Video Cassettes and Look-alikes

Kangsen Feka Wakai

I was sitting in a coffee shop on Carey Ave. Square in Chelsea when a skinny woman wearing worn jeans and a faded blue t-shirt walked in and whispered something in the proprietor’s ear.    Then she walked swiftly out.

“Michael Jackson is dead,” he announced.

I think it must have been 5:36 pm.  I checked the time and made a note in my journal   I also marked it as the official end of my youth.  

Earlier that day, though I can’t remember exactly when, I had read a headline on yahoo that said Michael had been rushed to the hospital. I didn’t read the entire piece.

I didn’t read the piece because for as long as I can remember, apart from occasional nostalgia derived from listening to Off the Wall-Thriller era hits, I had developed a sort of numbness for anything Michael Jackson.

I think I was about ten when I finally bade him farewell.  After the Bad album, I was done.  Something in me had always thought it rather twisted and revolting, even at that age, that anyone would do the kind of damage Michael had done to his face. 

Michael and his music began to fade out.  Though he did not just melt away like a flake of snow.  It was a process.

Maybe it was the nose.  I am not sure.

Besides, at the time the local music scene, which had fine-tuned my musical sensibilities, was teeming with makossa, makassi, mangabu, soukous [erstwhile kwasa-kwasa], assiko, Bangalum [of the Francis Ndom strain] and Bikutsi.  Not to mention transnational pop imports of like Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Black Box. 

In my world Petit Pays, Koffi Olomide and Pepe Kalle pulled more weight.

Then hip-hop reared its head.  When I heard Rakim and Run DMC on a tape someone I have never identified brought to our house, anything that even sounded remotely like Lionel Richie or Kool and the Gang was history. And Michael was no exception.  These rhyming black Americans, the MCs, became my new bridge across the ocean. Their gritty poetics were addictive.

My parting with Michael was never easy.  How could it be?  He was and will remain the undisputed king of pop. He could moonwalk and according to some had at one time been able to defy gravity. In fact, at one time, every city in Cameroon worthy of that name [city] had at least one or two Michael Jackson look-alikes parading its streets: the kind of tribute befitting only an icon of Jackson’s stature. 

But Michael would always get me with the videos, which always came in a VCR cassette that would rear its head in certain circles in Bamenda, probably sent from abroad by someone’s brother,sister, cousin, mom or dad.  So, Michael’s role in ushering an era of cultural globalization can never be understated. He became as ubiquitous as Coca Cola. How could anyone in their right mind resist seeing him dance to silence—the sheer skill, on top of a car in that video from the Black and White album: the accuracy of his every step, the delicacy of his form, coupled with that unmistakable flexibility and agility. At the end of that particular set, he screamed, blowing up the car windows and the lampposts, before transforming himself into a big black cat. 

That was the Michael I could never let go; that unmatchable talent and penchant for the weird.  That was the Michael that captivated our global imaginations.

But, after such transient moments of adulation, I tuned him out again and he would remain tuned out for a long time. 

The next time I heard of Michael, he had married Elvis’s daughter, Lisa Marie Priestley. 

I was unmoved—okay I might have glanced through an article or two about it in the arts and entertainment sections of the local press but that was it.  He had become forgettable, at least to me. 

He divorced. Then I heard he was marrying again.  Again I was unmoved.  Then he had children.  I was still unmoved though I did feel sorry for the kids. Then the scandals started unfolding; molestation, financial crisis etc.  

Then he died. 

Comments

[Paysan PharmD]

Wow! Kang!!
O.k..........
I guess you're right. You put it so well.
Thanks!!

[Monique Kennedy]

Half Priced books, Lauren Hill CD, Spicy Chicken or was it Turkey, Dread Locks, Teeth Turning back to the original hue, the Baby Naming Ceremony, the grass the girl grew, Beer, waiting to long to become cool...Memories of You!