Elder brother of late Michael Jackson, Jermaine is set to bring down Lagos at the celebrity-studded Jazz concert that will be staged at the Lagos House in Alausa, Ikeja on Saturday, April 30 by 5pm.
The concert organised by Lagos State Government in commemoration of the 2016 International Jazz Day, will be hosted by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.
Jermaine confirmed his readiness during the festival’s press conference held at the Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa. He said he would be at the festival to support the government and array of international and local artists who would be performing.
Jermaine, who is in Nigeria as part of activities marking the Jackson Golden Africa Tour, also disclosed plans by the Jackson 5 to establish a music academy in Nigeria to nurture and prepare the talents in Africa for global market.
In his words: “It’s been 50 years for the Jacksons and we are bringing a team together of people who can produce a concert. I like coming here because I have a lot of questions. I was just in China and I learnt that the first dynasty that started in China came from Africa here and I had a professor in China to tell me this. That made me very proud and the world needs to know this because in our history books in America, they don’t put this there; they don’t want us to know this but when you travel and you have the opportunity to see things for yourself, you will realise that the history books were written by someone else and it is their version and their interpretation of what happened which is usually not the truth.”
“We are going to give you nice compilation of songs that you know and I am just very honoured to be here because we have been kept away from you because of the politics and we are not interested in such politics because we are people who care about people. We need to have a closer relationship with African-American and the rest of Africa because we have been separated for long and we can reach out to do other things.
“There are lots of great talents here and we want to use our 50 years experience of being in the business to teach the arts. We have in our plans to establish Jackson Academy Performing Art School and the school will have a curriculum and also will teach music, directing, film, lightening, producing, dancing and so on. We want to get the talents here ready for the global market and I do believe that the drums and the beat started from here,” Jermaine said.
