The Michael Jackson fan community is buzzing today after the Birmingham Mail reported that Fred Jerkins III had spilled the beans about an in-the-works project comprising unreleased Jackson material.
Jerkins, who works as part of the “Darkchild” production team with his brother Rodney, stated that he would soon publish unreleased material by pop superstar Michael Jackson.
“We have a number of unreleased songs and all sorts of video footage,” stated Jerkins.
“There’s a project in the making right now that will include all those songs. I worked with him for two years exclusively – it’s the biggest highlight of my career.”
Both Fred and Rodney Jerkins worked extensively with Jackson from mid 1999 on what became the Invincible album – released in late October, 2001.
Contributions from Jerkins brothers included “You Rock My World” – the album’s lead single and the last U.S. top 10 hit of Jackson’s life.
A number of songs recorded during the Invincible sessions, including fan favourites “We’ve Had Enough” and “Escape” – both of which are widely available online – did not make the final cut.
Another Darkchild track rumoured to hail from those sessions is known by Jackson fans as “Get Your Weight Off Of Me”.
“We got a lot of great stuff that hasn’t even surfaced yet – that hasn’t even come out yet,” confirmed Rodney Jerkins in an interview shortly before Jackson’s death.
“I think some of the stuff that didn’t come out was some of the best stuff that we did.”
Jerkins, who has worked with everyone from Mary J. Blige to Whitney Houston to Beyoncés describes working with Jackson as ‘the pinnacle’.
“I’m glad to say that I got the chance to work with the greatest entertainer of all time,” says Jerkins.
“And he let me videotape every session. So I got some of the best footage. I got some great sessions on tape.”
Jerkins has recently flirted with the idea of putting some of that footage online for fans to enjoy, but had seemingly decided against it.
Jerkins also offered to sell the footage to Jackson’s estate and Sony Music, but neither were interested in buying it.
The footage remains unreleased to this day.
In the four years since Jackson’s death, Jerkins has claimed that there is approximately an album’s worth of unreleased material that he recorded with the pop star that could come out in the future.
Speaking in a 2010 interview with Vlad TV, Jerkins even hinted that he was gearing up to work on the first posthumous Michael Jackson album:
“I’m about to work on a new unreleased project that we’re talking about doing right now… It’s definitely going to come, but it takes time you know, you gotta do a lot of the ‘red tape’. But yeah there’s definitely going to be unreleased Michael Jackson and hopefully I’ll be a part of that project.”
The producer’s statements were backed up two weeks later by co-executor of Jackson’s estate, John Branca, in an exclusive interview with VIBE magazine.
“We are finishing up the album as we speak,” Branca told the publication.
“There will be some will.i.am, Teddy Riley and Rodney Jerkins songs. We don’t want to put 10 unrelated songs together. We want to put together an album that fits well.”
However, material from neither will.i.am nor Jerkins was included on the album.
Damien Shields is the author of the book Michael Jackson: Songs & Stories From The Vault examining the King of Pop’s creative process, and the producer of the podcast The Genesis of Thriller which takes you inside the recording studio as Jackson and his team create the biggest selling album in music history.
