At least two streaming services removed songs from Michael Jackson’s posthumous 2010 album Michael after claiming the award-winning artist didn’t sing on them, according to a post by USA Today from yesterday (July 6). The songs are “Breaking News,” “Monster” and “Keep Your Head Up.” Jackson’s estate, along with Sony Music decided to remove the content.
As of yesterday, the songs were no longer available on Spotify and Apple Music. In a joint statement, Sony Music and Jackson’s estate announced, “The album’s remaining tracks remain available.” The statement continued, “Nothing should be read into this action concerning the authenticity of the tracks – it is just time to move beyond the distraction surrounding them.” Fan speculation that the King of Pop’s more recent vocals are from an impersonator named Jason Malachi have been going around for quite some time.
In 2018, Drake released a song titled “Don’t Matter to Me,” featuring Jackson. The track appears on Drake’s fifth studio album Scorpion. Fans on Twitter quickly grew suspicious of the collab. “Damn, so Sony been releasing fake Michael Jackson songs? It’s actually an impersonator named Jason Malachi. I knew that feature on Drake’s song was questionable af smh,” a tweet from 2018 reads. In another post from 2018, a fan brings up the ongoing rumor: “This story keeps changing, but all I’m saying is that I hope Drake kept his receipt and has a good return policy for ‘Don’t Matter to Me.'”
Long before the Drake and Jackson debate, Sony released a statement defending the posthumous 2010 album. “We have complete confidence in the results of our extensive research as well as the accounts of those who were in the studio with Michael that the vocals on the new album are his own,” the label said in response to a 2014 lawsuit.