It’s hard to fathom that this June will mark five years since the 2009 death of Michael Jackson. But the fact that people won’t let this man rest in peace is what really boggles the mind. The King of Pop’s name has been in the news again for the past week and for all the wrong reasons.
Like a bad soap opera, there was a claim from a third party that soul/jazz singer Miki Howard’s son Brandon Howard (known professionally as B. Howard) was fathered by Michael Jackson with DNA evidence to prove it so. When the DNA evidence was announced and paraded online, it turned out to be as real as Monopoly money. TMZ actually relished in debunking the claim, and B. Howard himself even stepped forward to deny that he had anything to do with this DNA dust up.
That didn’t stop the Internet’s band of social comedians from dragging around B. and Miki, and to a lesser extent Michael, on Twitter and Facebook. When word spread like wildfire that Miki used to be nicknamed “Billy,” Michael’s hit song “Billie Jean” and the lyric “the kid is not my son” all of a sudden took on new meaning with people delving deeper into his music for Da Vinci Code like clues.
Ironically the same day that all this was popping off, super producer Timbaland chose to post a snippet of a “new” song by Jackson to his "Timbaland Thursdays" on SoundCloud. The song, entitled “Slave to the Rhythm,” was an unreleased track from Jackson’s vault that will apparently find a home on a posthumous Michael Jackson album that Timbo is releasing. The song has since been taken down from SoundCloud, but what exists of it (which isn’t much) can also be heard in this new Sony Xperia commercial.
Unearthing these unheard treasures is all fine and dandy, but seriously, can we all just stop the Michael Jackson madness, right now? The man has been Moonwalking in his grave since he was laid to rest. At what point does our admiration of his (or any) celebrity turn into an unhealthy and macabre obsession? We want to hold on. That's understandable. Michael gave us so much material to cherish throughout his life and career. But when it comes to bombshell revelations that are about as lethal as a BB gun, or vocals pulled from the recycling bin, it just might be time to let it go. Yes, King Michael is worthy of canonization, but let’s not cannibalize his legacy for our own selfish reasons.
