Imagine the biggest dance anthem of the 1980s.
You know, you are in a packed club. The bass
is bumping. The rhythm is just totally infectious.
And absolutely everyone in the room is screaming
the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Oh, I mean,
that is the ultimate party vibe, right? Right.
But here's the catch. They are completely unaware
that they are joyously singing about the terrifying,
paralyzing paranoia of being eaten alive by their
own family and the media. Which is such a dark
twist for a club hit. It really is. Today, we
are bringing you a deep dive into Michael Jackson's
1983 hit, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. Yeah,
and we've got some great source material for
this. We do. We're looking at a massive, really
comprehensive Wikipedia article that details
the history, the intricate musical composition,
and, well, the wild decades -long controversies
surrounding this one specific track. There is
so much to unpack with this one. Definitely.
Our mission for you today is to explore how a
song initially written about incredibly specific
petty family gossip transformed into the frantic
combative opening statement of the monumental
thriller album. And we are going to untangle
this massive web of global controversy, uncredited
samples, and international lawsuits that this
single six -minute track somehow managed to spark.
OK, let's unpack this. Because to understand
how we get to the global phenomenon of the Thriller
album, we actually have to rewind the clock a
bit to 1978. Right, the off -the -wall era. Exactly.
Because this opening track, which basically sets
the tone for the biggest pop era in human history,
was not originally meant for a thriller. No,
it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't even meant for
Michael Jackson. Yeah, the origins of this track
are actually remarkably humble, especially considering
the absolute juggernaut it eventually became.
Wait, so who was it for? It was written specifically
for his sister, Latoya Jackson. Oh, wow. I had
no idea. Yeah, and the subject matter had absolutely
nothing to do with, you know, the crushing weight
of global fame or intense media scrutiny. It
was just about Latoya's troubled relationship
with her sisters -in -law. So it was just family
drama? Basically, yeah. It was, at its core,
purely about sibling drama. And a fun piece of
internet history to note is that Latoya's original
demo of the song actually leaked online eventually.
Oh, that's wild. Yeah, it gives fans this glimpse
into its very different initial vibe. But Jackson
held on to the track. He decided not to give
it away. Interesting. And he didn't actually
record his own definitive version until the fall
of 1982 in Los Angeles, you know, for the thriller
sessions. Imagine writing an incredibly angry
specific journal entry about your annoying in
-laws, putting it in a drawer for four years,
and then pulling it out to turn it into an international
dance mash. Right? It is just such a bizarre
creative leap to me. If we connect this to the
bigger picture, you can actually see the DNA
of the song mutating over those four years. What
do you mean by mutating? Well, by the time he
steps up to the microphone in 1982, his public
profile has completely skyrocketed. He's no longer
just like a talented sibling in a famous musical
family. He's basically becoming the center of
the pop culture universe. Exactly. So he takes
that hyper -specific observation of family squabbles
and projects it outward. He applies that feeling
of constant rumor -mongering to the media, to
the press, and to strangers who just want to
start arguments for absolutely no reason. Oh,
so it shifts from internal to external. Yeah.
He takes a very personal annoyance and turns
it into a universal anxiety. Like, think about
the last time a rumor spread about you at work
or within your friend group. Ugh. that buzzing,
helpless anxiety. Right. Jackson took that exact
feeling and set it to a 122 beat per minute tempo.
That is brilliant. But, you know, to convey that,
you cannot effectively sing about the terror
of being consumed by gossip over a happy, welcoming
pop instrumental. Oh, absolutely not. The vibe
would be completely wrong. Exactly. The music
itself had to sound like a panic attack. And
that brings us to the actual sound of the track,
which the sources describe as this complex fusion
of post -disco funk and Afropop. Yeah, and the
rhythm section is really where that feeling of
anxiety lives. Like, in a standard dance track,
you typically have what's called a four -on -the
-floor beat. Right, the boom, boom, boom, boom
sound. Exactly. For anyone who isn't a musician,
that's just a steady, predictable bass drum pulse.
It tells your feet exactly what to do, and it
just makes you feel comfortable. But want to
be starting something? Doesn't do that at all.
No, it completely abandons that comfort. The
sources highlight this complex interweaving of
drum machine patterns played by the legendary
percussionist Paulino da Costa. It's just relentless.
It really is. It never settles down. And that
perpetual motion tricks your brain into feeling
a sense of agency. Like you are dancing, but
you are also slightly on edge. Yeah. And then
you layer on the horn section, which was arranged
by Jerry Hay. The sources describe these horns
as brassy and precise. They definitely don't
blend into the background. No, they don't just
sweep in to provide a lush melody. They act like
sharp punctuation marks. They're almost jabbing
at the listener. Slant Magazine actually had
a brilliant way of describing this arrangement.
Oh, what'd they say? They called the track a
complicated tapestry of colliding hooks. That's
a great phrase, colliding hooks. Yeah, because
you have all these different musical ideas and
pop references just crashing into each other
at high speed. And Christopher Connolly, writing
for Rolling Stone back in the day, he picked
up on that exact tension too. He called it Thriller's
most combative track, right? Yes. He noted that
Jackson's emotions are so raw that the song nearly
goes out of control. Like, the entire composition
feels like it is teetering on the edge of a nervous
breakdown. The tempo is brisk, the instrumentation
is incredibly dense, and his vocal delivery is
just deeply urgent. Oh, the vocals are insane.
His range on the track spans from an E3 all the
way up to an A5. And for those who aren't singers,
hitting an A5 means pushing into the absolute
upper straining limits of a male tenor's register.
He is practically screaming those top notes,
which forces the listener to physically feel
his panic. Wait, I need to push back here for
a second. OK, what's up? I'm trying to wrap my
head around this massive contradiction. We are
talking about this song as a massive dance track,
right? Designed to make millions of people dance.
Yeah, a total club anthem. But let's look at
the actual lyrics in the chorus. The beat drops,
the groove is infectious, and Jackson is singing,
you're a vegetable, you're a vegetable, they'll
eat off you. Yeah, it's pretty jarring. It's
incredibly bizarre. Calling the listener a vegetable
and a buffet. How does a lyric like that survive
the studio process and become a global hit? Well,
I mean the bizarre imagery is the engine of the
song it elevates the track from just a Disposable
groove into a really dark psychological portrait.
Okay, bring that down for me The sources describe
these specific lyrics as yielding to a quasi
paranoia and a near bitterness. Like consider
the metaphor of the buffet and the vegetable.
Right. It perfectly captures the visceral terror
of being completely helpless while you were consumed
by others. I mean, a vegetable cannot run away.
That is dark. and a buffet. A buffet exists solely
to be picked apart by hungry strangers. Whether
that's the media, the paparazzi, or just gossiping
acquaintances, you are inert and everyone else
is feeding off your life, your drama, and your
energy. It really is a horrifying image when
you think about it. Exactly. But wrapping it
in that relentless upbeat funk progression, which,
musically speaking, actually shares very similar
chords with his earlier hit, Don't Stop Till
You Get Enough, It creates this massive cognitive
dissonance. He makes you dance to his nightmare.
Perfectly said. Well, here's where it gets really
interesting. Because that chaotic, joyous, terrified
energy, it builds and builds until it peaks at
the very end of the song with an iconic closing
chant. Oh, yes. The chant. A hook that, as the
source's detail, actually led to decades of international
legal battles. The coda. It is the emotional
climax of the whole six -minute album version,
and arguably the most famous part of the entire
track. The chant goes, mama say, mama saw, mama
mucosa. It's pure infectious energy. But those
syllables were not just spontaneously invented
in a recording studio in Los Angeles, were they?
No, they were borrowed, to put it politely. Right.
Yeah. That chant is a direct variant of a lyric
from a 1972 disco track called Soul Mucosa, which
was created by the Cameranian saxophonist Manu
Dibango. And just to use some context, Mekosa
is a Cameroonian popular music genre and a very
specific dance style. Great. So Jackson interpolates
this heavily African influenced groove right
at the explosive climax of his own Afropop infused
track, creating this brilliant musical bridge
across continents. It sounds beautiful in theory,
but I have to ask about the logistics of that.
Knowing the incredibly tight legal ship that
usually surrounded major pop releases back then.
How did he manage the rights to Manu Dibengo's
track before putting it on the biggest album
of all time? Well, the short answer is he didn't.
Oh, wow. He used it without securing permission
first. And this is where the cold legal reality
of the music business just crashes into the messy,
organic creative process. Oh, wow. In 1986, Manu
Dibengo sued Michael Jackson over the unauthorized
use of the hook. Jackson ultimately admitted
to borrowing the line and they reached an out
-of -court settlement. Right. The sources say
they settled for one million French francs. which
was a very significant settlement at the time.
But the specific legal wording of that 1986 settlement
is actually the smoking gun for a massive legal
explosion 20 years later. Yeah, this is where
it gets crazy. In that 1986 agreement, Manu Dibango
waived his future rights to the specific recording
of Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'. He essentially
said, I won't sue you over this specific MP3
or vinyl record anymore. However, and this is
a massive legal loophole, he critically did not
waive his rights to the future use of the underlying
musical material itself. Ah, so the syllables
and the melody still fundamentally belonged to
him. Exactly. The musical DNA remained to Bango's
property. So fast forward to 2007. Rihanna, massive
global pop star, releases her monster club hit,
Don't Stop the Music. Huge song. Huge. And the
defining sample that drives the entire song is
that exact, mama say mama, mama kusa hook. Right.
And Rihanna did what any artist would think is
the right thing. Her team reached out to Michael
Jackson's camp for permission to sample the line
from his song. And Jackson allegedly gave his
approval. Yeah. But the fatal flaw in that transaction
is that Jackson granted permission for a piece
of musical architecture that he didn't fully
own the underlying rights to. And he did this
without ever consulting Manu DiBango. Exactly.
That is a staggering oversight. He basically
handed over the keys to a house he was only renting.
That's a great way to put it. And DiBango absolutely
did not let that slide. This led to a massive
high -stakes lawsuit in 2009. Right before Jackson
passed away, actually. Yes, literally months
before. We're talking about a case brought before
a court in Paris with DeBango suing both Rihanna
and Michael Jackson, demanding 500 ,000 euros
in damages. But he didn't just ask for money,
did he? No, he went even further. He asked the
French courts to formally bar Sony, BMG, EMI,
and Warner Music from receiving any income related
to that hook until the matter was fully resolved.
Attempting to freeze the revenue streams of three
major global record labels over a single vocal
chant is just an incredible legal maneuver. It's
extremely bold. The case eventually settled out
of court again, with the Bangos securing another
financial agreement. But the sheer mileage of
that one hook is mind blowing. It really is.
From a Cameroonian studio in 1972, to Los Angeles
in 1982, to a Rihanna club track in 2007, to
a Parisian courtroom in 2009. This raises an
important question for anyone who consumes music
today, like where exactly is the line? Right.
The entire saga really highlights the incredibly
blurry boundaries between musical homage, global
collaboration, and outright theft in the recording
industry. Because Jackson clearly loved the groove
of Solmucosa. Yeah, and he used it to elevate
his own track into a global anthem, and then
Rihanna did the exact same thing to Jackson's
track. Pop music relies on this constant recycling
of good ideas. Exactly. But the original architect
of that sound, Manu DiBongo, had to spend decades
fighting in international courts just to ensure
he wasn't financially and historically erased
from his own musical legacy. It makes you listen
to the song completely differently, especially
when when you look at the sheer scale of what
wannabe start and something achieved. Oh, absolutely.
Because despite the incredibly heavy themes of
media consumption, the paranoid lyrics, and that
ensuing international legal drama we just unpacked,
this song was an absolute commercial juggernaut.
People often focus on Billie Jean or beat it,
you know, the huge singles, but... It's easy
to forget how much heavy lifting this specific
track did to maintain the dominance of the Thriller
album. The statistics and the sources are just
staggering. In July of 1983, the song hit number
five on the Billboard Hot 100. Which is huge.
Yeah. And that made it the fourth consecutive
top 10 single. from the Thriller album alone.
It topped the charts in Canada, it topped the
charts in the Netherlands, and it charted in
the top 20 and 30 all across the globe. And its
critical legacy is just as strong. Decades later,
Pitchfork ranked it at number two on their list
of the 200 best songs of the 1980s. Number two.
Yeah. And they wrote this great summary stating,
if you're going to become the biggest star in
the world, it helps to make the biggest song.
But here is the detail that completely stopped
me in my tracks. How did a song achieve this
level of global saturation in 1983, with one
massive glaring omission in its marketing strategy?
Ah, the video. It had no music video. Zero visual
accompaniment, which is almost unheard of for
a single of that magnitude in 1983. Right, because
this was the absolute peak of the MTV era. Jackson
himself was fundamentally changing music television
forever with those mini movies for thriller.
and beat it. But for wannabe start and something,
its legacy was not built on heavy visual rotation
on MTV. It was cemented purely through its raw
live energy. It became the quintessential stage
opener. Exactly. If you bought a ticket to the
Victory Tour with the Jacksons in 1984, or the
Bad Tour, the Dangerous Tour, the History Tour,
this was the song that kicked off the night.
It is the ultimate hype track. Even without a
music video to tell people what to feel, the
live audience knew exactly what was coming the
second they heard the opening drum hits. Yeah,
Slant Magazine compared those three quick rim
shots to a court fanfare. And for those wondering
what a rim shot is, it's when the drummer hits
the metal edge and the skin of the snare drum
at the exact same time. It produces this really
sharp cracking sound that just cuts right through
the entire stadium. It was an auditory cue that
The King had arrived. And he relied on that specific
sonic cue for his entire career, didn't he? You
really did. Even in 2009, during the intense
rehearsals for the ill -fated This Is It comeback
concerts at the O2 Arena in London, he was preparing
to perform it. Right. I remember seeing that
in the documentary. Yeah. Footage of him rehearsing
this song, complete with a little acapella snippet
of his 2001 song, Speechless, blended into it.
That was chosen as the opening sequence for the
This Is It documentary. released after his death.
It really was a constant anchoring presence in
his creative life from 1978 right up until 2009.
And the song actually had one final official
chapter released while he was still alive. You're
talking about the 2008 remix from the sources,
right? Yes. For the 25th anniversary reissue
of the album titled Thriller 25, a brand new
version of the song was recorded. It was remixed,
co -written, and co -produced by the artist Akon.
The critical reception for this modern update
was pretty deeply divided, to say the least.
That's putting it mildly. When you read the reviews
from the time, it's clear that music critics
were extremely protective of the original 1982
arrangement. Like, Stephen Thomas Erlewine from
all music was pretty brutal. What did he call
it? He called the Akon version a moody piano
merc. Ouch. But you know that phrase, moody piano
mark, it really gets to the heart of what Akon
changed. How so? Well, he stripped away all the
bright, brassy paranoia, the frantic Polino da
Costa percussion, and those colliding Jerry Hayhorns.
He replaced all of that chaotic funk with a heavy,
somber, slowed down digital R &B beat built around
a piano loop. It completely altered the emotional
core of the song. It did. But Rolling Stone,
on the other hand, approached it from a different
angle. They thought it was actually kind of great.
likely appreciating how it translated a 1982
anxiety attack into a modern 2008 club sound.
And regardless of whether critics thought it
was a brilliant update or a moody merc, it undeniably
found an audience. It peaked at number two on
the U .S. Billboard Hot Dance Club play chart
and hit the top 10 in international markets like
France, Australia, and Sweden. Yeah, it was definitely
a hit. But the most poignant takeaway from the
source material regarding this 2008 Akon remix
is its place in history, isn't it? Yeah. It was
the very last piece of work released during Michael
Jackson's lifetime. It really brings the entire
narrative full circle. The very first statement
of his defining era was also the final release
he ever lived to see on the charts. It's a really
powerful detail. So what does this all mean?
We started today by looking at the opening track
of the biggest pop album ever made. And what
we found in the sources was a creative journey
spanning over 40 years. From 1978 to 2009. Right.
We watched a track born from literal petty sibling
squabbles transform into a massive Afro pop infused
paranoid masterpiece. It conquered the globe
entirely without the help of a music video. And
it spawned intense international lawsuits that
stretched from recording studios in Los Angeles
to courtrooms in Paris. Exactly. And it became
the definitive heart pounding live opener for
an artist who basically spent his entire life
on stage. It really remains a song of incredible
vibrating contradictions. I mean, it is a dance
floor filler that is fundamentally about the
absolute terror of being consumed by the public.
When you listen to the lyrics again, someone's
always trying to start my baby crying. You realize
that written years before his life became a permanent...
tragic tabloid fixture wanted to start in something
wasn't just a reaction to passing gossip. It
was something deeper. It was a dark, almost prophetic
glimpse into the intense media scrutiny and endless
legal controversies that would come to define
the rest of his existence. So next time you hear
that irresistible beat, ask yourself, was he
making you dance or was he desperately trying
to warn you about the cost of fame? It leaves
you with a fascinating question to ponder. Especially
in today's era of TikTok and instant virality,
where songs are routinely stripped for parts,
sped up, and sampled endlessly into 15 -second
soundbites. Could a massive, chaotic, six -minute,
genre -colliding epic about deep psychological
paranoia even survive the modern pop machine?
Or have we all just become far too comfortable
being the buffet? Keep your ears open, question
what you're dancing to, and thanks for joining
us on this Deep Dive.