Gregg Musgrove, a former California Highway Patrol officer, stumbled upon unreleased Michael Jackson tracks, one of which was a rare duet with hip-hop icon LL Cool J, in a warehouse. The store he bought in the San Fernando Valley once belonged to music producer Bryan Loren.
It includes 12 unreleased songs recorded from 1989-1991 just before Jackson’s multi-platinum selling “Dangeous” album, including “Truth on Youth”, a collaboration with LL Cool J.
In an interview last October, LL Cool J opened up about collaborating with Jackson on the songs and said Jackson ultimately decided that the songs weren’t up to his standards.
“Mike wasn’t… they weren’t good enough,” he admitted. “Sometimes art doesn’t achieve that.”
He recalled an in-studio exchange about Jackson’s signature forward lean in the “Smooth Crime” video, where Jackson joked that a magician was involved before bursting into laughter.
“I was like, yo, how can you guys do that with ‘Smooth Crime’ when you lean forward and all that?” LL recalls, as quoted by AllHipHop. He said, to which Jackson replied: “Well, we invited a shaman to come and have a big ceremony, burning candles and incense.”
This shows that the spirit of cooperation between the two has been reaffirmed recently, despite the previous leak of a collaboration titled “Serious Effects”.
Another notable track discovered was titled “Don’t Believe It”, alluding to the many rumors about Jackson at the time.
Musgrove recalls his feelings when listening to his unreleased material.
“I got goosebumps because no one had ever heard this before,” he said.
He noted that some recordings even featured Jackson in conversation, showing off a side of his personality that fans had never witnessed.
But while these unreleased tracks are certainly worth getting excited about, it doesn’t look like they’ll be officially released anytime soon.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Jackson’s family has investigated Musgrove’s tapes themselves but will not buy them for reasons they will not disclose and has given him a letter stating that they do not assert rights own the recordings.
Tags LL Cool J, Michael Jackson