After Michael Jackson’s passing in 2009, the music industry has had a hole in it. The life and legacy of Jackson’s will go on throughout decades, but unfortunately, his musical contributions looks to have been slightly tarnished, but not by Jackson himself.
In 2010, Jackson’s posthumous album “Michael” debuted with new music claimed to have been made by Jackson, but according to a lawsuit, a Jackson impersonator was used to record “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up,” and “Monster.” The album debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 228,000 in its first week.
When the album came out, many fans, including Jackson’s mother Katherine, said that there were fake songs on the album. In 2014, a fan by the name of Vera Serova brought a Class Action lawsuit against Jackson’s long time friend Eddie Cascio, and his production company, Angelikson Productions LLC. She accused them of creating fraudulent songs using Jackson’s likeness, and selling them through Jackson’s estate, along with Sony Music Entertainment. The lawsuit also named James Porte, a man claiming to have written with and for Jackson with the songs listed above.
Cascio and Porte claimed that the songs were recorded in Cascio’s New Jersey basement in 2007 but couldn’t provide any evidence to support it. Serova claimed that the songs were fake and performed by an impersonator named Jason Malachi. The lawsuit is supported by a 41-page report by a forensic audiologist named Dr. George Papcun. Dr. Papcun concluded that the songs were not sung by Jackson, which helped Serova cite several inconsistencies in how these songs came to be.
On August 21, California Court of Appeal Judge Ann I. Jones of the Los Angeles Superior Court, heard Sony’s argument in appealing the lawsuit in which Sony Music conceded that “Breaking News,” “Keep Your Head Up,” and “Monster” was performed by an impersonator.
Sony has not made any statements towards the lawsuit, but you can see court documents below.
MJ Fan vs. Sony/ MJ Estate/ Cascio/ Porte by Ivy on Scribd
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