I was prepping an eggplant lasagna for the Super Bowl. Lasagna always takes longer than you expect it to, so the prep pushed right through the pre-game and took up the whole first quarter. I watched the second. But once the kids saw Rihanna’s show, they wanted more music, and we never really got back to the game.
My wife, Viv, and I reminded them that last year Dr. Dre put together a hip-hop tribute on a stage shaped like a row of houses in Los Angeles, each of them hosting their own party.
They loved that, so we went further.
Beyonce, wearing gold cross-body bandoliers at Super Bowl 50. She channeled Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” look at that show. So we watched MJ at Super Bowl 27 too.
The lasagna comes out piping hot. Three cheese. Ground wagyu. A little truffle oil.
Viv, who also counts herself as a little sister, commented that she always felt inspired by Janet Jackson’s version of the militant uniform. Even though she knows Michael did it first.
But Janet did it first, I remind her. Rhythm Nation erupted in September ‘89. That’s more than two years before Michael tried out the new jack swing feel for Dangerous. Viv couldn’t believe it. She’d bought into the mythos of the older sibling and internalized that Janet copied her big brother. But it was the other way around.
Black and/or white
So leave the Super Bowl behind and dial up the iconic black-and-white “Rhythm Nation.” And then a clip from the Rhythm Nation tour.
That led us to the siblings’ collaboration, and maybe the last great MJ song, another great black-and-white video, “Scream.”
“They really cornered the market on black-and-white looks in videos, huh.”
It’s true. But in the early 90s, to a kid who’d been conscious for less than a decade, it felt like these videos were the ultimate salvo, the one that was going to finally dismantle racism. Like once Jackson’s “Black or White” came out everyone would understand that interracial friendship, brotherhood, and love was an excellent choice. Or like as soon as you heard En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” that “the rest” really would follow. (And “the rest” was also an interracial relationship.)
I’m not even sure if people are making songs with that hard-hitting optimism anymore. It’s more like we’re stuck at the end of the “Black or White” video, where Michael turns into a leopard and then smashes a car while dancing in an alley. Like the egalitarianism of his black-or-white proposal didn’t pan out and we’re torn forevermore between impulses of creation and destruction.
The kids are enthralled.
Next we could watch Beyonce’s “Homecoming” concert on Netflix, or her tennis ball-green Super Bowl pre-game performance at Superbowl 56, or an Up With People performance (Super Bowls 5, 10, 14, 16, and 20) just for laughs.
But it’s time to get ready for bed.
Flipping back to the game from YouTube there’s a dozen seconds left and a chip-shot field goal is about to clinch the victory. Okay. Good for them. I feel like we already won.