It’s the late Michael Jackson’s birthday today. Jackson’s last years (he died in 2009) were overshadowed by child abuse allegations (see here and here). It overshadowed his immense artistic talent and his impact on pop music aside. But also as a performer and a person African descent, Jackson divided opinion.

Jackson mostly dressed like a character from a 19th century British fantasy mixed with Peter Pan and his style on- and off-stage often veered to that of the stereotype of the stereotype of a third world dictator  complete with shiny medals (like a showbiz Muammar Gaddafi).

Despite his attempts to disfigure his “African” features (he claimed all kinds of medical reasons), he had a complicated and contradictory relationship with the continent, often at odds with the values of freedom and democracy that he seemed to profess through his music and performances.

He loved being photographed with African dictators like Omar Bongo, the long time dictator of Gabon; Jackson was alone in this: Bob Marley also famously went to play a concert for Bongo.  And like most visitors to the continent, snapped images with children in “African” garb. On the flipside, Nelson Mandela liked hanging out with Jackson.

Perhaps, most disappointing, he was forced to pay the Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango for willfully sampling, without attribution, from Dibangu’s hit “Soul Makossa” on his own “Wanna be starting somethin’.”

Nevertheless, Jackson’s first forays to the continent – like a 1974 trip to perform in Senegal; the subject of a new documentary) suggest something else.

Wherever Jackson went when he visited the continent, crowds adored him, they packed stadiums to hear and watch him, danced to his musica or made songs about him. Even Dibango, after the dispute over sampling, still described Jackson as “un artiste exceptionnel, le plus talentueux et ingénieux” (an exceptional artist, the most talented and ingenious).

But it’s in Jackson’s music videos that we see the contradictions and tensions more clearly. The video for”Remember the Time” (below) is a case in point. Though it resembled too much Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America“-like vision of Africa (the video actually starred Murphy) and is mixed with mild Orientalism, you could not look away and marvel at Jackson and his team’s creativity. Same for “Liberian Girl” with its Indiana Jones mock-up.