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Africa Visit
Date range confirmed in “Los Angeles Times” (archived) (“the day of his arrival in Gabon on Feb. 11 [1992]… The pop superstar on Wednesday [February 19, 1992]... head home”)
Superstar Michael Jackson cancelled public appearances in the West African state of Ivory Coast yesterday after a tumultuous welcome by thousands of pop fans ended in riots.
Police attacked the teenage crowd with whips and batons. Later, students burned down petrol stations and a post office, and set buses and cars on fire in a night of clashes with troops.
Radicals have been protesting for days against President Felix Houphouet-Boigny's refusal to punish soldiers who raped three girls and beat up dozens of youths in a raid at their university.
Jackson stayed in his hotel instead of visiting an orphanage in the capital Abidjan. "He panicked", said an aide.
The singer, in Africa to make a video, will be crowned tribal king at a ceremony near Abidjan tomorrow.
Superstar Michael Jackson fled into hiding after he was caught up in riots on the Ivory Coast yesterday.
...His ordeal began when he touched down in the strife-torn Abidjan. Riot police started pushing and shoving thousands of young fans who turned out to greet him.
Despite being encouraged to turn up by the government, many fans were beaten and arrested.
Michael has hastily rushed off the tarmac into a waiting limousine.
He has now put off plans for a traditional ceremony in the remote town of East Abidjan, where he was to be crowned an African King. "Michael is tired and he has to rest after his long trip", his spokesman, Bob Jones, said.
But sources said that the singer was frightened to go out into the streets.
The star's entourage were said to be shocked that they had arrived in the West African country in the middle of a period of civil unrest, with student groups attempting to overthrow the government.
Mr. Jones said he did not know how the plans for the making of "A Return to Africa" video would be affected…
"Jet" magazine (March 16, 1992)
Smiling modestly and sitting on a golden throne while two young bare-breasted virgins fanned him in 90-degree weather and two small boys stood guard, megastar Michael Jackson was crowned “King of Sani” in a West African village. During impressive ceremonies observed by a huge crowd, the 33-year-old entertainer was regal in his bearing as a crown of gold was placed upon his head by Amon N’Djafok, the traditional tribal chief of the Village of Krindjabo, Ivory Coast, West Africa.
The shy singing sensation who once told JET that he “would rather blaze trails than follow in someone’s footsteps,” had been sitting silently and smiling brightly beneath a special canopy reserved for a person of high rank as his four Black American bodyguards stood nearby.
Wearing an orange shirt and black pants, Jackson removed his trademark black fedora hat which was replaced by a crown of glittering gold.
Hundreds of proud people from the gold-mining village occupied by the Agni Tribe, located near Abidjan, Ivory Coast, cheered loudly as the chief and his assistants draped him inside a colorful robe trimmed in gold and placed a six-foot scepter of gold in his right hand. A choral group of aged and revered women, wearing white robes, sang and chanted on the grounds to invoke the ancestors. The energetic entertainer who already wore the title of “King of Pop, Rock and Soul” for selling more albums than any other artist in the history of recording world- wide, stood in front of the throne that was below a sacred village tree. He was told that he was on the land of his ancestors as the “prodigal child of the Bible.” Filled with emotions, Jackson acknowledged his elevation to the royal rank as honorary “King of Sani” and responded with six words. Using the language of the French-speaking West African peoples, he exclaimed: “Merci beaucoup!” “King Sani” then used the English translation: “Thank you very much!” He then sat down.
When the ceremonies concluded, Jackson remained for a short time to pay respect to the village chief and the fans who turned out to honor him.
A proud tribe of people who were forced into exile from Ghana, a neighbor nation, in the 18th Century, they settled in the Ivory Coast and founded their own kingdom and have managed to keep their own monarchy.
“Coming from Ghana, the Gold Coast at that time, gold has always been a symbol of power for the Agni,” an Ivory Coast handbook reveals. “Therefore, they decorate those being honored at ceremonies with heavy jewelry” of gold.
Jackson, who had already been honored with Gabon’s highest Medal of Honor by President Omar Bongo, who hosted Jackson’s “Come Back To Eden” tour, departed for other African nations—Tanzania and Egypt, the cradle of civilization, which Jackson portrayed in a music video, Remember The Time from his Dangerous album (JET, Feb. 17).
While Jackson was touring the African nations, where he visited hospitals inhabited by ill children, orphanages, schools, churches and institutions for mentally retarded children, he was apprised of reports which characterized his tour as “a public relations disaster.” The anti-Jackson newspaper and broadcast reports came as a shocking surprise to Jackson and the 26 persons he had chosen to accompany him—including JET Associate Publisher Robert E. Johnson and JET/EBONY/EM photographer James Mitchell.
When they collected the press clippings, the Jackson entourage listed the 10 biggest lies told about the sensitive singer who is also known worldwide for his humanity and philanthropy. These are the lies:
1) The trip was “a public relations disaster for Michael.”
2) “The singer cut short an African tour after early stopovers generated the wrong kind of excitement.”
3) “Jackson leaves behind him some confusion about why he came to Africa in the first place...”
4) He held his hand to his nose because the Ivory Coast is “underdeveloped, impure” and the “air is polluted, infested with germs” and he didn’t want to “inhale it.”
5) He collapsed from the heat.
6) He was in South Africa filming a movie.
7) He canceled his “performance” in Nairobi, Kenya.
8) He refused to shake hands with people.
9) He went to London for a medical appointment.
10) He is “neither Black or White” and is not a good role model for children.
As an eyewitness on the tour, there is no truth in the above lies told about the world’s greatest entertainer who had a love-in with his fans who cheered and applauded him everywhere he appeared.
Although the men who accompanied him were peeved over the media mess, the modest musical messenger was unruffled—mainly because he refused to read the stories. Moreover, his Dangerous album responds to such criticisms in the song, Why You Wanna Trip On Me. The song says, in part:
“They say I’m different/They don't understand/But there’s a bigger problem/That's much more in demand/You got world hunger/ Not enough to eat/So there’s really no time/To be trippin’ on me
“We've got more problems/Than we'll ever need/You got gang violence/And bloodshed on the street/You got homeless people/With no food to eat/With no clothes on their back/And no shoes for their feet.../Tell me what are you doing/To try to stop this/Why you wanna trip on me.../Stop trippin'.”
The thrilling tone for Jackson’s tour was cast when he set his feet upon the mineral and oil-rich soil of Gabon, West Africa (population: 1,068,240), where more than 100,000 frenzied fans feted him, and the cheers continued until he concluded the tour in Tanzania, East Africa (population: 25,970,843). It was there that one enthusiastic fan, Shyrose Bhanji, shook Jackson’s hand and told a Tanzania Standard Newspaper (TNS) reporter: “I couldn't believe that his hands could possibly be softer than mine. I am not too sure if I will wash my hands for at least two weeks.”
Shyrose’s hand was not the only hand the amiable ambassador of love touched while touring the land of his ancestors. Wherever he went to meet and mingle, Jackson touched, hugged and kissed his fans. “I love my fans,” he told JET. “When I’m on stage, I can’t perform if I don’t have that kind of ping-pong with the crowd.”
Although he didn’t go to Africa to perform onstage or promote his Dangerous album, he had “that kind of ping-pong” with crowds— especially with children he visited in hospitals, schools and orphanages.
“There’s a certain sense that animals and children have that gives me a certain creative juice, a certain force that later on in adulthood is lost because of the conditioning that happens in the world,” the prolific performer said. “When I see children, I see that God has not yet given up on man. A great poet from India, (Rabindranath) Tagore, said that and I agree with him,” allowed the well-read entertainer who purchased books and videos in every city he visited.
But it was in Tanzania that Jackson, who sings songs of love and peace, discovered he was in a country that proclaims that it is “The Haven of Peace.”
When one of Jackson’s aides rushed down the ramp of the plane after it landed in Dar es Saaam, the capital of Tanzania, he inquired about security that would control the large crowd at the airport terminal. “Where are the police and the soldiers?,” a man clad in a safari uniform with short sleeves was asked.
“I’m a policeman,” he said, pointing to the silver badge pinned above his shirt pocket. “Where is your gun?,” he was asked. The policeman responded: “We don’t wear guns. Were civilized. We don’t have soldiers here because we're not at war with Michael Jackson.”
It was against this backdrop that Tanzania President Ali Hassan Mwinyi hosted the popular entertainer and urged him to publicize the East African nation’s rich tourism potential in the United States. President Mwinyi observed that the talented titan’s tour of Tanzania would enlighten him of the country’s potential in tourism so that “you become our envoy by publicizing Tanzania’s richness in wildlife when you go back home.”
Because of his love of animals, especially the chimpanzees, the multi-millionaire musician promised to contribute toward a wildlife conservation fund and toward children from his Heal The World Foundation. He made the latter pledge after an emotional visit to the Sinza Centre for Mentally Retarded Children, where hundreds of his fans ringed the building and lined both sides of the street that led to the Centre, where his surprise appearance generated great excitement.
Shortly before Jackson was scheduled to take off for a visit to Kenya, he was suddenly summoned to London for pressing business matters pertaining to his world tour set to begin this summer. It turned out to be an act of fate because the entertainer would have arrived amidst a political conflict in which opposition was pressing for the resignation of Kenya President Daniel Arap Moi and refugees fleeing a conflict in neighboring Somalia created further disruption in the nation. However, Jackson said he merely postponed his visit and intends to perform there in the future. Before leaving for London, Bob Jones, vice president of communication, set the record straight about the controversial report that erroneously charged that Jackson held his nose because “he could not stand the smell in the land of his ancestors.”
Jones said that Jackson, who was nicknamed “Smelly” by Quincy Jones, was merely exhibiting a nervous twitch. “Mr. Jackson has been performing since he was five years old but he is quite a bashful person...Under no circumstances would we be here if we thought your country smelled.”
Charles Bobbit, a consultant to President Bongo, initiated the idea for the trip in consultation with Jones. He got the support of President Bongo to allow Gabon to be the host country along with the support of the president's son, Ali, and his daughter, Mademoiselle Pascaline Bongo, who is the nation’s foreign minister.
“It was Ali’s useful knowledge, information, skills and fluency with the French language that made the venture a success,” Bobbit told JET. He added that it was Jackson’s stated desire “to visit orphanages and children’s hospitals in each city.”
He added: “I was impressed with the interaction between Michael and the children. He sat on the bed with children who were deformed and children that were ill. He sat there and talked to them, held them, cuddled them. He shook their hands. He did not wear a surgical mask like he does sometimes in America and had no fear of contagious diseases, of which there was no danger like that anyway. The myth of Michael Jackson is that he is afraid of germs. This is absolutely wrong because he cares about children. Many people say it but he does it. He cares. That’s what qualifies him as a role model for children—his deeds and not his looks.”
Bobbit added:
“I'm glad that JET and Ebony magazines were with us because they will tell it and show it as it is.”
“Ebony” magazine (May 1992)
When he was out front as the 14-year-old lead vocalist of the Jackson Five singing group, Michael Jackson visited Africa for the first time.
“When we came off the plane in [Dakar, Senegal] Africa”, he recalls, “we were greeted by a long line of African dancers. Their drums and sounds filled the air with rhythm. I was going crazy, I was screaming, ‘All right! They got the rhythm…This is it. This is where I come from. The origin.’”
Nineteen years later, when Michael, now 33, came off the plane in Gabon, a West African neighbor nation of Senegal, he was greeted by an excited, screaming crowd of grade-school students who carried a banner that proclaimed: “Welcome Home Michael.” Drum sounds again filled the air with rhythm that flowed from fans who gathered at the airport and lined the streets in anticipation of seeing the “king of pop, rock, and soul,” who would later be crowned “King Sani” in a West African village.
Despite or perhaps because of this acclaim, the pop idol almost immediately became the center of an international controversy based on a negative media campaign. The media bashing included these big lies:
The trip was a “public relations disaster for Michael.” Truth: It was a triumph in which he drew more spectators in Gabon than Nelson Mandela and more in the Ivory Coast than the Pope, according to African spokespersons.
“The singer cut short an African tour after a stopover generated the wrong kind of excitement.” Truth: The sponsors wanted him to extend his tour to meet the demand for his appearances everywhere.
He held his hand to his nose because the African nations smelled. Truth: He sometimes touched his nose, an old nervous habit which earned him the nickname “Smelly”, given originally by Quincy Jones because Michael was touching his nose in Los Angeles.
He collapsed from the heat and he went to London for a medical appointment. Truth: He was never bothered by the heat. His personal physician, Dr. R. Chalmers, accompanied Jackson on the trip. Jackson didn’t go to London for a medical appointment.
He refused to shake hands with Africans. Truth: He shook the hands of hundreds of people, hugged and kissed children in hospitals and institutions for the mentally retarded.
He is “neither Black nor White” and is not a good role model for children. Truth: After Michael read a prayer in the basilica of Our Lady of Peace in the Ivory Coast, a 9-year-old boy exclaimed: “Michael is love, love, love! I want to be like him.”
Because he is well known for his humanity and philanthropy, tour organizer Charles Bobbit reflected on the African tour and said: “I was impressed with the interaction between Michael and the children. He sat on the bed with children who were deformed and children that were ill… He sat there and talked to them, hugged, cuddled them. He shook hands and did not wear a surgical mask like he does sometimes to America…That qualifies him as a role model for children – his deeds and not his looks.”
While the international controversy raged, Michael remained aloof, refusing to read the stories and saying that he preferred to let his deeds and his songs speak for him. Strangely and significantly, he had anticipated this and other criticisms in the song, “Why You Wanna Trip On Me”, in the Dangerous album. The song says, in part:
They say I’m different
They don’t understand
But there’s a bigger problem
That’s much more in demand
You got world hunger
Not enough to eat
So there’s really no time
To be trippin’ on me…
It was clear from the beginning that the African people agreed with Michael. And from the time of his arrival, the native of Gary, Indiana was welcomed like a ruling dignitary and a long-lost son.
He had come to the land of his ancestors to participate in a historic ceremony conducted beneath a sacred tree in the gold-mining village of Krindjabo, populated by the Agni tribe and located near Abidjan, Ivory Coast. As the village people stood in admiration, Amon N’Djafolk, the traditional tribal chief of Krindjabo, placed a crown of gold upon the head of the musical monarch and pronounced him “king of Sani.”
Almost overcome by emotions, the shy, sensitive son of Joseph and Katherine Jackson smiled and said, “Merci beaucoup,” to the French-speaking people and repeated in English, “Thank you very much.”
He then joined elders of the king’s court, signed official documents and sat on a throne of gold as women dancers, clad in white gowns, gave a dazzling performance of ritual dances. These elderly women are the guardians of the village, and their ceremonial dances gave their blessings to the crowning of “King Sani” and asked God for protection at a tree that symbolized the essence of power.
The musical messenger, who journeyed to West and East African nations as a self-proclaimed ambassador of peace, love, and goodwill, achieved a success that exceeded his expectation.
From his sunset arrival in Gabon, where more than 100,000 people greeted him with spiritual bedlam, to his stop in Cairo, Egypt, to which he had paid homage on his newest album, Dangerous, with the best-selling single and music video Remember the Time, Michael was caught up in a hurricane of happy happenings.
In French-speaking, oil and mineral rich Gabon, he received the West African nation’s Medal of Honor from President Omar Bongo, who was the official host of the performer’s “Come back To Eden” tour.
President Bongo told Jackson that he was the first entertainer to ever receive the medal, which until then has been given only to heads of states and high-ranking diplomats and dignitaries – including Nelson Mandela.
As host of the tour, President Bongo appointed his daughter, Pascaline Bongo, the nation’s Foreign Minister, and his son, Ali Bongo, to coordinate the tour along with Charles Bobbit, a consultant to the president, who initiated the idea for Jackson’s visit.
Jackson agreed to go on the non-performing tour with the stipulation that his priority was his “desire to visit orphanages, children’s hospitals, churches, schools, and playgrounds.”
During his visits to Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Egypt, he encountered “Michael mania” everywhere. His image was on posters, T-shirts, billboards, a postage stamp (in Tanzania), and street banners. His music was played on the radio, piped into hotels – Okume Palace in Libreville, Gabon; Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and the Kilimanjaro Hotel in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Energetic and intensely interested in his fans, he logged 30,000 miles in 11 days; passed through 11 time zones, slept in five time zones and landed on four continents – South America, Africa, Europe, and North America. His 26-person entourage traveled in a Boeing 707 Executive plane with stateroom, private bath, open bar, lounges, dining areas, video and audio equipment, telephones, and fax machines.
And when it was over, the entertainer, contrary to false rumors, had given a new Michael Jackson twist to person-to-person diplomacy and had touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of proud Africans.
INTERVIEW
OF ALL the superstars who are reluctant to share their personal views with the public via the press, Michael Jackson ranks easily as the most reluctant one. A consummate extrovert when on stage, he is as tightlipped as a Trappist monk when it comes to meeting the press. That's why Johnson Publishing Co. considers it an extraordinary coup that the king of pop abandoned his usual reticence and gave the longest interview "in eight years" to EBONY and Jet. The interview, which appeared in the May 1992 issue of EBONY is reprinted below.
It was conducted by Jet Executive Editor Robert E. Johnson during the entertainer's visit to four African countries (Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Egypt). During the trip, the entertainer was crowned king of Sani at a ceremony in the Ivory Coast.
EBONY/JET: Do you have any special feeling about this return to the continent of Africa?
Michael Jackson: For me, it's like the "dawn of civilization." It's the first place where society existed. It's seen a lot of love. I guess there's that connection because it is the root of all rhythm. Everything. It's home.
EBONY/JET: You visited Africa in 1974. Can you compare and contrast the two visits?
Michael Jackson: I'm more aware of things this time: the people and how they live and their government. But for me, I'm more aware of the rhythms and the music and the people. That's what I'm really noticing more than any thing. The rhythms are incredible. You can tell especially the way the children move. Even the little babies, when they hear the drums, they start to move. The rhythm, the way it affects their soul and they start to move. The same thing that Blacks have in America.
EBONY/JET: How does it feel to be a real king?
Michael Jackson: I never try to think hard about it because I don't want it to go to my head. But, it's a great honor...
EBONY/JET: Speaking of music and rhythm, how did you put together the gospel songs on your last album?
Michael Jackson: I wrote "Will You Be There?" at my house, "Never Land" in California.... I didn't think about it hard. That's why it's hard to take credit for the songs that I write, because I just always feel that it's done from above. I feel fortunate for being that instrument through which music flows. I'm just the source through which it comes. I can't take credit for it because it's God's work. He's just using me as the messenger....
EBONY/JET: What was the concept for the Dangerous album?
Michael Jackson: I wanted to do an album that was like Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. So that in a thousand years from now, people would still be listening to it. Something that would live forever. I would like to see children and teenagers and parents and all races all over the world, hundreds and hundreds of years from now, still pulling out songs from that album and dissecting it. I want it to live.
EBONY/JET: I notice on this trip that you made a special effort to visit children.
Michael Jackson: I love children, as you can see. And babies.
EBONY/JET: And animals.
Michael Jackson: Well, there's a certain sense that animals and children have that gives me a certain creative juice, a certain force that later on in adulthood is kind of lost because of the conditioning that happens in the world. A great poet said once. "When I see children, I see that God has not yet given up on man." An Indian poet from India said that, and his name is Tagore. The innocence of children represents to me the source of infinite creativity. That is the potential of every human being. But by the time you are an adult, you're conditioned; you're so conditioned by the things about you and it goes. Love. Children are loving, they don't gossip, they don't complain, they're just open-hearted. They're ready for you. They don't judge. They don't see things by way of color. They're very child-like. That's the problem with adults they lose that child-like quality. And that's the level of inspiration that's so needed and is so important for creating and writing songs and for a sculptor, a poet or a novelist. It's that same kind of innocence, that same level of consciousness, that you create from. And kids have it. I feel it right away from animals and children and nature. Of course. And when I'm on stage. I can't perform if I don't have that kind of ping pony with the crowd. You know the kind of cause and effect action, reaction. Because I play off of them. They're really feeding me and I'm just acting from their energy.
EBONY/JET: Where is all this heading?
Michael Jackson: I really believe that God chooses people to do certain things, the way Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci or Mozart or Muhammad Ali or Martin Luther King is chosen. And that is their mission to do that thing. And I think that I haven't scratched the surface yet of what my real purpose is for being here. I'm committed to my art.
I believe that all art has as its ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. And I believe that that is the very reason for the existence of art and what I do. And I feel fortunate in being that instrument through which music flows…
Deep inside I feel that this world we live in is really a big, huge, monumental symphonic orchestra.
I believe that in its primordial form all of creation is sound and that it's not just random sound, that it's music. You've heard the expression, music of the spheres? Well, that's a very literal phrase. In the Gospels, we read, "And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul."
That breath of life to me is the music of life and it permeates every fiber of creation. In one of the pieces of the Dangerous album, I say: "Life songs of ages, throbbing in my blood, have danced the rhythm of the tide and flood."
This is a very literal statement, because the same new miracle intervals and biological rhythms that sound out the architecture of my DNA also governs the movement of the stars.
The same music governs the rhythm of the seasons, the pulse of our heartbeats, the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of ocean tides, the cycles of growth, evolution and dissolution. It's music, it's rhythm. And my goal in life is to give to the world what I was lucky to receive: the ecstasy of divine union through my music and my dance. It's like, my purpose, it's what I'm here for.
EBONY/JET: What about politics?
Michael Jackson: I never get into politics. But I think music soothes the savage beast. If you put cells under a microscope and you put music on, you'll see them move and start to dance. It affects the soul... I hear music in everything. [Pauses] You know, that's the most I've said in eight years. You know I don't give interviews. That because I know you, and I trust you. You're the only person I trust to give interviews to.