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And Finally
Quincy Jones: Jackson fired me
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 10 September 2010
Quincy Jones has revealed that his successful collaboration with Michael Jackson came to an abrupt end after the legendary producer tried to steer the singer towards hip hop. The pair recorded three albums together, 1979’s ‘Off The Wall’, 1982 ‘Thriller’ and 1987’s ‘Bad’, some of the most successful albums of all time. But Jones was dropped because Jackson felt that hip hop’s time had passed.
Jones told The Guardian: “Michael fired me … He said, ‘Quincy doesn’t understand the business any more. He doesn’t know that rap is dead’. But it’s OK. It wasn’t so obvious then [how big hip hop would become]”.
He added that they still kept in touch, and remembered the last time he spoke to Jackson, shortly before his death: “I was in London when he sold out the ten concerts, and then sold out 40 more. He called me. He wanted to bring the kids over. But I was with Mohamed Al Fayed at his place. I said, ‘I’ll see you in Los Angeles’. And that was the last time I talked to him”.