HE was credited with overseeing the early careers of his children, eventually turning them into singing superstars.
But the allegedly abusive way Joe Jackson groomed The Jackson 5 and Janet Jackson is the stuff of legend and, according to some of his offspring, of nightmares.
It was a matter of time before they cut all professional ties with the notoriously draconian authoritarian, who admitted in an interview with the BBC in 2003 to whipping son Michael Jackson.
Ask the patriarch of America's first family of pop if he would ever want to manage his children again, and he replied candidly: 'No way. Not unless they listen.
'When they get to a certain age, they get these big ideas, and they don't know the people that surround them are not the friends they thought they were until five years down the road.
'That's the lesson you pay for and you're learning, and that's a very, very, very expensive lesson,' Jackson said, alluding to the countless public lawsuits and private settlements that have plagued his troubled clan.
Father knows best, it seems.
The surprisingly soft-spoken and genial 77-year-old was speaking to The New Paper last Friday from his Hyatt Hotel suite, looking exhausted from not getting enough shut-eye since arriving in Singapore from Las Vegas the day before.
He is here to launch Joe Jackson's Hip-Hop Boot Camp, a singing competition-cum-reality TV series which aims to unearth the world's next hip-hop wunderkind.
Yet, Jackson didn't lose his cool when we brought up Michael's 2005 child molestation charges, of which he was acquitted in a US court.
'I spoke to him a month ago. He's okay, he's strong like me,' Jackson said. But are the effects of last year's controversial scandal still being felt by the family?
Jackson offered: 'It was a little bit bothersome to see Michael up there being accused of something that he didn't do, and knowing he didn't do it because as parents, we believed in him and knew it.
'When you're successful, people come along and try to take advantage of that, use some type of scheme to get money. It put him at a standstill for a reason - to regroup.
'Now that he has found what he wants to do from now on and the countries he wants to work in, I think he's turning himself around to do what he knows best.'
The reclusive 'king of pop' left the US in the wake of his harrassment by the media during his trial, spent time in Bahrain, and is currently setting up temporary residence in Ireland.
Jackson said: 'He doesn't want to go back (to the US) too quickly. He gets more recognition from other countries all over the world than America.
'People try to bring a superstar down, but he has too many loyal fans all over the world, and I appreciate them for sticking by him through all these hard times.'
After a five-year hiatus from recording, Michael recently announced that he's collaborating with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am for his comeback album, which is due for release next year.
And what are Jackson's thoughts on his son branching out into hip-hop, the multi-billion-dollar industry that he himself is trying to cash in on?
'I don't have any problem with it - as long as he can take it to the bank!' he said laughingly.
DISAPPOINTING SALES
However, Jackson wasn't as pleased about the disappointing sales of daughter Janet's latest album 20 Y.O.
He said: 'Well, what I would've liked to have seen, is that when you're working with great star producers and doing great things with those producers, you don't change up.
'She did change up and you see what's happening now. I'm thinking her album would've been better if she had stuck with those producers.'
But right now, Jackson is saving his tips for his new proteges from the Hip-Hop Boot Camp project, which is scheduled to start in the US in March.
The show will also have an Asian spin-off, as hip-hop talents from Singapore and Malaysia can audition from January onwards for a chance to train under hip-hop experts in New York City.
It has been mooted that the top 12 contestants from both countries return to Singapore and compete on TV, Singapore Idol-style, for a recording contract.
Jackson and his business associates are currently promoting the concept to MediaCorp.
But a boot camp presided over by Jackson, who has a reputation for dishing out tough love, sounds scary.
'Now, why do they give that (label) to me? I don't know why they put me in that character,' he protested. 'No, it's not scary. It's like a learning process you have to go through to make it big in the entertainment field.'
So is he a slave-driver?
'No, I'm no slave-driver - I'm a driver,' he said, chuckling at his own joke. 'Anyway, we call that 'grooming' now.'
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/show/story/0,...,117003,00.html
