Interview With Jospeh Jackson
Sunday, November 12th, 2006Michael’s father, Joseph Jackson (77), gave an interview in Singapore last Friday. He was interviewed by The New Paper from his Hyatt Hotel suite, looking exhausted after arriving from Las Vegas. Joseph Jackson is in the country to launch the Hip-Hop Boot Camp, a singing competition-cum-reality TV series which aims to unearth the world’s next hip-hop wunderkind.
Asked whether he would ever want to manage his own children again he replied candidly:
‘No way. Not unless they listen.
When they get to a certain age, they get these big ideas, and they don’t know the people that surround them are not the friends they thought they were until five years down the road.
That’s the lesson you pay for and you’re learning, and that’s a very, very, very expensive lesson,’ Jackson said, alluding to the countless public lawsuits and private settlements that have plagued his troubled clan.
Yet, Jackson didn’t lose his cool when asked about Michael’s child molestation charges, of which he was acquitted in a US court.
‘I spoke to him a month ago. He’s okay, he’s strong like me.’
Asked whether the effects of the trial are still being felt by the family he replied:
‘It was a little bit bothersome to see Michael up there being accused of something that he didn’t do, and knowing he didn’t do it because as parents, we believed in him and knew it.
When you’re successful, people come along and try to take advantage of that, use some type of scheme to get money. It put him at a standstill for a reason - to regroup.
Now that he has found what he wants to do from now on and the countries he wants to work in, I think he’s turning himself around to do what he knows best.
He doesn’t want to go back (to the US) too quickly. He gets more recognition from other countries all over the world than America.
People try to bring a superstar down, but he has too many loyal fans all over the world, and I appreciate them for sticking by him through all these hard times.’
Michael recently announced that he’s collaborating with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am for his next album, which is due for release next year. What are Joseph Jackson’s thoughts on his son branching out into hip-hop, the multi-billion-dollar industry ?
‘I don’t have any problem with it - as long as he can take it to the bank!’ he said laughingly.
However, Joseph Jackson wasn’t as pleased about the disappointing sales of daughter Janet’s latest album ‘20 Y.O’.
‘Well, what I would’ve liked to have seen, is that when you’re working with great star producers and doing great things with those producers, you don’t change up.
She did change up and you see what’s happening now. I’m thinking her album would’ve been better if she had stuck with those producers.’
But right now, Jackson is saving his tips for his new proteges from the Hip-Hop Boot Camp project, which is scheduled to start in the US in March. The show will also have an Asian spin-off, as hip-hop talents from Singapore and Malaysia can audition from January onwards for a chance to train under hip-hop experts in New York City. It has been mooted that the top 12 contestants from both countries return to Singapore and compete on TV, Singapore Idol-style, for a recording contract. Jackson and his business associates are currently promoting the concept to MediaCorp.
A boot camp presided over by Joseph Jackson, who has a reputation for dishing out tough love, might sound scary to some - but Mr. Jackson protests:
‘Now, why do they give that (label) to me? I don’t know why they put me in that character. No, it’s not scary. It’s like a learning process you have to go through to make it big in the entertainment field.
No, I’m no slave-driver - I’m a driver,’ he said, chuckling at his own joke. ‘Anyway, we call that ‘grooming’ now.’
Source: The New Paper
