In case you haven’t heard, L.A. Reid released a memoir titled, “Sing to Me: My Story of Making Music, Finding Magic, and Searching for Who’s Next,” a few years ago. In it, explained how he and his production partner, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, got caught up in a longstanding battle between Jermaine and Michael Jackson that many of us never knew knew about.
L.A. Reid said that while he and Babyface were producing an album for Jermaine Jackson (who was signed to their record label, LaFace Records, at that time), they’d suddenly received a call from Michael. MJ asked them if they would be interested in meeting with him to discuss working together on some new music. L.A. and Babyface agreed, but decided not to tell Jermaine until after they saw where the convo’ with MJ would lead to.
After the three of them met up, L.A. and Babyface decided to begin working with Michael three weeks later.
What Happened Next Was What They Totally Weren’t Expecting
Jermaine found out about L.A. and Babyface’s plans to work with his brother and to say he was livid is an understatement. According to L.A. Reid, Jermaine immediately demanded to be released from their label. L.A. and Babyface didn’t want Jermaine to leave, but they also didn’t want to NOT work with Michael Jackson- the greatest entertainer of all time.
Since they were in a pickle, they went back to MJ and told him that his brother was pissed. Then something else happened that shocked them. L.A. said Michael gave them the most cold-hearted response to ever, regarding his big bro’:
‘“He’ll get over it,” [Michael said].
‘That’s not really the problem,’ I said. ‘The problem was that he wants off the label now.’
“Did he sign a contract?” asked Michael.
‘Yes,’ I said.
“Then he’ll have to live with it because those are the rules,” Michael said and walked out.
That Michael Jackson was one shrewd man. He was not wrong, but you didn’t expect that from Peter Pan. You expect a little compassion or something. No. Cold as ice.’
Jermaine Dissed The Hell Outta Michael In The Worst Way
Then Came Jermaine’s DISS RECORD About His Brother…
L.A. says things got really messy when Jermaine told him and Babyface this:
“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.”
L.A. and ‘Face were surprised that two brothers of soul music royalty, were about beef on the radio, like they were on a hip hop mixtape.
Nonetheless, they still allowed Jermaine’s creative expression flow, no matter how much they disagreed with his diss record request- and produced the track, “Word to the Badd!,” which was aired on radio stations nationwide.
Michael was pissed off with all three of the men. So, he called up L.A. to give him a few choice words:
“ ‘You have to stop this,’ he said. ‘You’re the head of the label. You have to kill this. This isn’t good.’ ”
L.A. said MJ and Jermaine met up at their Mom’s house to talk it out, but that two days later, he got two very different phone calls. Jermaine called L.A. and said the song is gonna stay on the radio; MJ called and said ‘You’ve gotta put a stop to this.’
They were right back where they’d started, but L.A. said this is what happened next:
“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.”
Check out Jermaine’s diss record about his MJ here:
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