Quincy Jones on Kanye West comparing himself to Michael Jackson in a recent interview
Quincy Jones Talks Chicago’s Mean Streets, Why Kanye West Is No Michael Jackson, and Bieber
Quincy Jones is showing me his gold pinky ring. We’re seated across from one another at Asiate, a swank restaurant in Midtown Manhattan whose walls are lined with wine bottles. After inhaling a bowl of noodles, the jazz legend/music maestro extends his right pinky and wiggles the antique treasure at me while flashing an ear-to-ear grin.
Sinatra left this to me when he died,” says Jones. “He was something, man. It has his family crest on it and everything.”
I crack a joke about the ring getting him out of New York City parking tickets and past Italian customs, and he unleashes a big laugh.
“It’ll get me into Sicily, no problem! All I gotta do is show them this.”
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t’s hard to distill the 81-year-old’s achievements in the world of music; they could, taken as a whole, reach Proustian lengths. Suffice it to say that the onetime ace jazz trumpeter is a living legend, accumulating a record 79 Grammy nominations and 27 wins; has scored 33 films, resulting in seven Academy Award nominations; and even produced the first music ever played on the moon—Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.” These days, in addition to his work with Ol’ Blue Eyes.
He’s probably best known as the producer of the Michael Jackson albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, which have sold a combined 175 million copies. There’s even a movement to make Jones the United States’ first minister of culture (more on that later).
Let’s talk about Michael Jackson. I remember being parked in front of MTV as a kid watching his videos.
Michael Jackson made MTV.
He was the first black artist on there. They wouldn’t play black music on there and Rick James could never get “Super Freak” on there. We were down at the Time Warner villa in Acapulco and we’d just put out “The Girl Is Mine” by McCartney, and Steve Ross asked me, “What are you coming up with next?” I said, “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” and he said, “OK, that goes on next week.” And it was the first black artist on there. Eight months later, we did “Thriller,” and people didn’t know what the hell we were doing, man. We had Vincent Price narrating Edgar Allan Poe. Michael didn’t know what I was doing! That came out and took off all over the world.
With Thriller, we took 800 songs and whittled them down to nine. Then, we took the four weakest out and replaced them with the four strongest: “The Lady in My Life,” “PYT,” “Human Nature,” and “Beat It.” We mixed that with “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Something,” and BAM! You had a great album.
How do you feel the Michael Jackson estate is handling his music? The last album was pretty disappointing.
[Sighs] I get in trouble every time I talk about it. I can’t. I don’t want to go there with Michael, man.
Do you see anybody even touching Michael Jackson? Kanye West has often compared himself to Michael
Come on, man! Not even close. You see, as far as passing the baton down, Michael used to look at Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and James Brown. You need to look at the masters first. You don’t even know how to be mediocre when you start without dealing with some masters. Clark [Terry] always had the ability to put young kids on his shoulders
So you think there’s a lack of mentorship with modern-day musicians?
Absolutely. But the biggest problem is the minister of culture. They don’t know where the music comes from. I remember going to England with Lesley Gore in 1963, and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, man, they’d never been here, but the Stones are still raking in $500 million a year at 70 years old because they know the foundation of music.
Blues and jazz.
You bet your bird—blues and jazz, man. It’s just as powerful as the Three Bs: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. I’m doing a 3D animation film about it with the animators from Toy Story, as well as a Broadway show about it: the genesis and evolution of jazz and blues. Because Americans don’t have a clue!
Are you a Justin Bieber fan?
[Shakes head] Every time I talk about it I get in trouble. Are you?
No.
Then why do you think I would be? [Laughs] Today, being a pop star is about two things: personality and scandal. Every time someone puts out an album now, you get a DUI or shoot somebody. It’s a problem.
What artists are you into today?
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like Common, Drake, Bruno Mars… Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson, they’re great singers, man. We’ve got this group called the Global Gumbo All-Stars that are going to change the world.
How do you feel about the state of the music industry today?
There is no music industry. There’s just concerts now. The record business is 98 percent piracy everywhere on the planet. We’ve got a few things we can’t talk about yet that we’re going to try to do to fix it. I always look at problems like a puzzle.
SOURCE :
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...nd-bieber.html
once MJ left him after Bad era 
