
Not a good singer, but a great singer.

I liked his performance
on She's Out of My Life.

It was really emotional.

The quality of Michael's voice
was so incredibly pure.

I cried every time that he
performed She's Out of My Life,

and he would cry, too.

Everyone relates She's Out of My Life
to Eddie Murphy, right?

Anyone who was growing up in the '80s,
we saw Delirious first.

That's Michael's hook, his sensitivity.

That's when women be saying,
"Michael's just so sensitive."

And they eat that shit up.
Mike knows. He be using women.

ln concerts, I seen Mike walk up to girls,
they'd be in the audience, and say...

Can I come down there?

And women go...

Then, if you don't scream, Michael get
real sensitive and cry on your ass.

Ever hear that record,
She's Out of My Life? Michael goes...

Tito, give me some tissue.

And I had an opportunity to listen
to the stems,

where he was trying different takes.

And he actually apologizes
for messing the song up.

I'm sorry, I messed it up.

It was amazing, 'cause
every time he sang it, he cried,

and I was trying to figure out
what relationship he had, you know,

that he could identify with that song.

He did it two or three times.

I said, "That's the way it's supposed to be,"
and just let it stay in there.

A lesser producer would've
milked it for all its worth,

would've milked all that drama
for all its worth.

Trust me, if Puffy would've produced
She's Out of My Life,

Puffy would've had the whole...

He would've had Kleenex,
like, sponsor the tour.

You had people talking about,
"Well, what was he crying about?

"Who was he talking about?
ls he talking about Brooke Shields?

"What girl is he talking about?
ls he still talking about Ben, that rat?"

We'd seen him out publicly
with Stephanie Mills,

we'd seen him out with Tatum O'Neal,

with Maureen McCormick
from The Brady Bunch.

Girls would get together and like,
"I wonder who he's talking about."

You know what I mean?

And you would look at the
Tiger Beat magazine

to look for the gossip and everything.

"Who made Michael cry?"
That's how we took it.

Not that I made Michael cry,
'cause I would never make Michael cry.

She's Out of My Life is, in my opinion,

one of the two songs on Off the Wall
that there's nothing on Thriller that tops it.

Quiet storm was huge in the 1970s,

which was a kind of
radio format of black music

that celebrated intimacy and sensuality,
and ambient softness and quiet, too.

I Can't Help It was really
the quiet storm demographic, right.

It was really the kind of late-night,
boudoir romance thing.

It's the first time that you really hear
Michael, to me, sounding like an adult,

and sounding outside
of his R&B thing, it's jazzy.

Susaye Greene had started working on it.

She was in The Supremes,
but also sung with Stevie.

It could've fit on
Songs ln the Key of Life, really.

That was supposed to be one of the songs
on Songs ln the Key of Life.

See, I didn't know that.

He had the...

The hook.

I think she wrote a lot of the lyric

when we actually were in the studio
messing around with it.

That's right.

I Can't Help It is my favorite.
Stevie overdid it with that song.

The nature of the chords are very nocturnal.

You know, it doesn't sound
like a sunny day to me.

It sounds like, you know,
beautiful paradise evening, you know.

Somewhere untainted
by the humans, you know.

Mystical world, you know,
unicorns walking past and shit.

My sister, Renee, had been
hearing me play this cassette.

She and Michael were friends,
and she took it over.

Then Michael, he heard it
and I think it was great that he did it.

I mean, really, he did an incredible job.

The melodies are very seductive.

They carry some of those
signature Stevie lines,

but also there's signature Stevie chords.

I really believed in the album.

First of all, I believed in Michael Jackson.

Stevie Wonder, I love Stevie Wonder.

Being with Stevie Wonder,
being in his sessions,

just sitting in and learning
just was incredible.

You could put on I Can't Help It right now

and I'd still find something that I haven't
heard or it will remind me of something,

or the warmth of the bass line
would just kind of wash over you.

It's just like...
You don't get sick of that music.

I did a record, back in 1977.

We did It's The Falling ln Love,
we co-wrote it together.

-And I know you played on it.
-Yeah.

-I think my record served as a nice demo.
-Demo.

Patti Austin was a singer
in the Quincy Jones arsenal.

The very first time that I heard Patti Austin's
voice was It's The Falling ln Love.

The thing that really steeps a record
in its era and that could make it sound dated

is relying heavily on
very specific technology of the time.

And in the '80s,
it was very much about gated reverbs,

and in the late '70s, you had
these big, massive disco claps.

This album was, perhaps,
maybe one false step away

from being a very dated disco record.

It didn't have any of those
tricks or gimmicks.

Even though it was immaculately arranged,
and all the percussive parts,

and all the way the parts worked together,

there's nothing other than a bunch of dudes
playing the shit out of a song in a room.

That will never date.

ln a lot of ways, Off the Wall is probably
the culmination of classic disco.

It came out in August 1979,

the "Disco Sucks" movement started
just a month before, in July,

when a shock DJ, Steve Dahl, in Chicago,
gathered a lot of people together

at Comiskey Park in Chicago
to burn disco records

which is a really, I think, implicitly racist
and kind of homophobic movement.

People wanted to shift
the dial of popular music

back to where they felt comfortable,

which was not black, not gay, not Latino.

Burn This Disco Out actually
might've been an apt title

because it was coming literally
at the end of the disco era.

Just at the edge of being a disco record,
but moving the genre forward.

Far from one of the disco factory music
that was just churning out factory beats.

You can feel that kind of visceral energy.

I mean, Off the Wall really is
like lightning in a bottle.

I mean, you really capture Michael Jackson
at 20 years old

with all of that excitement
and energy and passion.

That still really
comes through on that record.

This is the very last 8-track
that my parents brought me

before I stopped buying 8-tracks.

I remember Off the Wall coming out
second week ofAugust in 1979.

Departure album is sort of an album
that is in a person's canon in their career,

of which they make a 1 80 turn
from what they were known from.

He was no longer the teenybopper act,

he was no longer the socially shy,
awkward, maladjusted guy with acne.

He was suddenly exuberant, confident.

You look at the album cover of Off the Wall,
it's like his prom picture.

He's in a suit and tie in the kind of
Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis mold.

Now, he's this free-wheeling playboy

that you can imagine
out on the streets of New York.

Again, life-changing.

I think sophisticated, I think glamour,
I think provocateur,

I think everything that I wanted to be.

Yeah, I'm interested in promotion.

I wanna do things
that's never been done before.

If it weren't for promotion,
who would know about the Jackson 5?

Who would know that we exist?

I wouldn't be able to translate my music
to different countries,

Africa, Japan, New Zealand, Scotland,
all the way to Australia.

The universal core in music, I think,
transcends even what a crossover's about.

We view a crossover as being,
you know, black and white markets,

which we've been faced with for years,

but I think Michael's thing went
even past that, you know.

You get into Argentina and lsrael and Spain
and Scandinavia and Australia.

I tell people fashion and music
is a universal language.

Wherever you go, you're gonna hear
the same songs in certain countries.

And when people
come together for those songs,

they're all happy, they're all at peace.

'Cause a lot of people wouldn't even
speak English, when we traveled the globe,

but they know the song, they know the
music and they learned the lyrics somehow.

And that's just so wonderful

how you can bring people together
just through your music.

Michael Jackson can come out on stage
and not say anything,

and you know that he cared.

Hundred thousand people in an Olympic
stadium feel that he's right there for them.

Everyone thinks, you know, like they've had
such a personal connection with him,

but that's how great he was.

He made you feel like that.

Michael just inspired me
to be a better person.

I actually do believe that the blessing
that the Lord gave this family,

the musical blessing,

the true mission behind all of that, I believe,

is to unify the world together
through your music as one.

And it's about changing the world
for a better place for our kids to grow up in.

He had seen what had happened

to artists like James Brown,
Little Richard, Jackie Wilson.

Sometimes, the industry
wasn't fair to black artists.

I remember fighting in the meeting,
you know, like,

"How come Michael's not
on the cover of People magazine?"

"How come he's not on the cover of Us?"

Pop radio stations didn't want to play
Off the Wall in the beginning.

Publicity lady would tell me,

"Well, if a black person is put on the cover
of these magazines, they won't sell."

Michael Jackson is a viable artist
all by himself,

and if they gave him the opportunity,
he could win the radio stations over.

And he did.

'Cause he just made us feel like

where we are is where we always were,
and we weren't.

There are kids that were born
when Obama was in office.

So, they don't understand a world
where there was a white president.

They don't even know what that feels like.

I didn't know what it felt like
to not have black pop artists

because he made us feel and believe
that that was just a norm.

He took black music to a place
where it became human music.

Music has no color,
and it shouldn't have color.

And I don't believe in that.

What I do, I don't want it
labelled black or white.

I want it labelled as music.

It was a simpler time,
and radio had everything to do with it.

Hey, let's go out with some up-tempo first,
get ourselves positioned,

bang, and we'll come in with that ballad,

and, you know, you go gold,
you go platinum.

Four singles in the top 1 0 and Billboard,

not counting it being number one
on R&B radio stations.

It had never been done before.

Some people looked at it as a disco album,
which in retrospect is kind of foolish,

because it's one of the most
creatively influential albums in history.

You look back at the awards
for Off the Wall, they're R&B awards.

The music industry was still
very segregated at the time.

And Michael was only nominated
for R&B awards and he won.

He thought it wasn't fair.
He thought they snubbed him, it wasn't fair.

He came and he told me, "Mother, next year,
they're gonna have to give it to me."

-And that was Thriller?
-That's right.

Off the Wall really kind of
set the blueprint for R&B,

and I think most artists today
acknowledge that.

It's hard to come up with something
fresh and new all the time.

They go back and they say,
"What was great?

"What was done that was just great?"

And they find themselves
listening to Off the Wall,

and then they take a little piece
and they say,

"See how he did this? We gotta do that.

"See how he made that sound?
We gotta do that."

I do that, so, I know.

That album, you hear it in music all the time.

Pharrell to Justin Timberlake.

My music would not be here
if it weren't for his influence,

Off the Wall and the next album
after that as well.

Like, I wouldn't have music.

I don't think there's any way there's any
other record that I played more music from,

like, in the course of 20 years of DJing.

Ten to 1 5,000 times, like, I have
released the vinyl on those songs.

Off the Wall is the album
I still play to this day.

It's the album that I put on when I want to
teach my daughter how to dance.

It was soul music's epoch of magic realism.

And when I say magic realism,
I mean it was transformative.

It takes you someplace else.

It's so rich, musically, the arrangements,
the singing, the background vocals.

Michael taught me melody is king.

He was like, "Babies don't sing lyrics,
they hum melody."

A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

They may not know
all the letters in the alphabet,

but they know that melody to that song.

That was the way I saw music.
I always saw music as these little portals.

It was like, you listen to a song, okay,
it's gonna take you into this land every time.

ln its first year alone, that album
sold over six million copies.

It's been overshadowed
because of the Thriller album.

There would be no Thriller without
Off the Wall. Everybody knows that.

When he went in the studio
to make Thriller, he was intent,

actually intent on making
the biggest album in history.

And the amazing thing
is that he actually did.

Whatever your top game was, you going

on top of that one. That was his gift.

You're dealing with a true artist
devoted to the art,

and everything else is secondary.

I think it's very easy for people to get
sidetracked and talk about his complexion,

they don't focus on what this man was,
and how he was that.

And how you can learn from that.

You approach things
the way he approached music

and you will be phenomenal.

And the idea of being separated
from your brothers, does that hurt?

No, it doesn't.

It...

There's other kinds of sounds and music
that I love to do.

It hurts what is inside of me
and it can't get out,

and it's hidden from the world.

When I do those solo albums,
then I'm doing all kinds of different music.

It's wonderful. I feel like I'm
accomplishing what I'm supposed to do.

And you don't feel guilty or worried
about your brothers?

No, 'cause they understand.

Why hide it? Share it.

Off the Wall will live forever.

That was 1979, but this is just
the beginning for that record.

It's just the beginning that...

New people will explore and discover it
today and tomorrow,

and it'd be something new to them
today and tomorrow.

It's just the beginning.

He transcended sexual barriers,
racial barriers.

He brought everybody in with everybody,

old people, young people, gay, straight.

I mean, wherever you went,
there was a smile.

But the beauty of his artistry
and what he has left us, with so much joy,

and so much thankfulness,

for all that he had given to me...

You know, given to everybody, but I'm
just gonna be selfish here for a moment,

what he gave to me,
and I'm glad that I found that joy again.

And I think that, in that way,
his spirit is still with me.

He surpassed what I ever expected of him.

I expected a great deal of him,
and he surpassed that.

There's an element of God that's in people.

Some people, God laid his hand on longer,
and held it there.

Secretly and privately,

I mean, really deep within, there's a destiny.

And just for me to stay on that track
and follow it.

I really believe and feel I'm here for a reason.

And that's my job, you know,
to perform for the people.

And if they accept it, then I'm rewarded,

they want to put me up on that pedestal,
I feel even better.

Do you ever wanna stop?

No. Don't stop till you get enough.

You haven't had enough?

No way! No way.

Man! Brooklyn.

This feels so good.
Brooklyn! We love you, Michael, yes?