On the night of November 14, 1991, 500 million people scattered across 27 nations simultaneously watched Michael Jackson grab his crotch 17 times. He simulated masturbation, shattered car windows with crowbars, and unleashed the primal screams expected from a man who owned publishing rights to the Beatles catalogue. Then he turned into a black panther. The video ends with Bart Simpson striking a B-Boy pose in a Michael Jackson shirt, and ordering Homer to “chill out, homeboy.” It shattered all previous viewing records on Fox.
The $4 million, 11-minute unedited telecast of “Black or White” ranks among the Smithsonian-worthy artifacts of ’90s pop monoculture—up there with Nirvana trashing their instruments at the ’92 VMAs, the premiere of “Summertime” after The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Hillary Clinton hitting the Macarena at the ’96 DNC. No one ever had more juice than Jackson did at the time, and it’s difficult to imagine that anyone ever will again.
This was right around the time when they named him an official king of the Ivory Coast. In Gabon, 100,000 greeted him with signs reading “Welcome Home, Michael.” His universal popularity was on par with pizza and the polio vaccine. Safe enough to be Captain EO at Disneyland, hood-certified enough to throw up the set with the Crips.
The 33-year-old had recently signed the most lucrative contract in recording history, worth hundreds of millions, giving him his own label and the highest royalty rate in the industry. What’s more, no one thought it was out of line for someone who had sold close to 70 million records in the previous decade. In the press, Sony claimed the deal would reap them billions.
So when he released the first single from Dangerous, his first album in four years, fanatical interest led MTV, VH1, BET, and Fox to televise it at the same time—offering the greatest strategic victory since the Berlin Wall tumbled two years prior. And even though Jackson technically didn’t cause the collapse of East German Communism, his star wattage was so supreme that the Stasi secret police spied on him during his 1988 Berlin concert, fearing that obsessive MJ fans would accomplish what Reagan couldn’t.
With “Black or White,” Jackson lashed out at his public perception. In the interim since 1987’s Bad, he’d grappled with both outlandish rumors (buying the Elephant Man’s bones, sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber) and some that drew blood (allegations of bleaching his skin). The innocent popcorn-eating Michael of Thriller was gone, but calling him “Wacko Jacko” was slander. He wanted us to know he was a man, an eccentric sure, but an adult with deeply rooted beliefs.
Released only five months before the LA Riots, the Rodney King beating and murder of Latasha Harlins almost certainly factored into Jackson’s increasingly political slant. “Black or White” articulated a utopian vision of a post-racial future while acknowledging the sins of contemporary bigotry. He demands equality, shouting that he “ain’t second to none.” He growls, “I ain’t scared of no sheets” (presumably Klansmen). Its hook offers his dream of a color-blind society, echoing Martin Luther King.
But this was Michael Jackson, not O’ Shea. Being King of Pop meant the need for mass appeal. The “Black or White” video exists as a microcosm of Dangerous itself. It potently affirms Jackson’s manhood, offers passionate screeds against racial strife, gang violence, and a parasitic American media. This is the album as multi-media spectacle, a precursor to Lemonade, with accusations of infidelity substituted for videos of Macaulay Culkin doing air guitar windmills to a Slash guitar solo and lip sync rapping about turf wars.
The lone #1 single from the 32-million selling Dangerous, “Black or White” spent seven weeks atop the Billboard charts. Directed by John Landis (“Thriller,” National Lampoon’s Animal House) the first quarter of its video reveals Jackson’s mischievous child-like streak, with Culkin towing out Spinal Tap-sized speakers, amplifying the volume to “ARE YOU NUTS!?!,” and shredding so hard that George Wendt gets ejected into the stratosphere screaming “Da Bears.”
It blends into his idealistic visionary side that wanted to heal the world through philanthropy and moonwalking. There is pop locking with Balinese dancers, rain dances with Native Americans, folk dances in front of the Kremlin, and the serenade of a Hindu goddess on a freeway. This is the magical Michael Jackson of our early memories—the man with the graceful dance moves and lithe falsetto that seemed celestially ordained (masking a notoriously intense perfectionist streak). Faces of all races harmoniously morph into one another, the most cutting edge FX that 1991 had to offer.
In the third section, boy becomes man: Jackson struts through a wall of flames, Henley shirt open, screaming at his enemies like a mad king. It gives way to Culkin rapping in shades and oversized gold chains, which is just as well considering that this is the man who actually spit the bars. Jackson’s embrace of hip-hop not only aligned him with the popular sound of black (and white) youth culture, it adds an aggressive masculinity unseen in his catalogue, and ultimately paved the way for the late period Biggie therapy session.
Of course, in the final section, Jackson turns into a black panther. You understand that meaning. So did millions of parents in Tipper Gore America, who flooded Fox and its local affiliates with phone calls, forcing Jackson’s team to re-cut and sanitize the video.
A quarter century later, it seems absurd that Michael Jackson smashing a few windows before turning into a Jungle Book character could be cause for mass protest, but you have to remember how adored and family-friendly Michael Jackson was. My parents only owned two records: Thriller and *Bad. *So until I was 9 years old, I listened to those two almost every single day of my life, and honestly I didn’t really need anything else. Michael Jackson was my entire conception of music. Millions more could say the same thing.
So when he dropped “Black or White,” it was shocking. If he was previously pop’s Peter Pan figure, Jackson had suddenly adopted a more carnal streak, but even here it was cartoonish. If the adult world looked dull and stifling, Jackson’s imagination offered a hope that it was possible not to wind up like George Wendt, bloated on a couch with a bored housewife. You could hang out with Macaulay Culkin, dance on top of the Statue of Liberty, and if all else failed, you could transform into a panther and bounce.
Imagine being Teddy Riley in 1991. You’ve gone from humble origins in Harlem to inventing New Jack Swing; you've produced multiple hits for your own band Guy, Bobby Brown, and Keith Sweat (“I Want Her”). Then late one night, you get a phone call from Michael Jackson telling you that he needs you to produce his new album—in effect making you the new Quincy Jones. All before your 24th birthday.
Before Riley headed west, Jackson had labored on* Dangerous* for over a year to varying degrees of success. Something always seemed off. Bad might have been the last album before hip-hop became the de facto soundtrack of urban culture. 1988 changed everything. Public Enemy, Rakim, and Big Daddy Kane left the competition sounding effete and timid. Gang wars and the crack epidemic continued to inflame inner cities. Songs like “Smooth Criminal” seemed obsolete.
Meanwhile Jackson’s sister Janet had recently delivered a hard-stomping R&B-pop classic in 1989’s Rhythm Nation 1814. Its influence on her older brother was so great that he even asked Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis to produce Dangerous. Out of loyalty to Janet, they turned him down. According to his engineer, Bruce Swedien, Michael was searching for something “very street that young people would be able to identify with.”
He wasn’t alone. His longtime competition Prince sought to re-connect in a similar fashion, forming the New Power Generation with rapper, Tony M. Released just one month before* Dangerous*, the purple one’s Diamonds and Pearls* *exists as a companion piece, documents of blurring eras. As ’80s pop gave way to ’90s hip-hop, they sought to find their place in the re-configured landscape. Except while Prince predictably constructed his own insular unit, Jackson looked outwards to Riley, the hottest producer of the moment.
If that seems obvious today, it wasn’t at the start of 1991. Many mainstream artists still saw hip-hop as a passing fad or stereotyped it as nihilistic and violent. Jackson needed to walk the fine line between disposable bubblegum rap like Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, and alienating longtime disciples with something too radical.
After preparing grooves in Q-Tip’s Soundtrack Studio in Queens, Riley flew out to the Neverland Ranch to meet the master. There was a tour of the trophy room, the carousel, and the zoo, and then after they talked late into the night, Jackson put Riley on his personal helicopter and had him flown to the Universal City Hilton, a short distance from the San Fernando Valley studios where they recorded Dangerous. Riley began work the next day.
