Ok, nobody has gone that far yet. But can we please drop this ridiculous fiction that Michael Jackson was the first Black artist on MTV. Somehow in all of these tributes and hastily produced retrospectives, The King of Pop is being hailed as the Jackie Robinson of the music video era. WRONG.
Its bad enough that the media is doing it (MSNBC, Wolf Blitzer, etc). But to have artists like WIll.i.am repeating this drivel is insane. This is what USA Today printed in its Jackson obituary:
Will.i.am, who this year produced three remixes on the celebratory reissue Thriller 25, explained: “It was the first time a black dude was on MTV. It was the first time you saw things that were happening in the ghettos and kids in the suburbs were copying it. It was like Broadway fused with street performance and his wardrobe was fly. He made it possible to be yourself and be free and just do you.”
Bestselling album of all time
Was Michael Jackson a huge crossover artist? YES. Did he practically reinvent the music video and give us linear storytelling as opposed to rehashed concert footage and avant garde film school douchebag footage? YES. But stop repeating the lie… Jackson was not the first Black person on MTV.
Jet magazine pointed out before the landmark Billie Jean video hit MTV’s airwaves in March 2003:
Eddy Grant, Musical Youth and Joan Armatrading were some of the Black artists from that country (United Kingdom) whose videos were shown during MTV’s inception. Tina Turner, Jon Butcher Axis, The Bus Boys and Donna Summer were some of the other Black artists whose videos were shown because their music fit the format.
And then there was that guy from Minneapolis who played the bad boy Mick Jagger to Jackson’s squeaky clean Paul McCartney– Prince. He had “rock” videos on MTV. Take a look at MTV’s own Yearbook from 1982 it features Prince! Everybody knows Little Red Corvette, 1999, etc. Look further down the page… the Pointer Sisters were on MTV before Michael Jackson!
Last I checked Prince and Pointer Sister were Black
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THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS!!
I agree Michael Jackson was world famous and did produce a number of top selling albums/songs, but HE WAS NOT A HERO and he didnt fight to have MTV play music by black artists by any means!!
Well said,
well written,
well researched!
I love this story,
I hope it is OK,
I put your story with
your headline, name,
and website address
on the front page of 22moon.com
today so more people
can learn the facts.
THANK YOU
for writing that story,
and doing it so very well!
Rash Manly
22moon.com
I appreciate the kind words.
Thanks for the facetime on your site and thanks for spreading the word.
-Geppetto
Thanks for posting the article. I’m black and i’ve watch and still watch the early days of mtv since i was a baby. I knew that michael jackson wasn’t the first black artist on the channel. Let’s go back to the first two years. On the channel’s first day, they did a profile on gary us bonds. And the videos, let’s see you have phil lynott of thin lizzy (yellow pearl), tina turner (ball of confusion), the bus boys (american worker) and of course prince(1999). However, michael was the first to use the musical movie numbers into mtv and music videos.
Thank you so much for writing this. I have been trying to point this out for so long, but no one ever believes me when I say Michael Jackson was not the first black artist on MTV.
Prince was b4 mj and that´s the fact….tnx