QUEEN LATIFAH: “MICHAEL JACKSON WAS THE GREATEST STAR ON EARTH”
Queen Latifah is profound as she reads the words of Maya Angelou’s poem, We Had Him (And We Are The World).
She says of Jackson, that “he was the greatest star on earth.”
It’s just so appropriate that poetry (which is all about the breath) began the ceremony, and from the lips of a Queen. :)
10.45 AM, 7.7.09, Los Angeles, California, The Staples Center
The Words of We Had Him by Maya Angelou follow:
Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing, now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind.
Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace. Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.
In the instant that Michael is gone, we know nothing. No clocks can tell time. No oceans can rush our tides with the abrupt absence of our treasure.
Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him.
He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love, and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.
We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.
His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing. He gave us all he had been given.
Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana’s Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England
We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him, and we are the world.
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Michael Jackson was DEFINITELY… no matter what the world says, THE GREATEST STAR ON EARTH!
August 28, 2009 at 1:29 am
Michael Jackson IS NOT the greatest star ever and is nowhere close to The Beatles, the only thing he is close to them is maybe in popularity.
Michael Jackson had MTV, much more video technology, many many more radio station around the world, color tv aorund the world, thousands of magazines around the world and internet to spread his music and videos, stuff that Beatles didnt have and even like that The Beatles sold many more, had much more impact in the music, society, politics and other areas than him.
Beatles didnt needed scandals to gain more popularity or to be in the news, they werent pedof (mj paid to children parents to withdrow charges that’s why he was never convicted), they never put the life of a little baby at risk to gain attention and many other things that mj did just for publicity.
A real KING is talked by his music and achivements and not for the bads things he does to keep attention. A real KING doesnt need a death to reappear in the news or media as a king of pop. A real KING never lip-synch like mj did in most of his concerts, a real king sings with real voice ni concerts (like Elvis)
Before his death there were like 70 millions of mj pages in google ( beatles had 135 million at that time), now there are like 160 millions, mj wasnt enable to put one song on the top 10 for about 15 years or more, his successful era was the begging of the 80′s.
I can’t deny that mj was a great singer and entertainer but to say the he was the greatest star is like to say that Albert Einstain was so ignorant.
July 12, 2009 at 7:54 am
Craig Grandville says; I understand and agree with Bono; Here is my detailed personal belief of what Elvis means to America and most of the world; Elvis early development, experiences with poverty, struggle, pain and shame were internalized early on. His Love of God came from singing Gospel Music in Church, and his tone and sound was a direct expression from his Soul. In part, this is why we still love, admire, and respect this generous man 30 years after his passing. Too many people focus on the negative and the excesses of his life. However, the negative can be found in every living human, and if every human had that kind of attention and money you’d see excesses everywhere. Today, Elvis represents a modern archetypal king figure who links the individual to our past, to our current society, and to the future through his music and life. He had a Spiritual quality that was expressed through his dramatic image and movement, but most importantly through his soulful songs, which are manifestations of his incredible and not always conscious insight. In 1956 by the time Elvis was 21, (the midpoint of his life) he had achieved the American dream. Yet, Elvis did so much more. He foreshadowed the sexual revolution and women’s liberation, and as a non-conformist and revolutionary, of sorts, Elvis’s style of civil disobedience broke down racial barriers in the music world, which prefigured the civil rights movement. America lacks an actual king and queen mythologically linking the people to the divine. The USA also lacks spiritual leadership, so we project this deep archetypal need onto Elvis. Let’s face it, there is no political figure we can project that onto because they hide or supress much of their human nature. And, none of them ever possessed the natural androgyny of male/female aspects like Elvis. Regardless of our gender, we are both male and female. Elvis was the perfect expression of both those parts. In Elvis, white Americans found a reason to express their longing and appreciation of Native American and black parts of themselves. When Elvis’s Scotch-Irish and Jewish heritage is considered, we see just what a multi-cultural icon he really is. His favorite songs were gospels, and central to his spiritual life were The Holy Bible, The Prophet, The Impersonal Life, and Autobiography of a Yogi. Elvis is The Greatest star ever, and one of the most important beings who ever lived.. That’s why almost a million people from all over the world travel to Graceland each year. John Lennon said it himself- ‘Before Elvis, there was nothing’ Craig Grandville MSW
August 8, 2009 at 3:31 pm