It’s the late Michael Jackson’s birthday today. Jackson’s last years (he died in 2009) were overshadowed by child abuse allegations (see here and here). These allegations came to  define his legacy for many. It sullied his impact on pop music. As a result, Jackson has divided opinion as a performer and artist.

Jackson dressed like a character from a 19th century British fantasy mixed with Peter Pan and his style on- and off-stage often veered to that of the stereotype of the stereotype of a third world dictator complete with shiny medals; in the end, he came to resemble, in style, a showbiz Muammar Gaddafi.

Despite his attempts to disfigure his “African” features (he claimed all kinds of medical reasons), he had a complicated and contradictory relationship with the continent, often at odds with the values of freedom and democracy that he seemed to profess through his music and performances.

He loved being photographed with African dictators like Omar Bongo, the long time dictator of Gabon; Jackson was not alone in this: Bob Marley also famously went to play a concert for Bongo.  And like most visitors to the continent, Jackson snapped images with children in “African” garb. On the flipside, Nelson Mandela liked hanging out with Jackson.

Jackson was forced to pay the Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango for willfully sampling, without attribution, from Dibangu’s hit “Soul Makossa” on his own “Wanna be starting somethin’.”

Nevertheless, Jackson’s first forays to the African continent – like a 1974 trip to perform in Senegal; this is the subject of a newly discovered documentary film. Jackson is quoted as saying this about the trip:  “When we came off the plane in Dakar, Senegal, Africa, 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.’”

Wherever Jackson went when he visited the continent, crowds adored him, they packed stadiums to hear and watch him, danced to his music or made songs about him. Even Dibango, after the dispute over sampling, still described Jackson as “un artiste exceptionnel, le plus talentueux et ingénieux” (an exceptional artist, the most talented and ingenious).

But it’s in Jackson’s music videos that we see the contradictions and tensions more clearly. The video for”Remember the Time” is a case in point. Though it resembled too much Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America“- the video actually starred Murphy and is mixed with mild Orientalism – you could not look away and marvel at Jackson and his team’s creativity. The same for “Liberian Girl” with its Indiana Jones mock-up.