Greetings,today is 12 years ago when my virtual ‘Big Boy’ brother Michael Jackson went into his deepest sleep. The truth be known, MJ was my first iconic influence aged 8 years old and I wanted to be like him. Yes even back then although I was a happy child I felt that being black had some negative connotations. The first record I ever bought out of my pocket money in 1973 was ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’. I never heard Bill Wither’s original till a few years later. My first slow dance at our Perivale Jnrs/Middle School disco circa 1973 was to MJ’s ‘Ben’. I had a T Shirt with his image on, watched The J5 cartoon on TV and later circa 1979 rocked his Afro hairstyle. I remember going to an Ealing Green High School trip to France in the same year and in the hostel that we stayed in, they had a juke box. Now between us young black soul rebels we pumped that Spotify playlist of it’s time full of French franc coins to hear ‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’ on repeat as that was the best we was gonna get. I remember in 1983 deliberately missing my regular Friday night fling foot session at Electric Ballroom’s Double Disco to stay at home and watch the unveiling of the Thriller movie short video being shown around 1am on TV. Fast forward like a TDK C90 tape to 1994 my son Jamal is one years old and he is mesmerised by MJ studying his videos so intensely, that he would assume position and anticipate the moves before MJ executed them. Jamal’s first dancing experience on stage was aged 4 when he lived in Portugal and an MJ impersonator Billy Proud would ask Jamal to come out of the audience to dance with him. Jamal went on to become a dancer flinging foot light years ahead and with more eloquence than his pops did in my era. So I guess you can say MJ had a profound affect on me and my mini me. For me aged 8 seeing someone in my own African Diaspora image handsome, cute, singing, dancing and having his own black TV cartoon show, that was inspiring. So yes I did shed tears watching TV 25th June 2009 the night he passed.. not gonna lie. For me MJ was as smooth as his moonwalk and 2nd to his main mentor JB was the ultimate singing ‘Dancin’ Machine’. Needless to say I will be doing a 2 hour MJ influenced show on www.oursalsasoul.com this Sunday 8pm-11pm. MJ thank you for your ‘Music & Me’ legacy 🙏🏿♥