The powerful way Michael Jackson responded to being dissed by Eminem
By his fifth album Encore, Eminem was more than used to making headlines and courting controversy. He’d been doing it for years by this stage, but, for this album’s lead single, he took on an especially powerful cultural figure in the form of Michael Jackson.
While the likes of Madonna and MC Hammer are mocked on ‘Just Lose It,’ the track, released in 2004, was primarily a vehicle for Em to make fun of Jackson. Both the song’s lyrics and its accompanying music video dealt with the accusations of sexual abuse that Jackson was facing at the time. A tricky subject, but one that Em delved into it with no qualms whatsoever.
The video references the accusations against Jackson, as well as making fun of his plastic surgery and the time his hair caught fire as he filmed an ad for Pepsi. This did not go down well with Jackson himself, who phoned into Steve Harvey’s radio show to speak about it.
Jackson expressed his anger at Eminem, whom he claimed to have previously “admired.” Describing Em’s depiction of him as “outrageous and disrespectful,” Jackson lamented the disrespect shown to him, his family and “the community at large.” His legal representatives also announced that they were considering taking legal action.
Nothing ever came of these legal threats, but there was a twist to come in this feud between Jackson and Eminem. In 2007 it was announced that Jackson’s partnership company, Sony/ATV, had bought the publishing company Famous Music for $370 million. That was significant because Famous Music controlled the rights to Eminem’s back catalogue.
In other words, as a result of this acquisition, Michael Jackson now owned Eminem’s music.
Eminem wasn’t the only artist affected by this sale, as it also meant that the rights to over 125,000 songs were transferred over to Sony/ATV. The music of Bjork, Shakira and Beck was involved, but Em’s tracks were arguably the most significant.
Following the purchase, Jackson released a measured, PR-tinged statement describing the sale as “a milestone event for Sony/ATV Music Publishing” that he was “pleased” about. It was all very businesslike, but it did not go unnoticed at the time that, as a consequence of the deal, he now had a stake in the music of a man he felt had previously disrespected him.
Buying the rights to Eminem’s music was a solid business decision on its own terms, but was there a personal motivation for Jackson to see this deal through? Eminem had taken him on, and, in a sense, the deal proved who was the more powerful figure, in monetary terms at least. Jackson was now directly profiting from Em’s own success.