It’s hard to fathom a stage big enough to accommodate the presence of James Brown, Prince, and Michael Jackson. But these three giants were all on hand at Los Angeles’ Beverly Theater back in August 1983—marking a notable moment in music history, both for its sheer celebrity power and the legends it helped stir up in the following decades.
This was a particularly notable time for both Prince and Jackson. The former was ascending into superstardom, roughly 10 months after releasing his first U.S. Top 10 record, 1999, which featured a string of legendary hits (“Little Red Corvette,” the title track, “Delirious”). Jackson was in the exact same position, except amplified into another stratosphere: His sixth LP, 1982’s Thriller, was a multi-platinum blockbuster that became one of the best-selling albums in history, propelled by ubiquitous singles like “Billie Jean” and “Beat It.” Brown, despite being far from his commercial peak, was still renowned as “The Godfather of Soul”—and a force of nature on stage, which he proved throughout that L.A. gig.
The show was already a huge deal, with the funk great performing alongside blues icon B.B. King. But it became a much bigger deal several songs deep, when Brown paused to introduce his first surprise guest. “Let’s give another standing ovation for a young man sitting behind you that you have no idea is in the audience,” he says in the footage, preserved on YouTube. “Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson!” The singer walks on stage to uproarious applause, adding some smooth vocalizing and flashy dancing before walking over to his hero and whispering in his ear.
“Give him a big round of applause,” James says, “because he just insisted that I introduce Prince!” After a beat, we see the artist emerge from the crowd via piggyback, strut on stage, grab an electric guitar, and crank out a funky, animalistic solo. From there, he takes off his jacket to reveal a bare chest, performs some Brown-styled moves, lets loose a raspy scream, and attempts some crowd-participation clapping—all before walking off and grabbing a prop lamp post, which topples almost completely over. The whole display is fascinating, bizarre, and impossible to look away from.
The performance also illustrates the stylistic gulf between the tamer Jackson and more feral Prince—and if you look around the Internet, you’ll find tons of articles discussing how that divide was more than creative, representing a real-life rivalry between the two artists. Most of that information appears to be second-hand and hard to verify, but in a 1997 interview with Chris Rock, Prince—then using the moniker The Artist Formerly Known as Prince—was grilled about this supposed feud. Asked which artist made him think to himself, “I gotta get back in the studio,” he responded, “Contrary to what a lot of people might believe, it was never somebody who was my contemporary.” The comedian added, “There was never any rivalry between you and Mr. Jackson?” The Artist replied, “Not to me, no.”
Rock also mentioned the story about Prince “turning down” a collaboration with Michael Jackson centered on 1987’s “Bad”—though it’s unclear if he’s asking about the song itself, the 18-minute music video, or both. (Prince was involved in neither, and a pre-fame Wesley Snipes co-starred as a gang member in the Martin Scorsese-directed visual.) “That Wesley Snipes character—that would have been me,” Prince said. “Now you run that video in your mind. The first line is that song is, ‘Your butt is mine.’ Now I [said], ‘Who’s gonna sing that to who? ‘Cause you sure ain’t singing it to me, and I sure ain’t singing it to you. Right there, we got a problem.”
