Legendary music producer LA Reid has a new memoir coming out this month and it promises to be a blockbuster. In the memoir entitled LA Reid Sing to Me: My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic and Searching for Who’s Next, he talks at length about his interactions with the” King of Pop” Michael Jackson.
Reid describes Jackson as “cold as ice” in dealing with fellow entertainer Prince and his brother Jermaine Jackson. Here are a few excerpts:
- Reid was working with partner Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds in the 1990s when they were invited to the Neverland Ranch for a secret meeting with Michael Jackson. After signing a nondisclosure agreement they were taken on a tour of the ranch and met with Jackson to discuss possible projects. At the end of the meeting they went to a screening room where they were shown footage of Jackson at a James Brown concert from 1983. During the footage Jackson performed with Brown briefly before and fellow musician Prince, who was in the audience, was called up to the stage. During the brief appearance Prince couldn’t get his guitar to work correctly and his performance was embarrassing. Reid states that Jackson was laughing at Prince and delighted in his flopping in front of an audience.
- Jermaine Jackson was signed to LaFace Records and found out that that his brother Michael was working with Reid and Edmonds. He demanded that he be released from his contract rather than have to possibly deal with his brother in business. Michael told Reid that Jermaine would get over it and walked out of a meeting with Reid.
- Jermaine Jackson decided he wanted to make a diss song about his brother called “Word to the Bad!!” According to the book Jermaine stated “I want to make a song about my brother. I want to talk about how he’s treated me through the years, like how every time I find producers like you guys, he takes my producers. He doesn’t care about his family or anybody but himself.”
- When Michael Jackson heard the song he told Reid “You have to stop this,’ [Michael] said.’You’re the head of the label. You have to kill this. This isn’t good.” Supposedly Jermaine told the Reid he talked it over with Michael and everything was ok and the record could be played
- However this was not the case and according to Reid “The record disappeared off the air, as if it had never been there in the first place. I don’t know what Michael did. I don’t know if Michael did anything, but it went away in a flash,
The new book is scheduled to be released on February 2, 2016 and is expected to cause a sensation as more behind the scenes details are revealed about the music industry.
