Thursday, November 16, 2017

When I woke up this morning and started scrolling through my phone before I got out of bed, I noticed a picture from Questlove's Instagram page. Apparently he went to the Janet Jackson concert in Brooklyn last night, and in addition to meeting and speaking with Janet, he got a chance to speak with Randy Jackson--someone he credits with inspiring him to drum:

Dude. Randy Jackson is the PRIME reason I chose the drums. All of @TheJacksons were superheroes but Randy was one of the first drummers/percussionist I’ve ever SEEN on tv. So watching a kid drum on tv w his magic brothers was like ***mind blowing***—-(actually i got in trouble once for trying to remove the legs from my father’s keyboard player’s #Wurlitzer trying to play it like a keytar just like Randy did during the #Destiny album period) Like I was mid convo w his sister and then **whoooosh** I vanished like *snap* (“jan, uh I love talking to you but your brother is the only Jackson I haven’t met and HE started me being drummer so I’m out!”) he gave my Jacksons 78-80 logo shirt props. This was without a doubt the best day EVER. Janet was pulling the deep cuts out the woodwork (@flytetymejam you didn’t tell a mug bout #TwentyForeplay!) definitely a must for the die hards (well, nothing from 1st two albums #DontMessUpThisGoodThing is too awesome to toss aside, that song STILL is a miracle in the clubs—-but zero complaints here. This is THE MOST hype I’ve seen a crowd at a concert dancing like no one is watching since—-well...Prince) & meeting Randy (@randyjackson8 NOT @randyjackson dog) was just the ultimate. #StateOfTheWorldTour

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Questlove did what Questlove does and told a long story of how Randy Jackson touched his life, and it was a damn good read. But it also made me think of my own personal Randy Jackson story. No I never met him in person or talked to him on the phone, but I do have a funny (at least to me) story to tell.

Back on September 7, 2001, there was big concert at Madison Square Garden, and it was a tribute to Michael Jackson and his 30 years as a solo artist. Usher, N'Sync, Chris Tucker, Beyonce, Muhammad Ali, Bobby Brown, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael's brothers and sisters and countless others were in the audience. Michael himself was there as well..but barely. After he died eight years later, in one of the many documentaries chronicling his struggle with prescription drugs, we learned that MJ was basically in a drug-induced haze the entire show--in fact he had to be awakened out of that haze in his hotel room and reminded that he had to show to do. It is amazing that he was able to summon an above-average show out of that haze, but it is sad that as far back as 2001, prescription drugs were wreaking havoc on his life on and off the stage.

Anyway, towards the end of the show, Jermaine, Jackie, Marlon, Tito and Randy joined MJ on stage so they could breeze (and I do mean breeze) through a medley of their hits. I'd argue that outside of seeing MJ peform "Billie Jean" the crowd had specifically gathered to see MJ and his brothers get down, and get down they did. They did "Love You Save", "I Want You Back", "Dancing Machine", "Shake Your Body Down to the Ground" and others. But my favorite of the night, which happens to involve and incident between Randy and MJ, was "ABC".

About 20 seconds into the song, everyone starts singing the chorus, and right afterwards, Randy starts singing, "You Down with OPP?" which is the Naughty By Nature song that sampled "ABC" (sorry for insulting your collective intelligence). If you know anything about MJ, you know that he is a control freak and perfectionist, and I'm sure he did not appreciate Randy sullying the reputation of the Jacksons and that quality song by bringing up a song in "OPP" which basically about doing the nasty with someone who is not yours. The camera doesn't show MJ's reaction the first time Randy says it, but 26 seconds into the song, the camera shows MJ staring at Randy, just daring him to say it a second time.

Sure enough, Randy does that dumb shit again, and this time MJ--who rarely breaks character or shows anger on or off stage--literally walks directly towards Randy with bad intentions, and Randy has to push MJ away, but not before MJ threw him a few more death stares. Five seconds later they transitioned to another song, so there was no residual anger, but man was it fun to see MJ uncut so to speak.

My story isn't as good as Questlove's but I still like it. Here's the video:

1 comment:

Jazzbrew said...

That was pure gold. I had never seen that before.