Lemar And Dauley®

Numbero uno for us would definitely be Andy Warhol's painting of Michael. If the immortal Andy Warhol immortalizes you then you are truly immortal.

Jeff Koons sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” sits at the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the LA County Museum of Art.

The King of Pop was officially knighted in this triptych by David Nordhal.

This gold painted plaster portrait bust of Michael was set to be auctioned off in April until the gloved one via Bey proclaimed it Irreplaceable.

These Michael Jackson dolls were the ish and the urine when we were growing up and are fetching top dollar right now on Ebay.

If you remember Michael's movie Moonwalker, then you'll remember this robot head.

And no commemorative of Michael Jackson art would be complete without his album art. This is one of my favorites from his 1991 Dangerous album.

We decided to do this because ironically it is easy to immortalize someone once they've proven their mortality, as proven by the tears this week of those who barely considered him last week. Not that we're knocking that, I'm even sure Michael would chalk it up to “Human Nature”. But we just wanted to salute the efforts of those who'd already immortalized him when it seemed like he would never die. Because of their art, and his legacy and music, he will never truly leave us.

- Pieces

Word ventured out this week, perhaps on it's morning jog, that Drake was going to pass on the 2 million dollar deal Universal put on the table. We all exchanged confused recession looks with each other, unwilling to believe that not only could 2 milly languish by the placemat in an economic downturn that has platinum-selling artists fighting for gold, but that such a deal could be passed up.

Continue Reading…

Vibe magazine has announced that after 16 years of bringing us the best urban music has to offer, they are closing their doors. They found out as they were preparing the Michael Jackson tribute issue which we were majorly looking forward to. We will always treasure our stashes of the mag and look forward to any future endeavors of the company.

“So gather up your jackets/ And move it to the exits/ I hope you have found a friend.

Closing time – Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end”

-Semisonic “Closing Time”

I get the feeling that when Whitney Houston passes we'll all be singing “I believe the children are our future” at the top of our lungs like we're doing with all the Michael hits, but do we really believe that??? Certainly if we did there'd be more stories like that of Khadijah Williams who despite touring the LA shelter circuit more than MJ toured the Pop curcuit is on her way to Harvard University this Fall. Khadijah's mother had her when she was only 14, and because of the subsequent instability has placed her daughter in 12 different schools in the last 12 years.

Continue Reading…

Chris Brown was the heir apparent to the MJ throne amongst the new jacks. We think the “Wall to wall” singer would've killed “Thriller”. 

Justin credits Michael as one of his icons. I would have liked to see him perform either something like “Rock with you” or “She's out of my life”.

Usher's versatility would've allowed him his pick of MJ classics. I would've liked to see his take on “Man in the mirror” or “Don't stop til you get enough”. 

Pharrell would've done a great job with “Bad” or even “Remember the Time” in our opinion.

Anyone who's seen You got Served knows that Omarion can dance. An up tempo MJ cut like “Pretty Young Thing” or “The way you make me feel” would've been dope.

And couldn't Alien Ant Farm come out and do Smooth Criminal for old time's sake???

We've been discussing who the real innovators left now in the game were and Kanye's name has come up more than any as the person who we feel our future kids could get into from our generation. He would've done a great job with “Beat it” or “Want to be starting something”.

So there you have our list (in no particular order). We understand that BET only had 3 days in which to reformat their entire show, but had they just a little longer, we believe these would be the performances setting Tivo, Youtube and blogs ablaze.

- Pieces