In partnership with Universal Pictures UK
Michael Jackson had made four solo albums before 1979’s ‘Off The Wall’, but this time, it felt different. Now in his early twenties, he was looking to spread his wings away from the Jacksons, as The Jackson 5 had rebranded a few years earlier. On the band’s 1978 album ‘Destiny’, home to the huge hits ‘Blame It On The Boogie’ and ‘Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)’, Michael had co-writing credits on nearly every track. But he wanted to go further and forge a sound of his own.
As we see in Michael, the increasingly ambitious singer (played by Jaafar Jackson) had to seek approval from his father Joe (Colman Domingo) before he made his solo move. “I don’t think you can get a full sense of Michael as a person without going back to how he discovered his creative direction,” says the film’s director, Antoine Fuqua. “You see how he was caught between his love for family and his drive to create his own art, how he was grappling with loneliness while searching for freedom. This film takes you through the process that was necessary for his lift-off.”
To achieve lift-off, Michael needed a seasoned co-pilot, and he knew exactly who to choose: Quincy Jones, the prolific producer-composer he met while working on his 1978 movie The Wiz. Portrayed in Michael by Kendrick Sampson (Insecure, How to Get Away with Murder), Jones was a modern maestro who understood that Jackson wanted to reintroduce himself with a new sound and image. Rocking a slim-fit tuxedo on the ‘Off The Wall’ album cover, Michael looks every inch the stylish young man. He was no longer the uncommonly soulful boy who sang ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘ABC’ a decade earlier.
Michael’s lithe new look matched his dynamic new sound. Across ‘Off The Wall’, he effortlessly blended pop with soul, disco and R&B, pairing each irresistible groove with a bold vocal performance of unfettered joy. ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’, the album’s headrush of a lead single, begins with a tension-building spoken word intro before Michael unleashes a euphoric “whooo!” ‘Workin’ Day And Night’, a crackling disco-funk nugget that smoulders for more than five minutes, allows Michael to show his vocal range and effervescent sense of rhythm. It’s one of the fastest songs in his catalogue, and he barely pauses for breath.
To gain an intimate insight into Michael’s creative process, the film’s production designer Barbara Ling visited the home studio space at Hayvenhurst where he recorded demos during this period. Because it was too cramped to film in his actual home studio, Ling and her team recreated it piece-by-piece on the film’s soundstage in Santa Barbara, California. “The studio has this wonderful aura because Michael had quotes by Thomas Edison and John Lennon that must have inspired him featured on two walls, so we really wanted audiences to feel what it was like for him,” Ling says.
Though ‘Off The Wall’ made Michael into a solo superstar, becoming the best-selling album of 1980 in the US, he was still chafing against his father’s expectations. As we see in the film, Joe Jackson believed that Michael’s primary obligation should always lie with the family band. By 1984, fans were clamouring for an MJ solo tour, but instead he rejoined his brothers for one last hurrah: The Jacksons‘ enormously successful ‘Victory Tour’.
“I wanted the world to see where it all began, from his roots in The Jackson 5 to the launch of his solo career – and to reveal the personal battles for creative and personal freedom that fuelled his fire,” says the film’s producer, Graham King. “Through it all, his passion and relentless drive gave the world some of the greatest music ever made.”
This is hardly an exaggeration. In the early ’80s, working closely with Jones again, Michael expanded his sound on ‘Thriller’. ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ is a sinewy mix of disco and Afropop that remains a dancefloor staple to this day. ‘Billie Jean’, which became one of the biggest-selling singles ever, would reshape disco for the next decade. And the jagged, guitar-driven ‘Beat It’ proved that Michael could master any genre he liked – it even won him a Grammy award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1984. Michael recruited rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen to play its searing solo.
In the recording studio scenes, Jaafar Jackson really captures the mix of inspiration, idiosyncrasy and perfectionism that Michael used to craft globe-conquering hits. “Jaafar may have Michael in his DNA, but he took that to a higher, more moving place than any of us ever dreamed of,” King says. “He is the centre, he’s the plug. You plug him in, the movie comes alive.”