“It’s Just Business”: Michael Jackson’s Purchase of the Beatles Catalog as Counterpunch, Copia, and Rhythmic Reparations

ABSTRACT

According to Black Twitter community members, who were active online just after rock ‘n’ roll artist Little Richard’s passing in 2020, Michael Jackson’s purchase of the Beatles catalog (thirty-five years prior) was viewed as what Twitter user and academic author DJ Scholarship calls “rhythmic reparations,” offering restitution for Black artists like Little Richard who were never compensated fairly in a white industry. The purchase of Sony/ATV then became more than just a business transaction; it worked rhetorically as a pop culture object to amplify and change narratives about race, music, money, and power. I rely on two concepts of rhetoric—counterpunch and copia—to reexamine language surrounding Jackson’s initial purchase and the conversation about Jackson occurring in the wake of Little Richard’s death. I also explain how this conversation on Black Twitter led me to revise my knowledge of popular culture and music history and to confront my own white privilege.

KEYWORDS:

• Black Twitter
• copia
• counterstory
• Michael Jackson
• Paul McCartney

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ I follow Mason and Singh’s current research on the ethics of quoting users on Twitter. One of their conclusions is that accounts of “public figures” like Chance the Rapper and DJ Scholarship, a music scholar who even playfully encourages her 12,200 followers to “cite me, don’t bite me,” are accustomed to circulation of their content. On the other hand, accounts with smaller followings may not aim for such circulation, even when they choose to participate in public spaces. The users with small followings have been paraphrased when possible, and names/handles have been omitted both here and within the Works Cited.

² Black Twitter users are members of the community because of the discourse in which they engage, not because of their account information or head shots in which someone’s skin color is easily perceived. These users share a “lived reality” (Martinez, Counterstory 68) that becomes evident through dialogic exchanges and use of counterpunches.

³ In American Music Tom Johnson would use words like “utopian” and “liberational decentralizing potential” to describe Chance’s reimagining of the music industry. Hanif Abdurraqib also described Chance as one who inspires a “rock-star-like quality” while also making “joy into a brand” with his optimism (32–36). This commentary indicates that some believe his work has the potential to contribute to a more humane industry in the face of late-stage capitalism. Still, Chance the Rapper’s role as a judge on a reality competition show like The Voice reminds us that he remains tied to the very systems of celebrity making and entertainment that find their roots in late-stage capitalism. In most cases, artists know their work leads to opportunities in which their “rock-star-like quality” can be monetized.

⁴ Zack O’Malley Greenburg reports that the asking price was 47.5 million (2).

⁵ Presley’s record producer Sam Phillips is remembered for saying, “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a million dollars” (Marcus 53). The idea in the 1950s was to use a Black person’s talent in a more “acceptable” white body.

⁶ Jackson would also spend part of 1985 writing the song “We Are the World,” which resulted in $60 million for humanitarian causes (Krueger 45). Although the emphasis here is on his counterpunch via the catalog purchase, the King of Pop was an advocate for various charities and social justice organizations throughout his life.

⁷ The Jackson estate now has its own Vegas show called One. Outside the auditorium door at Mandalay Bay resort are lists of Jackson’s songs in different fonts and colors on the walls of the lobby. I could not help but notice similarities between the Liverpool museum wall and the walls outside the Las Vegas theater. Both locations feature lists as rhetorical objects that are used to communicate bounty.

⁸ Jackson’s video of “Billie Jean” from the early 1980s features a plot like McCartney’s in “My Brave Face,” although MTV executives initially refused to air it (Denisof 101–02). In the video for “Billie Jean,” a private investigator repeatedly attempts to take Jackson’s photo and track his movements. By the video’s end, the man is arrested and the photos he tried to collect display only blank pages.

⁹ Wonder’s success was already assured when he won Best Album with Innervisions in 1973 (the first of three wins), beating McCartney’s album Band on the Run. He did not need to record a single with McCartney to remain relevant to both Black and white audiences.

¹⁰ Throughout this essay, I use the Little Richard title when discussing his career onstage and in music and his birth name Richard Penniman when explaining his personal history or when he comments on racism in the music industry.

¹¹ Just down the road and less than a mile away from the diminutive Little Richard House is the Big House, a mansion dedicated to the work and memory of the typically white Allman Brothers Band, a group that helped shape the genre of Southern rock. The Big House’s location in the neighborhood just west of Pleasant Hill was more ideal than Richard’s because it was further from the interstate and nestled among more historic, middle-class homes. As Penniman recounts, “The area of the city where we lived was all black people, but a couple of streets over it was white. We lived near the borderline…” (White 19).