Pop
Jaafar or Janet Jackson considered to sing on unreleased Michael Jackson songs
Ne‑Yo says the six to eight songs he wrote with Michael Jackson are still locked in his archive, and he’s now weighing up whether Jaafar Jackson or Janet Jackson should be the ones to bring them to life.
Ne‑Yo has revealed he’s seriously considering letting Jaafar Jackson or Janet Jackson record a bunch of songs he created with Michael Jackson nearly two decades ago - a decision he admits has left him torn.
The R'n'B star appeared on the Zach Sang Show this week and confirmed he still has “six to eight” tracks written with the late King of Pop in 2008 for a planned comeback album. The songs were developed in close creative partnership with Jacko, but never made it past the demo stage before his death in 2009.
Ne-Yo said: “They are sitting in my archive, waiting for me to figure out what the hell I'm gonna do with them.
“I've been given some really good ideas.”
One of the strongest suggestions is for Jaafar Jackson - who plays his uncle in the blockbuster biopic Michael - to record them. Ne‑Yo admitted the idea caught him off guard.
He said: “Somebody said, ‘Why don’t you give them to Jaafar?’ And I’m like, ‘That’s not a bad idea.’”
He’s also been urged to consider Janet Jackson, who remains active and touring.
He said: “Give them to Janet? She’s still doing stuff. That’s not a bad idea, either." But every time he leans toward a decision, he says something stops him. “The second I think, ‘okay, I’m gonna do something,’ it just feels wrong.”
Part of the struggle is that the demos only contain Ne‑Yo’s vocals - something he says makes releasing them under his own name feel inappropriate.
He explained: “It doesn’t feel right for me to put them out as mine. Because I wrote them for him.
“Doesn’t necessarily feel right for me to give them to anybody else, because I wrote them for him. So that’s where the dilemma sits.”
Jackson was actually working with will.i.am on a project when he got the So Sick hitmaker involved.
Ne‑Yo says the pair worked closely, with Jackson giving detailed feedback on each draft.
He recalled: “He wrote them with me, basically.
“I’d send him something, and he’d call me and go, ‘I really like the second verse… maybe reverse the verses.’ We did that for roughly six songs.”
The plan was to record everything after the This Is It tour, but tragically Jackson died and they've been stored away ever since.
He added: “He goes off, starts rehearsing… and then he passes.
“We didn’t get a chance to actually cut them.”
