"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'": Dancing to a Nightmare

0:00What's up, baby? It's Brettzki. And I'm here to tell you that SpinQuest.com is giving out free sweeps coins. All you got to do is purchase a $10 coin pack and guess what? They're going to give you the coins from a $30 coin pack. That lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack, Wanted Dead or Wild and we're talking real cash prizes, baby. SpinQuest.com SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Boydware prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details. Imagine the biggest dance anthem of the 1980s. You know, you're 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.

1:01Today, we are bringing you a deep dive into Michael Jackson's 1983 hit, Wanted Be Startin' Something. 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. Okay, 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. Great, the off-the-wall era. Exactly. Because this opening track, which basically sets the tone for the biggest pop era in human history,

2:04was 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.

3:05Imagine 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, we 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. Well, 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. Yeah, that buzzing, helpless anxiety.

4:06Right. Jackson took that exact feeling and said 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-in-the-floor beat. Right. The boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 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 Paulinho de Costa.

5:07It'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 did 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. In 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.

6:10The 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. Okay, 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.

7:12It 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 tear 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 to You Get Enough, it creates this massive cognitive dissonance. He makes you dance to his nightmare. Perfectly said.

8:12Well, 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 Chancos. Mama Sam, Mama Sam, I'm Makusa. 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 polite. Oh, right. Yeah. That chant is a direct variant of a lyric from a 1972 disco track called Soul Makusa, which was created by the Cameronian Sex Phonus Manu Dabango. And just to use some context, Makusa is a Cameronian popular music genre and a very specific dance style. Great. So Jackson interpolates this heavily African influence groove right at the explosive climax of his own Afropop-infused track,

9:13creating 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 Monday Dabango's track before putting it on the biggest album of all time? Well, the short answer is he didn't. Oh, well. 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, yeah. In 1986, Manu Dabango 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,

10:13Manu Dabango waived his future rights to the specific recording of wannabe start and something. Meaning? 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 Dabango'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, someone who coos a 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.

11:14And he did this without ever consulting Manu Dabango. 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 Dabango 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 were talking about a case brought before a court in Paris with Dabango suing both Rihanna and Michael Jackson demanding 500,000 jurors and 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. It's just an incredible legal maneuver. It's extremely bold. The case eventually settled out of court again with the Bango securing another financial agreement. But the sheer mileage of that one hook is mind blowing.

12:15It really is. From a Camerunian 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 Sol Makosa. 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 song, Manu Dabango, had to spend decades fighting an 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 you look at the sheer scale of what want to be starting something to achieve.

13:15Oh, 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 Beatit, 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 ten 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 were at this great summary stating, if you're going to become the biggest star in the world, it helps to make the biggest song.

14:15But 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 videos. 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 Jackson's 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 high 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 is.

15:16Yes, Slamm 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 it? You really did. Even in 2009, during the intense rehearsals for the ill-fated, this is at 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 a capella snippet of his 2001 song, Speechless, blended into it. That was chosen as the opening sequence for 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.

16:16You'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, Acon. The critical reception for this modern update was pretty deeply divided to say the least. That's putting him 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 Urlewine from All Music was pretty brutal. What did he call it? He called the Acon version a moody piece called Moody Piano Mark. Ouch. But you know that phrase, Moody Piano Mark, it really gets to the heart of what Acon changed. That's so. Well, he stripped away all the bright, brassy paranoia, the frantic polino to cost of 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.

17:16It 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 murk, it undeniably found an audience. It peaked at number two on the US 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 Acon 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.

18:17From 1978 to 2009. Right. We watched a track born from literal petty sibling squabbles transformed into a massive afropop-infused paranoid masterpiece. Yeah. It conquered the globe entirely without the help of a music video. And it spawned intense international lawsuits stretched from recording studios in Los Angeles to courtrooms in Paris. Exactly. And it became the definitive heart pounding live opener for artists 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. It's true. 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 wanting to be starting 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

19:17and 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 tick-tock and instant virality, where songs were routinely stripped for parts, sped up, and sampled endlessly into 15-second sound bites. Could a massive chaotic six-minute genre colliding epic about deep psychological paranoia even survived the modern pot 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. Forget everything you had planned for this weekend because you are sitting on your couch and winning from the comfort of your own home. I'm here with SpinQuest, where you could play hundreds of slot games, all of the table games you love, and you could even win real cash prizes. New users, $30 coin packs are on sale for 10

20:18at SpinQuest.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino, Boydwere prohibited, visit SpinQuest.com for more details. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're in a podcast, chances are you have something to say too, with RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com.