Kenny Edmonds was in sixth grade when he saw his first concert. It was the Jackson 5 in Indianapolis, and his seat was so bad he mostly saw the backs of their heads.
“I could only see their faces when they would spin,” Babyface told Genius in 2018. It didn’t matter. “I had tears coming down my face, just couldn’t believe that they were there.”
Right there, he decided he would meet them one day. “I didn’t know how it was gonna happen,” he said.
A couple of years later, in eighth grade, he read in the paper that the Jacksons were coming back. It named the promoter too: Charles Williams.
So he got out the phone book. “It was a bunch of Charles Williams, and I called every one of them,” he said, until he reached the right one. In the Genius clip below, listen for the name he gave the promoter.
Babyface tells Genius how he got into the Jackson 5’s hotel room
It’s Genius’s official upload. The story starts at about 14:35.
So how does an eighth grader get a meeting with the Jackson 5?
He pretends to be his own teacher. Babyface hung up on that first call, then rang back about 30 minutes later as “a guy named Mr. Clayton,” who taught him English at school. He borrowed the voice too. “I was a big Jimmy Stewart fan, and so I used my Jimmy Stewart impersonation to act like an adult,” he said.
“Mr. Clayton” asked if the promoter might like the idea of kids interviewing kids. Charles Williams said it was a great idea. Then the “teacher” handed over the name and number of a student who could do it “like a real journalist.” His name was Kenny Edmonds.
The promoter called that number. “And I acted surprised,” Babyface said. “Mr. Clayton? Oh my god.”
“If my mom knew that I had lied and I approached it that way, it would have never happened,” he said, “so I was on guard duty on the phone for at least a week.” Finally the call came. He had the interview.
A friend’s sister took him and his friend Malcolm to the Hilton, on what Babyface thinks was the 15th floor. He wore his brother’s letter sweater “to try to make myself look like I was little more important.” The four older brothers sat on two beds. Michael sat alone at a little table. That’s where Kenny went.
He told Oprah Winfrey he walked straight to Michael and said, “It’s an honour to meet you.” Michael answered, “It’s an honour to meet you, sit down, have a seat.” WENN reported the interview in 2013. “They let me stay in there about 30 minutes,” he told her.
Michael also asked whether the letters on the sweater were for a college, Babyface told Genius. Kenny admitted they were his brother’s.
His one photo didn’t survive. The next day he showed it to some girls on the bus. They started screaming and grabbed it, and it got torn up.
Years later, Babyface would write songs with Michael. Before one meeting, he stopped at Lionel Richie’s house, and Lionel gave him a warning, Babyface told Rap Radar in 2023: “Just watch out for him because he’s sneaky.”
Babyface kept cool. “I acted a little more ‘Indianapolis’ than I normally would,” he said, per IndyStar’s write-up. “I didn’t fan out on him. And I think because of that we ended up being cool with each other.” Michael had his own explanation. “He always used to say, ‘You’re funny. We’ve got the same sense of humor because we’re both from Indiana.'”
Did Michael remember the boy at the table? “Of course not,” Babyface told Genius. He wasn’t hurt, and he told Michael the whole story. He went back for a second interview as a sophomore, and that time he kept the photo. “I have the picture to prove it,” he said.