When your uncle is Michael Jackson and your very first single starts climbing the charts, you’d figure the phone call that follows is a happy one.
That’s what Taj Jackson thought, anyway.
Taj is the eldest son of Jackson 5 member Tito Jackson. In the mid-’90s he and his younger brothers, Taryll and TJ, were making music together as a trio called 3T. Their debut album, “Brotherhood,” came out in 1995. Their first single, “Anything,” caught on in Britain and climbed all the way to No. 2 on the UK singles chart.
In early 1996 the three brothers landed on the BBC’s “Top of the Pops,” and this clip from January 25, 1996, catches them singing “Anything” while it was still on its way up the chart.
Taj, Taryll and TJ sing “Anything” on Top of the Pops
Taj looked back on those days in an interview with Rappler. In his memory the song went all the way to the top (it actually peaked at No. 2 in Britain). “When our first song hit the top of the charts in the UK, we received this phone call from him,” he said.
The “him” was Uncle Michael. And the boys had a pretty good idea why he was calling.
“We thought he was calling to congratulate us but he was actually calling to scold us,” Taj said.
It had nothing to do with their singing. If you’d like to hear the record that started all this, here’s the official music video for “Anything.”
The official video for 3T’s “Anything”
So what had they done wrong?
Michael was upset “because we hadn’t visited children’s hospitals.”
Visiting sick kids was something Michael made part of his own tours, and he wanted his nephews to understand why. “He said, every city I go to, I go to a children’s hospital. He said, it’s your responsibility,” Taj recalled.
Taj didn’t argue with him. “And he was right because that’s how we grew up. We watched him do that.”
For Taj, it came down to a question his uncle wanted them to think about: “how do you use your profession, like performing, which my brothers and I are doing, how do you use that to bring good?”
Music ran deep in that house, and so did the family example. Here’s Tito himself on stage with his three sons at a Top of the Pops event, starting with a Jackson 5 medley.
Tito Jackson on stage with his sons
That phone call might make Michael sound like a strict uncle. Taj says that wasn’t the Michael he knew most days.
“He was a big kid. That’s why I said he was like my big brother. He was silly,” Taj said.
He remembered the pranks, too. “We would go down the boulevard, throw stink bombs and water balloons and laugh at that.” Nobody ever caught on. “No one suspected that they got stink bombed by Michael Jackson.”
If you want to hear the brothers in their own words, this interview has Taj, Taryll and TJ sitting down together to talk.
Taj, Taryll and TJ sit down for an interview
Taj was in his late 40s when he told Rappler about that call. He still remembered what his uncle said, word for word.