RIP Michael Jackson - The King and Legend of Pop

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Habari zinazoingia hivi sasa hapa kijijini kwamba mwanamuziki maarufu duniani Michael Jackson amefariki dunia leo kutokana na mshtuko wa moyo (Wenyewe wanasema cardiac arrest). More to come .........

Masaa mawili yaliyopita Michael alikimbizwa hospitalini .........

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MICHAEL JACKSON has reportedly died after suffering a heart attack.
According to US website TMZ the King Of Pop was loaded into an ambulance just after 2pm, LA time, after paramedics were seen performing CPR on the singer.
He allegedly suffered the cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles.
The 50-year-old singer was due to start the first of 50 dates at the O2 arena in London on July 13.


RIP Michael.]

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Michael Jackson has died at age 50 after being rushed to UCLA Medical Center, NBC News has confirmed. Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Steve Ruda told the L.A. Times that Jackson was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home and CPR was performed.
TMZ.com reported that he may have suffered cardiac arrest.

Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits included ?Thriller? and ?Billie Jean,? had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months. The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March. His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, makes him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

He lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.
There were concerns about Jackson?s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

A life in music

Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children. Five Jackson boys ? Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael ? first performed together at a talent show when Michael was 6. They walked off with first prize and went on to become a best-selling band, The Jackson Five, and then The Jackson 5. Jackson made his first solo album in 1972, and released ?Thriller? in 1982, which became a smash hit that yielded seven top-10 singles. The album sold 21 million copies in the United States and at least 27 million worldwide. The next year, he unveiled his signature ?moonwalk? dance move while performing ?Billie Jean? during an NBC special.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley?s only child, Lisa Marie, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996. Jackson married Debbie Rowe the same year and had two children, before splitting in 1999. The couple never lived together. Jackson has three children named Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, known for his brief public appearance when his father held him over the railing of a hotel balcony, causing widespread criticism.

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Sky News are on air for the last one hour and have been reporting on this breaking news non-stop .....

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MJ's PJs
Michael Jackson wears pajama pants and is aided by bodyguards after arriving more than an hour late to court on Mar. 10, 2005, during his trial on the 2003 molestation charges. Jackson appeared after Judge Rodney Melville threatened to revoke his bail.


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Just months after his divorce from Lisa Marie, Michael Jackson walked back up the aisle with Debbie Rowe. This wedding photo was released by Jackson's publicist minutes after the Nov. 13, 1996, ceremony in Sydney, Australia. But the pairing was less about romance and more about bearing Jackson a child, and the two would divorce three years later, with Rowe eventually ceding parental rights to Jackson.


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Best of friends
Michael Jackson and actress Elizabeth Taylor arrive at a Sept. 7, 2001, concert celebrating the 30 years of Jackson's career. The two stars had been longtime friends, and Taylor is godmother to two of Michael's children.





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Michael Jackson sings with some of his young fans at the World Music Awards at Earls Court in London on Nov. 16, 2006.







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Father figure
Michael Jackson walks with kids Prince and Paris through a studio parking lot in Los Angeles in March 2009. The singer had been spotted with his entourage going to a studio on a cold rainy day in LA. Walking through the lot, the kids initially didn't have their usual masks on, it was only after they realized that they could be seen from the street that the kids emerged from a building wearing masquerade type masks. Michael stayed at the studio for over two hours, and there were many production people working around him suggesting that MJ was filming.

[Steve Dii]

Daah, i'm very very sad today!

R.I.P. Michael!

SteveD.

[mwanakijiji]

It is a sad day indeed! RIP Michael!

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KING OF POP Michael Jackson died last night after a massive heart attack.
He collapsed and stopped breathing after an injection of a powerful painkiller named Demerol. Jacko, 50, was said to be addicted to the drug - similar to morphine - and it is feared he took an overdose. Paramedics who raced to his Los Angeles home after an emergency call found he had no pulse. And frantic attempts to revive him failed. The Thriller star, who had been fighting skin cancer, was due to start a series of comeback concerts in London next month.

Instead, millions of shocked fans around the globe are today mourning a legend.

Radio stations around the world are playing his music non-stop for his tribute. Major TV news channels are casting his Bio round the clock.

[makange]

RIP Michael Jackson!!

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Katika kuomboleza kifo cha Michael Jackson, gazeti la Evening Standard linalotolewa nchini Uingereza wameweza kuweka kurasa KUMI NA SABA na kuelezea kwa ujumla maisha ya gwiji la muziki. Hata wale waingereza wasiompenda marehemu walisikika wakisema kwamba kipaji chake kilikuwa exceptional.

Magwiji kama hawa huwa wanapatikana kwa nadra na huja kila baada ya miongo kadhaa.

Katika hatua ingine ambayo itakuwa na kasheshe ni urudishaji wa pesa kiasi cha ?56 millioni kwa mashabiki wale waliolipa kuwania kumwona Michael akifanya vitu vyake kwenye O2 arena nchini Uingereza.

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Jacko 911 tape is released

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Emergency ... ambulance carrying King Of Pop arrives at UCLA

THE Michael Jackson 911 tape has been released. The King of Pop died after he suffered a cardiac arrest yesterday. A man can be heard speaking to the emergency operator saying a 50-year-old "who needs help" is "not breathing." As the conversation continues, the caller sounds more frantic and says the patient is "not responding to anything." The caller says: "We have a personal doctor with him (Jackson) but he is not responding to anything."
He added: "He's pumping and pumping the chest."

The operator asks if the medic saw what happen and the caller moves away from the receiver to ask him. But only muffled sounds can be heard before the caller returns to the phone and asks for an ambulance as soon as possible. The call was made yesterday from Michael's house in Holmby Hills, Ca.



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MICHAEL Jackson's doctor is set to be quizzed by cops who want to speak to the medic over an injection which led to the star's death. LAPD are also said to be examining a BMW which was towed yesterday from the singer's home where they also seized bags of prescription drugs. It is believed the doctor gave the star a dose of Demerol ? a painkiller similar to morphine ? before he suffered a cardiac arrest.


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Keeping watch ... a cop outside Jacko's home Splash


The Jackson family's lawyer Brian Oxman today confirmed "bags of material" were seized by cops from the singer's LA home. He said: "They (police) were looking for drug vials and syringes. I don't know if they found syringes, but there would have been a lot of drug vials."
Earlier, it was claimed Jacko's upcoming tour and "life threatening" addiction to pain relief drugs had pushed the fragile star to breaking point.

The King of Pop was under immense pressure to perform a series of epic concerts in London as part of his "This Is It" tour. It is feared Jacko may have developed an increasing dependence on painkillers to cope with his gruelling pre-show rehearsals. A post-mortem examination is now being carried out by Dr Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran who was a witness in the OJ Simpson case to find the cause of death. Police say the coroner will meet with members of the Jackson family before making an announcement to the public about today's proceedings at 1.30pm, LA time.

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Twelve facts about Michael Jackson


FACT 1 - 750 million albuns

Michael Jackson is the third biggest selling pop act of all time, after The Beatles and Elvis Presley. His 1982 album Thriller is thought to be the biggest-selling album ever, shifting 65 million copies, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. With the music industry moving from selling whole albums to marketing individual tracks online he is likely to keep his position on the list of all time greats.

FACT 2 - $ 700 million

Michael Jackson's earnings from record sales, tours, merchandising and other business interests are estimated to have exceeded $700m (?423m) in his 40-year recording career.
Since the early 1980s his recordings have generated more than $300 million in royalties. Despite this, in 2006 he is said to have secured a loan of around $300 million to pay off his debts.

FACT 3 - 66 days

In 2005 the jury at the trial of Michael Jackson in Santa Maria, California, sat through 66 days of evidence. He faced 10 charges, including molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, giving alcohol to a minor and conspiring to kidnap him and his family. Had he been convicted Jackson could have faced up to 18 years in prison, but after hearing the evidence of 141 witnesses the jury cleared him on all charges.

FACT 4 - 50 Concerts

Jackson was finishing rehearsals for a series of 50 concerts at the O2 Arena beginning on 13 July. Originally announced as 10 concerts, further dates were added until around 800,000 people had bought tickets worth a total of ?52m. AEG Live, the organiser of the concerts has already spent $30m on the production but could be in financial difficulty since it only insured the first 10 nights, according to a report in Billboard magazine.

FACT 5 - $ 47.5 million

In 1985 Jackson paid $47.5 million for the publishing rights to a catalogue of 4,000-songs, including at least 200 Beatles tunes. By 2005 the catalogue, now co-owned by Sony, was worth $500m. One person said to have been irritated by Jackson's ownership of publishing rights for The Beatles is Paul McCartney, who is believed to have originally tipped him off about the financial benefits of owning music catalogues.

FACT 6 - 14 Doves

Fans had kept a vigil outside the Santa Maria courthouse during the whole of Jackson's trial in 2005. When it was announced that he had been cleared of all charges, a fan released 14 white doves to celebrate his acquittal. His acquittal was also a relief to local police who, in case of a guilty verdict, had dozens of officers on the street outside the courthouse carrying riot batons.

FACT 7 - 13 grammys

Michael Jackson won 13 Grammy awards. Ten were for his work as a solo artist, three others were shared with producer Quincy Jones, his sister Janet, and various artists who contributed to his Aid for Africa track, We Are the World. Thriller netted him Album of the Year and Best Pop vocal Performance awards. Tracks Billie Jean and Beat It each won him another pair of Grammys. He also picked two other awards for his music video work.

FACT 8 - 11 years old

Michael Jackson was 11 years old when he performed on television for the first time with The Jackson Five. They were regulars on programmes such as 'The Ed Sullivan Show', one of the most watched shows in the US, and on which they performed their debut single I Want You Back. He quickly became the centre of attention taking lead vocal duties as the band built up a reputation on the live circuit.

FACT 9 - 10 Solo Albums

Michael Jackson released 10 solo albums containing original material: Got to be There; Music & Me; Ben; Forever Michael; Off the Wall; Thriller; Bad; Dangerous; HIStory and Invincible.
As well as his solo albums Michael recorded another 16 albums with his brothers as both The Jackson 5 and The Jacksons.

FACT 10 - Eight

Michael Jackson was the seventh of nine children. His brothers, Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon and Randy, have all had careers as singers, after they stopped performing together. His sisters, Rebbie, La Toya and Janet, are also performers. He is survived by his three children: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, born to Mr. Jackson's second wife, Deborah Jeanne Rowe, and Prince Michael Jackson II, the son of a surrogate mother.

FACT 11 - $ 4 million

In 1987, Jackson bought a 2,800 acre property north west of Santa Barbara for $14.6m and named it Neverland, after the imaginary land in JM Barrie's novel Peter Pan.
Within the grounds he built a private zoo and a fairground with a roller coaster and a ferris wheel. By 2006 it was costing $4m a year to run the Neverland ranch and its staff.

FACT 12 - One

This is the number of Michael Jackson statues floated down the River Thames.
Asked how he would like to promote his 1995 album, HIStory, Jackson told Sony record executives: "build a statue of me". A 300-feet high glass fibre statue of the troubled popstar was placed on a boat and towed down the Thames. Tower Bridge was raised to let it pass and it was moored near the Tower of London for a week before "touring the country."



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Bonyeza Hapa (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8121749.stm#fact1)

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Jackson fans' grief



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Fans have reacted with shock and grief to the sudden death of Michael Jackson,
The legendary king of Pop and one of
the most successful recording artist of all time.



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The singer was taken to Los Angels' UCLA medical centre,
a short distance from his home in Bel Air,
after suffering a cardiac arrest


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Hundreds of mourners gathered at the hospital to wait for news.
Many broke down after the entertainer's death was confirmed




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As the news spread, people also gathered outside
the star's childhood home in Gary, Indiana.

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LA fans commemorate 'hero' Jackson




BBC News, Los Angeles
Tourists, fans and some bemused onlookers gathered outside Hollywood's famous Chinese Theatre to pay their respects to Michael Jackson. The singer's 'star' on the Walk of Fame, along Hollywood Boulevard, was transformed into a makeshift shrine to the late pop icon. On the night Jackson died, his fans were unable to get there, as the street had been closed for the Los Angeles premiere of Sacha Baron Cohen's new film, Bruno.

Shrine

When it reopened, hordes of mourners filed past the star. Cordoned off by crash barriers, the area was festooned with toys, teddy bears, flowers and candles. A handwritten note read: "Michael, thank you for the great memories. You will be missed." "I've seen a lot of people walking up and down crying," said David Anthony, a T-shirt seller. His hastily-printed commemorative T-shirts carried the slogan: "The King of Pop, Rest in Peace, August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009. There'll never be another." "He's a big part of our culture from the oldest of old to the youngest of young - everyone knows who Michael Jackson is," added Mr Anthony.

Police officers, some on horseback, maintained a low-key presence by the roadside. Joan Bryant, a Jackson fan from California, held up a copy of Los Angeles Times. Its banner headline read: "King of Pop is dead at 50." "I think Michael Jackson touched the hearts of so many people throughout the whole world," said Ms Bryant. "I'm very saddened, I'm shocked because we've all grown up with Michael Jackson?we've gone through every day like a thread in our lives, through his career."

Fan frenzy

Sean McDonald, a rapper from New York, said: "Michael was a trend-setter, constantly reinventing himself musically. He's always going to live on in my heart." "Everybody has been touched one way or another by the music of Michael Jackson. I feel bad, we've just left the most famous pop star in the world." "A hero has fallen," added another fan as she waited patiently in the queue with her young daughter. "[It] really breaks my heart."

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, record stores have reported that fans have rushed to buy Jackson CDs, records and memorabilia. Clubs, bars and radio stations have been playing the singer's music. At the new Grammy museum in central Los Angeles, an exhibit of Jackson's wardrobe, which had been due to close, has been extended in the wake of his death. Over the weekend, Hollywood tour buses are planning to include the singer's home in sightseeing trips for LA visitors. A spokesman for one company said business had jumped after news of the death.

In other parts of the city, there is some indifference to the circus-like frenzy that is playing out in Hollywood. Michael Jackson is a polarising figure in death as he was in life.



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Some left flowers or stuffed toys on the porch of the house where the singer grew up.


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In New York's Times square, the news fans had been dreading
was broadcast over the famous electronic screens.


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Fans danced outside the Apollo Theatre in the city's Harlem district,
where the jackson Five won an amateur right competition in 1967.

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Jackson's death made headlines around the world.
Across Asia broadcasters interrupted morning programmes
to announce the News.

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Even the web was not spared to the big news.... ...



Web slows after Jackson's death


The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson's death. Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack. Millions of people who searched for the star's name on Google News were greeted with an error page.

It warned users "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application". "It's true that between approximately 2.40PM Pacific and 3.15PM Pacific, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson and saw the error page," said Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker.

It was around this time that the singer was officially pronounced dead. Google's trends page showed that searches for Michael Jackson had reached such a volume that in its so called "hotness" gauge the topic was rated "volcanic". The BBC news website reported that traffic to the site at the time of Jackson's death was 72% higher than normal.

Fail

Google was not the only company overwhelmed by the public's clamour for information.
The microblogging service Twitter crashed with the sheer volume of people using the service.
Queries about the star soon rocketed to the top of its updates and searches. But the amount of traffic meant it suffered one of its well-known outages. Before the company's servers crashed, TweetVolume noted that "Michael Jackson" appeared in more than 66,500 Twitter updates.

According to initial data from Trendrr, a Web service that tracks activity on social media sites, the number of Twitter posts Thursday afternoon containing "Michael Jackson" totaled more than 100,000 per hour. That put news of Jackson's death at least on par with the Iran protests, as Twitter posts about Iran topped 100,000 per hour on June 16 and eventually climbed to 220,000 per hour. Early reports of Mr Jackson's death and the confusion surrounding it caused a rash of changes and corrections to be made on his Wikipedia page as editors tried to keep up with events and the number of people trying to update the page.

TMZ, the popular celebrity gossip site that broke the story following a tip-off that a paramedic had visited the singers home also crashed. There was a domino effect as users then fled to other sites. Hollywood gossip writer Perez Hilton's site was among those to flame out.
Keynote Systems reported that its monitoring showed performance problems for the web sites of AOL, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo.

Beginning at 2.30PM Pacific "the average speed for downloading news sites doubled from less than four seconds to almost nine seconds," said Shawn White, Keynote's director of external operations. He told Data Center Knowledge that "during the same period, the average availability of sites on the index dropped from almost 100% to 86%".

BTW Microsoft last week opened their search engine to rival google its called Bing anybody who surfs msn automatically uses bing .

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Unprecedented sales of Michael Jackson records will top the charts later this week from no. 1 to 10.

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Finding Neverland

He was a music legend and a legendary oddball. Now that he's gone, perhaps we can finally answer the question: who was Michael Jackson?


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| NEWSWEEK
True, for a while he was the king of pop?a term apparently originated by his friend Elizabeth Taylor?and he's the last we're ever likely to have. Before Michael Jackson came Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles; after him has come absolutely no one, however brilliant or however popular, who couldn't be ignored by vast segments of an ever-more -fragmented audience. Not Kurt Cobain, not Puffy, not Mariah Carey, not C?line Dion, not Beyonc?, not Radiohead?not even Madonna, his closest competitor. When the news of his death broke, the traffic on Twitter caused the site to crash, even though he hadn't had a hit song for years. But starting long before and continuing long after he lorded over the world of entertainment in the 1980s?his 1982 Thriller remains the bestselling album of all time?Jackson was the Prince of Artifice. As the prepubescent frontboy of the Jackson 5, he sang in a cherubic mezzo-soprano of sexual longing he could not yet have fully felt. As a young man, however accomplished and even impassioned his singing was, he never had the sexual credibility of a James Brown or a Wilson Pickett, in part because of his still-high-pitched voice, in part because he seemed never to fully inhabit himself?whoever that self was. In middle age, he consciously took on the role of Peter Pan, with his Neverland Ranch and its amusement-park rides, with his lost-boy "friends" and with what he seemed to believe was an ageless, androgynous physical appearance?let's hope he believed it?thanks to straightened hair and plastic surgery. (No one?least of all Jackson himself?would have wanted to see the Dorian Gray portrait in his attic.) He did his best to construct an alternate reality on top of what must have been an initially miserable life: imagine Gypsy with?as Jackson claimed in interviews?a physically abusive father in place of Mama Rose, set among Jehovah's Witnesses. Which was the more imaginative creation: his music or his persona?

In retrospect, so much of what Jackson achieved seems baldly symbolic. This was the black kid from Gary, Ind., who ended up marrying Elvis's daughter, setting up Neverland in place of Graceland, and buying the Beatles' song catalog?bold acts of appropriation and mastery, if not outright aggression. (Of course, Elvis and the Beatles had come out of obscurity, too, but that was a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away.) He made trademarks of the very emblems of his remoteness: his moonwalk and robot dances and his jeweled glove?noli me tangere, and vice versa. He morphed relentlessly from the most adorable of kiddie performers (his 1972 movie-soundtrack hit, "Ben," was a love song to a pet rat) to the most sinister of superstars: not by adopting a campy persona, like those of his older contemporaries Alice Cooper or Ozzy Osbourne, but in real life, dodging accusations of child molestation, one of which led to a trial and acquittal in 2005. (One shrink concluded at the time that he was not a pedophile, but merely a case of arrested development.) The 2002 episode in which he briefly dangled his son Prince Michael II (a.k.a. Blanket) over a balcony in Berlin, above horrified, fascinated fans, seemed like a ritualized attempt to dispose of his own younger self. And eventually his several facial surgeries, a skin ailment, serious weight loss, and God knows what else made him look like both a vampire and a mummy?Peter Pan's undead evil twins. That is, like the skeletal, pale-faced zombies he danced with in Jon Landis's 14-minute "Thriller" video. When you watch it today, it appears to be a whole stage full of Michael Jacksons, the real one now the least familiar-looking, the most unreal of all.

But whatever strictly personal traumas Jackson may have reenacted and transcended?and then re-reenacted?he performed his dance of death as a central figure in America's long racial horror show. He was, quintessentially, one of those "pure products of America," who, as William Carlos Williams wrote in 1923, "go crazy." To take the uplifting view, enunciated after his death by the likes of the Rev. Al Sharpton, he was a transracial icon, a black person whom white Americans took to their hearts and whose blackness came to seem incidental?along with Nat (King) Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Ashe, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, and, inevitably, Barack Obama. As a singer-dancer, he clearly belongs not just in the tradition of Jackie Wilson, James Brown, and the Temptations?who seem to have been among his immediate inspirations?but also in the tradition of such dancing entertainers as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, who, in turn, drew from such black performers as Bill (Bojangles) Robinson. In the 1978 film version of The Wiz,

Jackson even appropriated and reinvented Ray Bolger's old role as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. And as a messianic global superstar, he resembles no one so much as his father-in-law, Elvis Presley (who died long before Jackson married his daughter), a transracial figure from the other side of the color line. When Presley's first records were played on the radio in Memphis, DJs made a point of noting that he graduated from the city's all-white Humes High School, lest listeners mistake him for black. Given the ubiquity of television, nobody mistook the wispy-voiced young Michael Jackson for white, but it seemed, superficially, not to matter.

Yet Jackson, always the artificer, surely knew that part of his own appeal to white audiences?who contributed substantially to the $50 million to $75 million a year he earned in his prime?lay initially in his precocious cuteness, and when he was a grown man, in his apparent lack of adult sexuality. He was energetic, charismatic, and supremely gifted, but sexually unassertive?unlike swaggeringly heterosexual black male performers from Big Joe Turner ("Shake, Rattle, and Roll") to Jay-Z ("Big Pimpin'?"). He neutered himself racially, too: his hair went from kinky to straight, his lips from full to thin, his nose from broad to pinched, his skin from dark to a ghastly pallor.

You can't miss the connection between these forms of neutering if you know the history of white America's atavistic dread of black male sexuality; the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, for supposedly flirting with a white woman, is just one locus classicus. That happened only three years before Jackson was born; when he was 13, he was singing "Ben." No wonder Jackson chose?with whatever degree of calculation?to remake himself as an American Dream of innocence and belovedness.

No wonder, either, that the artifice eventually turned scary, and the face of the icon came to look more and more corpselike. Readers of Toni Morrison's latest novel, A Mercy, might recall the passage in which an African woman tells about her first sight of white slavers: "There we see men we believe are ill or dead. We soon learn they are neither. Their skin is confusing." That's the middle-aged Michael Jackson to a T. Jackson arguably looked his "blackest" on the original cover of 1979's Off the Wall; by Thriller, the transformation had begun. Off the Wall was his declaration of manhood: it came out the year he turned 21, and it was his greatest purely musical moment. Why did he feel so deeply uncomfortable with himself? The hopeless task of sculpting and bleaching yourself into a simulacrum of a white man suggests a profound loathing of blackness. If Michael Jackson couldn't be denounced as a race traitor, who could? Somehow, though, black America overlooked it, and continued to buy his records, perhaps because some African-Americans, with their hair relaxers and skin-lightening creams, understood why Jackson was remaking him-self, even if they couldn't condone it.

As with Ernest Hemingway?another case of deeply confused identity and (who knew?) androgynous sexuality?we need to look past the deliberate creation of an image and a persona to appreciate the artistry. A more masterly entertainer never took the stage. In 1988, the New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff called him "a virtuoso . . . who uses movement for its own sake. Yes, Michael Jackson is an avant-garde dancer, and his dances could be called abstract. Like Merce Cunningham, he shows us that movement has a value of its own." Better yet, Astaire himself once called Jackson to offer his compliments. As a singer, Jackson was too much of a chameleon?from the tenderness of "I'll Be There" to the rawness of "The Way You Make Me Feel" to the silken sorrow of "She's Out of My Life"?to stamp every song with his distinct personality, as Sinatra did, or Ray Charles, or Hank Williams. But these are demigods?Jackson was merely a giant. (And how'd you like their dancing?) As a musical conceptualizer, probably only James Brown has had a comparable influence:

Jackson and his visionary producer, Quincy Jones, fused disco, soul, and pop in a manner that can still be heard every hour of every day on every top-40 radio station?only not as well. Tommy Mottola, former head of Sony Music, called Jackson "the cornerstone to the entire music business." The best recordings by Jackson and Jones?"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Billie Jean"?belong identifiably to their time, as do Sinatra's 1950s recordings with the arranger Nelson Riddle. Yet like Sinatra's "I've Got the World on a String" or "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," they're so perfect of their kind that they'll never sound dated.

The night before he died, Jackson was rehearsing at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for an epic comeback?a series of 50 concerts, beginning in July, at London's O2 Arena. If that sounds impossibly grandiose, consider that all 50 shows had already sold out. People around him had been wondering if he was really up to it, and the opening had already been put off by a week. He was 50 years old, after all: long in the tooth for a puer aeternus?eight years older than Elvis when he left the building, and a quarter century past his peak. Jackson had had health problems for years. Drug problems, too, apparently: in 2007, according to the Associated Press, an L.A. pharmacy sued him, claiming he owed $100,000 for two years' worth of prescription meds. And money problems: in 2008, the ranch nearly went into foreclosure?he defaulted on a $24.5 million debt?and even the $50 million he stood to realize from his potentially grueling London concerts might have seemed like chump change after the glory years. And of course, just problems: his very existence?as a son, as a black man?was problematic. In his last days, did the prospect of a comeback, of remythologizing himself one more time, excite him as much as it excited his fans? Did his magical moments in performance have an incandescent density that outweighed what must often have been burdensome hours and days? Ask him sometime, if you see him. Whatever his life felt like from inside, from outside it was manifestly a work of genius, whether you want to call it a triumph or a freak show?those are just words. We'd never seen anyone like this before, either in his artistic inventiveness or his equally artistic self-invention, and we won't forget him?until the big Neverland swallows us all.

With Raina Kelley

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| Newsweek Web Exclusive

As Michael Jackson made the unfortunate transition from pop-music icon to tabloid staple, one of the most common lines of attack was on his ever-changing appearance, the way his skin dramatically lightened in tone, and his face altered in structure. What's most tragic about Jackson's death, aside from the fact that it comes as he was mounting a comeback to include a sold-out 50-show residence at London's O2 Arena, is that what people will remember about him is his changing face. What they should remember: the way he changed the face of pop music.

Jackson first came to prominence as the pint-size nucleus of his family band, the Jackson 5. He quickly became the focal point of the group because of his pinup cuteness and, of course, that voice. What was so remarkable about the young Michael was his ability to communicate youthful innocence, or precocious wisdom, or sometimes both at the same time. It was no small feat for the same preteen to credibly deliver shrewd stories of love and loss like "I Want You Back" and "The Love You Save," as well as he carried off cutesy soul ditties like "ABC" and "Rockin? Robin." He led the group to four No. 1 singles.

But his watershed moments came after he came out of his awkward teenage years. At 20, Jackson starred in the film version of The Wiz, at which point he met Quincy Jones, who agreed to produce his fifth solo album, Off the Wall. The record was a mature, sexy blend of pop soul with a heavy, danceable disco groove. Having spent his earlier years trying to straddle vocal puberty, he effortlessly become an adult. It certainly helped that Jackson was so adept at using that voice, and that he had a set of amazing songs to work with, among them "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You," in which Jackson sings lyrics that perfectly describe his own gifted footwork: "When you dance, there's a magic that must be love."

As stunning an artistic statement as Off the Wall was, it did little to prepare anyone for the cultural phenomenon that was his subsequent album, Thriller. Jackson's goal was to create an album in which every song was a hit. He didn't quite accomplish that, but he did create a classic pop album that fans zealously snatched up (to the tune of an estimated 100 million copies worldwide to date) and that solidified his status as the King of Pop. Debate still rages about whether Off the Wall or Thriller is stronger as an album. (I, for one, think it's the former.) But the sea change Jackson created with Thriller had less to do with the music than with the medium. At the height of MTV, Jackson became the first black artist to create a fan base using his image rather than in spite of it. His grasp of performance and presentation remains without parallel.
Jackson's subsequent albums failed to reach the stratospheric heights of Thriller. But Jackson retained his knack for spectacle. Every music video he released was a major event, which is why MTV's lifetime-achievement statue at its annual awards show still bears his name. As a singer, as a songwriter, as a performer, as a dancer, Jackson remains among the most gifted, imaginative, larger-than-life musician of any race that has ever come along. Whatever changed about him over the years, that certainly didn't.

Thats from Newsweek.

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Michael Jackson tops album chart


Michael Jackson has topped the UK album chart and made six new entries in the singles top 40, six years after his last number one. Greatest hits album Number Ones rocketed from 121 to the top spot after a surge in sales since the superstar's death on Thursday. The same album earned Jackson his last number one when first released in 2003. Four of his other hit albums also made a reappearance in the top 20, the Official Charts Company said. Thriller, still the biggest-selling album of all time, raced from 179 to number seven, King of Pop reached 14, Off The Wall got to 17 and The Essential Michael Jackson came in at number 20. A total of 11 Michael Jackson or Jackson Five albums featured in the top 200.

In the singles chart, 43 out of the top 200 singles feature the singer, with Jackson hits accounting for all but one of the new entries in the top 40. Overall, Michael Jackson accounted for over 300,000 record sales across singles and albums in just two days this week.
World domination

Music retailers said that although demand for Jackson's singles had been high since his death, his extensive back catalogue meant that no one song stood out in sales and he was narrowly denied a posthumous entry in the top 10. Man in the Mirror re-entered the charts at number 11, nearly 20 years after its original release, while Billie Jean got to 25, Smooth Criminal to 28, Beat It reached 30 and Earth Song reached 38. Jackson's return to the charts overshadowed electro-pop newcomer La Roux's new entry at number one in the singles chart with Bulletproof. Kasabian also suffered and was knocked off the number one spot in the albums chart with West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Gennaro Castaldo, of music retailer HMV, told the BBC the estimated demand for Jackson albums was now 80 times greater than the day before he died.
"Once we had the announcement of his death people came into our stores and we had large crowds. "Fortunately we had a lot of stock because we had been preparing for the O2 concerts, but sadly we didn't expect to sell them for this reason."

'Larger in death'

Jackson's albums have dominated sales at music retailers and download sites across the world since his death. Earlier on Sunday his songs topped Apple's iTunes download charts in every country except Japan. The star died after suffering a cardiac arrest at his Los Angeles home on Thursday. Police investigating the death said they had carried out an "extensive interview" with his doctor, Conrad Murray, who was with the singer at the time. A spokeswoman for Dr Murray insisted he was not a suspect in the case and the Los Angeles Police Department said they did not intend to speak to him again. Jackson's family are said to be seeking a second autopsy because they still have questions about his death. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office said there was no evidence of foul play after an autopsy on Friday, but gave no cause of death.

It said the results of toxicology tests could take weeks to come back. Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, said he doubted that stress over the star's upcoming residency at London's O2 Arena was a factor in his death. He added he thought his son was going to be larger in death than he was in life, but wished he was around to see the public outpouring of affection since he died.


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Jacko body 'off to Neverland'


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MICHAEL Jackson's body will be driven through the streets of LA to Neverland on Thursday morning, reports today said. Sources say that a huge 30 car motorcade transport the King of Pop's body back to the infamous ranch. It has also been reported that a public viewing of Jackson's body will take place on Friday with a private funeral for members of the singer's family scheduled for Sunday. Pictures have also emerged recently of what's reported to be the horse and carriage that will transport Jacko's body to his funeral service.

It's also been revealed that the singer's body could be put on display in a GLASS coffin so fans can say goodbye before his burial. Parents Joe and Katherine are Jehovah's Witnesses - and the religion says bodies must be buried as soon as possible. A source said: "The idea is causing internal stress within the family. "The glass casket idea would create so much public interest it would take time to organise. "People would make the pilgrimage from the other side of the world. "The question that keeps coming back is, 'What would Michael have wanted?'"



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Funeral ... reports say carriage will transport Jacko body


In another development ... ...



MYSTERY surrounded the parenthood of Jackson's eldest children today after it was reported his ex-wife was NOT their biological mother. Debbie Rowe has previously claimed Jackson was also NOT the father of their two kids. During a bitter custody fight Debbie alleged in court papers that Prince Michael Jnr and Paris had a sperm donor dad. Debbie - wed to Jackson from 1996 to 1999 - insisted she was artificially inseminated and that neither of them knew who the biological father was.

But in another twist today it was claimed Rowe was not the biological mum of the two children either. A US website reported that Jackson was not the sperm donor for any of his kids.
And the entertainment website claimed that Rowe's eggs were not used and she was merely a surrogate mum. The children's paternity has often been questioned as both are light-skinned, fair-haired and have blue eyes. But under Californian law, even if thy were not biologically Jacko's he was still legally their father. Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxman said: "They were married at the time and that means Michael is their father. No one can remove that."
The Sun revealed Debbie's allegations in 2004 after seeing court papers. She claimed she had undergone fertility treatment at a clinic in Beverly Hills, adding: "Michael knows the truth."

However in 2006, after she reached a custody agreement with Jackson, she changed her mind and claimed they were conceived naturally. Debbie, now 50 and living on an isolated ranch in California, is said to be planning a new bid for custody of Prince, 12, and Paris, 11. She first signed away her parental rights in 2001 when she was given ?1.2million, a house in Beverly Hills and a car. But after Jackson's arrest in 2003 she launched a battle for "temporary exclusive custody", in the course of which she made her artificial insemination claims.

Jackson's third child Prince Michael II, who is known as Blanket, was born to a surrogate mother. She has never been named.

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Audio slideshow: Michael Jackson - man and music


In his own words - Michael Jackson reflects on his own vulnerabilities (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8121209.stm)


Bonyeza Play ukifungua ukurasa.

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Jacko funeral plans for Neverland are scrapped by family


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PLANS to allow the public to view Michael Jackson's body at Neverland have been scrapped amid fears that it would be illegal to bury the star at the ranch. The state's health and safety rules makes burying remains outside a cemetery illegal and has classed it as a misdemeanour offence.

Meanwhile, the Jackson family has released a statement saying: "Contrary to previous news reports, the Jackson family is officially stating that there will be no public or private viewing at Neverland. "Plans are underway regarding a public memorial for Michael Jackson, and we will announce those plans shortly." Hours earlier authorities had said a special events permit would be needed if the family intended to hold public viewings of Michael's remains. It is feared the rules could scupper chances of turning Neverland into a Graceland-like shrine to Michael Jackson for his legions of faithful followers.

Santa Barbara County authorities had been preparing for tens of thousands of fans to descend on the 2,800-acre ranch. It was hoped a public viewing of Jackson's body could take place later this week at Neverland. If the family are barred from burying Michael at the ranch a private memorial service could take place there, most likely after the funeral, now likely to take place in LA.

[mwanakijiji]

I have been watching this and this is all I can say: This is not just a passing of an icon, it is not a passing of a legend.. this is history passing right in front of our eyes!

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Jermaine, 54, performed Smile by Charlie Chaplin at the star-studded Los Angeles service. The overwhelmed audience gave Jermaine a standing ovation after the heartfelt performance. Before Jermaine took to the stage actress Brooke Shields had revealed Jackson's love for Chaplin's ballad. that I knew was always the little prince. "Michael saw everything with his heart." Referring to the lyrics "smile though your hearts are aching", she said: "Today, though our hearts are aching, we need to look up and we need to smile." Earlier Jackson took centre stage for one last time in the biggest celebrity send-off ever. that I knew was always the little prince.

"Michael saw everything with his heart."
Referring to the lyrics "smile though your hearts are aching", she said: "Today, though our hearts are aching, we need to look up and we need to smile."
Earlier Jackson took centre stage for one last time in the biggest celebrity send-off ever.


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MICHAEL Jackson's devastated children sang tonight in a heartbreaking final tribute to their pop legend dad at his memorial service.
Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11, joined their father's brothers - who each wore a single white glove - on stage as they performed classic We Are The World. The superstar's friends took to the Staples Center stage with them as they paid their final respects in front of an audience of millions. Moments earlier Jermaine Jackson sang his brother's favourite song in an emotional tribute to the King of Pop.




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Mourning ... mum Katherine with Jackson's children


His gold coffin was carried on to the Staples Center stage by pallbearers - each also wearing one white glove in homage to the star's iconic style. A choir sang as Jackson's body was placed in the arena. Minutes later soul diva Mariah Carey took to the stage - wearing a shimmering black dress - to sing Jackson 5 ballard I'll Be There in front of the 20,000 strong audience. Motown legend Smokey Robinson began the service before leading a moving silence.

Praising Jackson for triumphing over tragedy in his life, Nelson Mandela said in a message read out by Robinson: "Michael was a giant and a legend in the music industry and we mourn with the millions of fans worldwide." A message from Diana Ross said: "Michael wanted me to be there for his children and I will be there if they ever need me - I hope today brings closure for all those who loved him. "I send my love and condolences to the Jackson family - Diana Ross."
Ninety minutes in to the memorial civil rights campaigner Rev Al Sharpton made a rousing speech and suggested Jackson laid the foundations for a black man to become president of the United States. Rev Sharpton said: "It was Michael Jackson that brought blacks, whites and Asians together. "Thank you Michael, thank you Michael, thank you Michael." He added that he thought Jackson was not "strange" but what had happened to him was. After his speech he was embraced by Jackson's brothers as the singer's children Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11 and Blanket, seven, looked on.

Lionel Richie appeared on stage to sing Jesus is Love, and Queen Latifah spoke of the worldwide sadness over the pop legend's death. "In Birmingham Alabama and Birmingham England, we are missing Michael Jackson," she said. Pastor Lucious Smith gave the first reading during the public memorial. He said that through Michael's "words, music and countless good deeds", the pop singer "did so much to try and heal our world". A friend of the Jacksons, the pastor said: "To millions around the world, Michael Jackson was an idol, a hero, even a king. But first and foremost this man before us today was a brother, a son, a father and a friend.

"Michael Jackson was and always shall be a beloved part of the Jackson family." He added: "As long as we remember our time with him, the truth is he is never really gone at all. As long as we remember him he will be there forever to comfort us." Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, said later: "He raised the bar, then broke the bar." The crowd screamed as they were shown a digital montage of his life and career before Stevie Wonder appeared on stage to speak of his devastation.

Stevie dedicated his songs Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer and They Won't Go When I Go to Jackson. Before launching into the first ballad, the emotional singer said: "This is a moment I wished I had never seen come." The Motown star added: "Michael, I loved you and I told you that many times, so I'm at peace with that." He adapted the lyrics to Never Dreamed You'd Leave to include the line: "Michael, why didn't you stay?" Both tunes were sung to a standing ovation inside the auditorium. The coffin was taken to the centre to a chorus of cheers and screams from tens of thousands of fans after family members bade farewell in private at a funeral service at the city's Forest Lawn Cemetery.

A television audience of more than 1BILLION is expected to tune in to see Jacko's final performance. Motorways were closed across Los Angeles to allow the Jackson family to travel in cavalcade from the private service to the star-studded memorial concert. Actors, singers and politicians, including Jesse Jackson, were seen arriving at the event to take their seats in the audience. A memorial programme handed out to fans inside the Staples Center contained tributes from Michael's siblings Rebbie, LaToya, Tito and Jermaine. Marlon Brando's son Miko, a close friend of the late pop star, also wrote a short memorial piece.
MORE to follow.

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Rest in peace ... Michael's casket on stage

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You were our world


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This one's for you dad ... kids sing on stage

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I'll be there ... Mariah sings Jackson 5 hit


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Pal ... Stevie Wonder

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Homage ... family applaud while each wearing single white glove

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Tears ... Paris Jackson



HEARTBROKEN Paris Jackson fought back the tears tonight to tell the world her dad was the "best father you could ever imagine".
The devastated 11-year-old bravely took to the microphone to make the emotional tribute to dad Michael in front of an audience of millions.



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World sheds a tear for Jacko

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Grieving - candlelight vigil held in the city of Lima


DEVASTATED Jacko fans around the globe mourned the pop legend today in solidarity with the thousands who attended the official memorial in LA. From Tokyo to Melbourne, fans braced themselves for a late night watching the event in tribute to the King of Pop, who died on June 25. Among the galaxy of stars who paid their respects to the superstar tonight were Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Usher and Lionel Richie.

In AUSTRALIA, the event was broadcast live on a giant screen in the southern city of Melbourne at 3am local time. Several Australian TV stations were also carrying it live. In HONG KONG, fans laid flowers on a wax statue of the singer on loan from the local Madame Tussauds museum, while shopping malls tuned TV screens to the event at 1am.

In Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, fans claim the TV-broadcast funeral will give them 'closure'. Actor Henzi Andalas said: "It gives a sense of OK, now he's no longer here," he said. "He's one of my biggest influences in becoming an artist." In the PHILIPPINES, the country's longest running television variety show Eat Bulaga held a Jacko dancing contest to celebrate the memorial. In Lima, PERU, Jackson's fans shouted his name during a vigil in memory of him.
Even in reclusive BURMA, a dance group held a memorial service for Jackson. This followed a candlelight vigil in a Yangon park - a first for the military-controlled state. In JAPAN, home to some of Jackson's most passionate fans, about 100 people gathered at a Tower Records store in downtown Tokyo to watch his videos on a big screen hours before the Los Angeles memorial. The store, which Jackson visited twice, displayed his hand print in a cement block and large posters celebrating his performances. Several shelves dedicated to the pop star were stacked with his CDs and DVDs.

In London, BRITAIN, some fans planned to watch the event on a big screen outside the 02 Arena, where Jackson was to have performed 50 comeback shows starting next week. And the lights of a West End theatre were dimmed for one minute to mark Michael's ceremony. The tribute was paid at the Lyric Theatre, London, before the latest performance of Thriller Live. Fans gathered in GERMANY at Berlin's O2 World arena and at a restaurant in FRANCE just off Paris' Champs-Elysees, where screens were being erected and Parisians were invited to bring their own music to ensure a steady Jackson-only soundtrack for the event. In SWEDEN, fans held candlelit gatherings in central squares in the three biggest cities Stockholm, Goteborg and Malmo.

Others were paying homage in less traditional ways. A sports bar in Oslo, NORWAY, put together a special Jackson-themed menu to accompany its celebration. In BELGIUM radio station StudioBrusse encouraged fans to send clips of themselves doing the moonwalk to a website. "It is a real tribute from our radio saying we like the King of Pop," said station manager Jan Van Biesen of the hundreds of tributes. "This is our eternal moonwalk for him."
In New York, AMERICA, a small group of fans decided to watch the Jackson ceremony at the heart of the city's entertainment industry, Times Square. They endured heavy rain while waiting for the event to start, and when it finally did there was no sound from the massive Times Square TV screens. So the group made do by listening to tinny Jacko tunes from their mobiles.

Kutoka Dar Es Salaam Tanzania wapenzi wa Michael wamekuwa wakifuatilia habari hizi kwa karibu sana kupitia kwenye television na wengine kurikodi ili waone wakati muafaka. Michael aliweza kuwaburudisha walimwengu kila mahali duniani.

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World sheds a tear for Jacko


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Crowds ... Jackson fans in Hong Kong



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Tearful ... London?s O2 Arena



NB Picha kutoka Bongo zimechelewa kuingia kijijini.

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Motorcade ... Michael Jackson's family



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Brought in ... Jacko's coffin


Los Angeles earlier ground to a halt as an estimated 700,000
fans flocked to the downtown Staples Center to say goodbye to Michael Jackson.

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16,000 mourners pack basketball arena for Michael Jackson tribute



Daughter's tears end tribute to Jackson


At rest in a 14-carat gold-plated coffin lined with blue velvet, the body of Michael Jackson was rolled into the Staples Centre, Los Angeles, tonight for a memorial service and star-studded musical extravaganza viewed by at least a billion people around the globe.
?He brought down the colour curtain,? said the Rev Al Sharpton, in a rousing speech that won applause and tears from the 16,000 or so guests who managed to get inside the packed basketball arena. ?It was Michael Jackson who brought blacks and whites and Asians and Latinos together. It was Michael Jackson who created a comfort level so that people who felt they were separate became interconnected with his music.?

But for America ? and Los Angeles ? today?s funeral and memorial service wasn?t so much a "Diana moment" as a made-for-TV special. Afraid that millions of fans would cause havoc in downtown Los Angeles ? and barely able to afford the overtime for its police officers and emergency services ? LA?s city leaders made it virtually impossible for the public to take part in the service. The result was an Oscars-style red carpet event that ? aside from the total 20,000 or so guests who either won tickets in a lottery or who were invited by the Jackson family ? could be viewed only on television. As an expression of public grief, it could
not have been further removed from the 1997 funeral and cort?ge of Diana, Princess of Wales, which drew crowds of up to three million and before which more than a million bouquets were left at Kensington Palace. Nevertheless, today's service was a restrained and celebratory affair, with little if any of the gaudiness that some had expected. It began with the stage of the Staples Centre cast in a soft blue light and the Motown singer Smokey Robinson reading out letters of support from Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela. Confusion briefly followed, as what was originally thought to be respectful silence lasted for more than ten minutes as the entire Jackson family ? the men in the front row wearing yellow ties, white shirts, black suits, and silver gloves on their left hands ? was seated.

Then, finally, the $25,000 coffin ? covered in red roses ? was wheeled in and positioned in front of the stage. After a gospel choir performance of Going to see the King, the Jackson family friend Pastor Lucious Smith addressed the guests. ?To millions around the world, Michael Jackson was an idol, a hero, even a king,? he said. ?But first and foremost he was a brother, a son, and our friend.? One of the biggest cheers of the service came a few minutes later, when the record mogul Berry Gordy, after briefly acknowledging the ?questionable decisions? of Jackson?s life, said: ?The King of Pop was not a big enough title for him. He was the greatest entertainer who ever lived.?

Jackson?s ex-girlfriend Brooke Shields struggled to hold back tears but joked that she had once asked the singer, ?What?s up with the glove?? Stevie Wonder also struggled to hold back his emotions. ?This was a moment I wish I had not lived to see,? he said. ?But as much as we may feel ? and we do ? that we need Michael here with us, God must have needed him for more.? But it was a rousing, racially-charged speech by the Rev Sharpton that resonated the most. He said that the careers of such prominent African-Americans as Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods and Barack Obama would have been impossible without Jackson. ?Michael did that, he made us love each other,? he said. ?I want his kids to know: there was nothing strange about your daddy. What was strange was what he had to deal with. He dealt with it anyway. Some people came here to say goodbye to Michael. I came to say thank you.?

Of the 1.6 million people who entered the lottery for tickets to the service, fewer than 9,000 were told via e-mail that their names had been picked at random by a computer. Most received two golden wristbands for the service, allowing them to take a guest. Without the bands, it was impossible to get beyond the massive barriers that formed a huge security perimeter around the Staples Centre yesterday. Those who got beyond the barriers but couldn?t fit inside the venue were able to watch and hear the service on a giant video screen outside. Although the crowd was said to be 50,000-strong, for the most part the well-wishers seemed vastly outnumbered by the police. In fact, the security perimeter covered such a wide area that it was impossible for well-wishers without tickets to even glimpse the venue from afar. William Bratton, the city?s police chief, told them to simply go home and switch on their television sets. ?If you?re down here, there won?t be much to see,? he said. ?You won?t get within several blocks of the area.?

Even passengers using the Blue Line train service, which stops near the Staples Centre, were told to expect severe delays and the possible closure of stations. Many of the Centre?s car parks were closed and the private car cars that surround the memorial service venue were charging fees of up to $100. It is thought that today?s service cost LA about $4 million ? money it can ill-afford because of the budget crisis that has affected all of California.

Among those who won tickets via the lottery was Juno Pierre-Louis, 42, a car salesman from New York. ?Off the Wall came out when I was growing up near the Bronx, and the gang movement was big then,? he said. ?But as soon as everyone saw his moves, people stopped killing each other and starting having these dancing competitions instead. So Michael Jackson means a lot to me.? He added that, ?[African Americans] tend to walk away from anything that?s embraced by the white community ? but today I?ve seen more black folk with the MJ colours on than the white folk.? The Staples Centre, home of the LA Lakers basketball team, was where Jackson had been rehearsing only two weeks ago for his comeback tour at the O2 arena in London. As soon as the set of the memorial service is dismantled, the venue will be taken over by the Ringling Bros circus.

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Motown founder Berry Gordy, who signed the Jackson Five set the family on the road to stardom, told mourners he had been shocked by the beauty of Michael Jackson's famous 'moonwalk'

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Singer Jennifer Hudson chose to perform, but many simply spoke to the crowd to articulate the sense of loss they felt.

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Civil Rights campaigner Rev Al Sharpton was one of many who spoke at the memorial service, addressing Jackson's children and telling them 'There weren't nothing strange about your daddy'

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RnB artist Usher was one of the dozens who took to the stage.

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Jermaine who sung a version of smile, reputed to be one of Michael Jackson's favourite songs threw the rose from his lapel into the audiance



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Many fans wore tribute to their hero - such as this trade mark glove - as they cheered fellow performers and family members on stage


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Family and friends of Michael Jackson have been joined by thousands of fans at a memorial service for the singer known as the King of Pop.

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This was real moving.

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JACKO SHOCK: Autopsy result bombshell as cops close in on 'killer'


19/07/2009
THE death of Michael Jackson is to become a MURDER investigation, the News of the World can reveal. An autopsy on the superstar has shown he died from an injected overdose of heavy-duty painkiller Diprivan. Police have told his family they will press charges against one or more people within DAYS and there will be a criminal TRIAL.

It could involve whoever administered the injection and anyone who made it available to the star. Last week La Toya Jackson told the News of the World she knew who had murdered her brother. Yesterday's astonishing development was revealed by Terry Harvey, a long-time friend of the Jackson family, in an exclusive interview with us. Terry said: "The autopsy shows that Michael died of a drug overdose with Diprivan and a range of pills in his stomach. He had needle marks on his neck and all over his body.

"The authorities have told the family the Drug Enforcement Administration are pushing for a criminal charge. "It is likely to be second-degree murder, due to the actions which led to his death. They have been assured that someone, or maybe more than one person, will be brought to trial. "The family are working with the DEA and Los Angeles Police Department to work out which doctor prescribed Michael these drugs and how far back this serious problem runs."

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Jackson advisor says he turned over $5.5 million



July 25, 2009, 1:50 AM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A former financial advisor to Michael Jackson said Friday that he was the person who recently turned over to executors $5.5 million, which had been "a secret between Michael and me." Dr. Tohme Tohme responded to an inquiry from The Associated Press about documents in which administrators of the estate said they had recovered $5.5 million and substantial amounts of personal property from an unnamed former financial adviser. "It was not recovered," he said. "I had the money and I gave it to them. It was a secret between Michael and me."

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Dr. Tohme Tohme


He said the money, which came from recording residuals, was earmarked by Jackson for the purchase of what was to be his "dream home" in Las Vegas. He said he was in negotiations for the home when Jackson died. "He said, 'Don't tell anyone about this money,'" Tohme recalled. "But when he passed away I told them I had this money, and I gave it to them."
He said he also turned over a large number of items from Jackson's Neverland estate that were once scheduled to be auctioned. When Jackson decided to call off the auction, Tohme said he had everything put into storage. He said he turned over that personal property to the executors as well.

Tohme is the financier who advised Jackson during the last year and half of his life and was instrumental in saving Neverland from foreclosure. He also was a key figure in negotiating the contracts for Jackson to do a series of comeback concerts in London. The estate's receipt of the money was revealed in court documents released Friday. Attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain are serving as temporary administrators as spelled out in the King of Pop's will. The men are finishing several deals that they expect will generate "tens of millions of dollars of revenues."

They expect to submit those deals for court approval within the next week, the filings state.
The revelations were included in two motions requesting allowances for Jackson's three children and his mother, Katherine. The petitions state that Jackson was the primary source of income for his children and his mother, who receives some money from Social Security.
Katherine Jackson currently has custody of the three children, 12-year-old Michael Joseph Jr., known as Prince Michael; 11-year-old Paris Michael Katherine Jackson; and 7-year-old Prince Michael II, known as Blanket. The children and Jackson's mother are the only members of Jackson's family eligible to receive support from the estate, according to the court filings.
The monthly stipends that Branca and McClain hope to provide the Jacksons were redacted from the court records released Friday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff refused to grant the allowances on Thursday, opting instead to consider them at a hearing on Aug. 3. The judge did allow the administrators to enter into deals that will bring reprints of Michael Jackson's 1988 autobiography, "Moonwalk" back to booksellers. Branca and McClain "believe that the projected cash flow and the assets of the estate are more than sufficient to cover the payment of this amount as a family allowance for the benefit of the minor children."

Jackson paid for the expenses at the Jackson family home in the San Fernando Valley, the court filings state. The administrators plan to keep that arrangement, even though some of the expenses may go to other Jackson family members who also live at the home. Jackson's children will receive Social Security benefits, which have been applied for but payments have not yet started. Their monthly stipends from the estate may be reduced, depending on much money they receive from Social Security, the filings state.



Photos: Jackson's Neverland Ranch



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Farewell to Jacko at sunset funeral


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MICHAEL Jackson was finally laid to rest before a select group of family and friends this morning.
Just 200 mourners, including stars of Hollywood's golden age, bid farewell to the King of Pop at an exclusive cemetery in Los Angeles.
The long-awaited private burial ? which was due to be held last month ? was delayed again because Jackson's family arrived late.