Black or White #thetruth
Single by Michael Jackson
from the album Dangerous
Released 1991
Genre Pop rock, hip hop
The lyrics of this song are a plea for racial tolerance. Jackson wrote it with producer Bill Bottrell, who also worked with Jackson on his Bad album and won the 1994 Grammy for Record of the Year for Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do."
Slash of Guns N' Roses was often misattributed as playing the guitar intro. He did play on the song "Give in to Me" from the Dangerous album, but definitely not "Black Or White," which he made clear in a Spinner interview. Said Slash: "It just doesn't sound like me, anyone would know that. It's not the guitar sound you would expect from me, but somehow I got pigeonholed as the guy who played on that song."
The video featured a morphing technique that was very innovative at the time. Macaulay Culkin and George Wendt (Norm from the sitcom Cheers) appeared in it, as well as Tyra Banks before she gained supermodel status.
The 11-minute music video, helmed by "Thriller" director John Landis, got a lot of hype. It premiered on MTV, BET, and Fox at the exact same time, and was perhaps the most controversial video ever recorded by Jackson, showing him dancing and destroying all things racist, including a swastika used by the Nazis. During the last four minutes of the clip, which were excised after protests, Jackson also performed some rather explicit crotch grabs, threw a garbage can through a store window, and destroyed a car.
In response to the controversy, Jackson said: "It upsets me to think that 'Black or White' could influence any child or adult to destructive behavior, either sexual or violent."
R&B and hip-hop helmsman Teddy Riley was the main producer on many of Dangerous' tracks. He explained to Musicradar.com his contribution on this song: "I added the percussion to the track. I used wood percussion – cow bells, shakers and things like that. Producer Bill Bottrell had an EIII drum machine playing loops. I sat with the track for a while then I said, 'OK, this is a good track. But what it needs is instrumentation'. It had the guitars and Slash from Guns N' Roses on there but I felt if it was going to play live and acoustical, then we'd need to add some acoustical percussion. It was the case that I'd find the tracks very studio sounding and I wanted to add the live funk to them."
A rapper known as LTB performed the rap on this song, which was lip-synched by Macaulay Culkin in the video.
Weird Al Yankovic had the idea to parody this song as "Snack All Night," following his food-themed Jackson parodies "Eat It" and "Fat." Jackson, who was a big fan of Yankovic's work, told him to leave this one alone since it was a very meaningful song.
Al was in a creative funk at the time, but pulled out of it thanks to Nirvana and his parody "Smells Like Nirvana."
Jackson didn't get the same respect from the show In Living Color, which portrayed him singing this as "Am I Black Or White?" making fun of his increasingly pallid complexion. This bit has him destroying a car as in the video and getting arrested. When a cop cuffs him, he says, "I guess I am black."
This was Jackson's 12th #1 hit as a solo artist, putting him in third place (tied with Diana Ross & The Supremes) for the most #1 songs on the Hot 100, behind The Beatles (20) and Elvis Presley (18). Both Mariah Carey, matching Elvis' 18, and Rihanna, with 14, will later beat Jackson's feat.
It was also the fastest-rising single in 22 years (since The Beatles' "Get Back"), jumping from #35 to #3 in its second week, and landing at #1 in its third week.
The success of "Black Or White" solidified Jackson's reputation as "The King of Pop." Although he'd been called the name a couple times in the past, he wanted to make it official, especially since the tabloids had taken a shine to dubbing him "Wacko Jacko" for his eccentric behavior and changing appearance. Any network that hoped to air the song's music video had to agree to refer to Jackson as "The King of Pop." MTV even sent out a memo to its staff instructing personnel to use the moniker at least twice a week up until the premiere.
Dan Beck, a former executive at Epic Records and part of Jackson's marketing team, worried the push for royal status would hurt the pop star's career. "Believe me, we were trying to talk him out of it," Beck said in a Songfacts interview. "Our feeling was that radio was going to just roll their eyes and say, 'Screw you!'"
Instead, the video was the most requested clip on MTV and the single reigned at #1 for seven weeks.
