EBN- A former California police officer has found a trove of unreleased Michael Jackson recordings in a storage unit in the San Fernando Valley.
Among the songs on the album is one that is said to reference media rumors about the King of Pop, while another features a collaboration between Jackson and rapper James Todd Smith, better known as LL Cool J.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to former California police officer Greg Musgrove, who discovered the recordings when an associate contacted him about a storage unit he had recently purchased, which had belonged to producer and musician Brian Lorne.
Lorne, whose whereabouts are currently unknown according to Musgrove, worked with Jackson on his eighth album Dangerous in 1991, and has also collaborated and written for big names such as Whitney Houston, Sting and Barry White.
The tapes include 12 unreleased songs that Jackson was working on before the release of his album Dangerous between 1989 and 1991.
“I’ve been to all the fan sites,” Musgrove said. “Some of the songs are rumoured to exist, some have been leaked. But there are some that no one has ever heard of.
When I listened to it, I got goosebumps because no one had ever heard it before. To hear Michael Jackson talking and joking was just so cool,” he added.
Michael Jackson refused to buy the tapes
The Hollywood Reporter reported that for some unknown reason, the current owners of Michael Jackson’s rights (the Estate of Michael Jackson) refused to buy the tapes, and presented Musgrove with a letter stating that they do not claim ownership of the tapes.
However, there appears to be confirmation from the Estate of Michael Jackson that anyone who might purchase the tapes from Musgrove does not own the copyright on the recordings or compositions, meaning they cannot be released publicly.
But that doesn’t mean the tapes are worthless, as Musgrove said he plans to put the tapes up for auction, where they could potentially be purchased by a “dedicated Michael Jackson fan” or private collector.
