Entertainment
Michael Jackson’s Revolutionary Album ‘Thriller’ Turns 40
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which turns 40 next week, was the most commercially successful album of all time and helped define an era with its audiovisual aspirations. It combined rock, pop, and RnB in a way that had never been done before.
Over 100 million copies of “Thriller” have been sold globally since its November 30, 1982, debut.
It established Jackson as the “King of Pop” and is still a fundamental piece of music.
Even the latest paedophilia accusations in the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland” couldn’t diminish Jackson’s appeal; his music is presently rated 60th globally on Spotify with 36.7 million monthly plays.
His influence is still all over the charts, not least in the form of The Weeknd, whose music has channelled Jackson, from an early cover of “Dirty Diana” (2010’s “DD”) through to his recent chart-topping album “Dawn FM”.
“Michael is somebody that I admire. He’s not like a real person, you know? When I started making music, that’s all I wanted to aspire to, just like every other musician,” the Canadian singer-songwriter told GQ magazine recently.
Much of the magic on “Thriller” is thanks to producer Quincy Jones, who had worked with Jackson on 1979’s “Off The Wall”.
“The record company didn’t want Quincy for ‘Off The Wall’. They took a dim view of this producer from the jazz world — music that sold peanuts in the eyes of the industry,” said Olivier Cachin, author of two books on Jackson.
But the collaboration saw sparks fly — literally on one occasion.
“When we were finishing ‘Beat It’… we were working five nights and five days, with no sleep. And at one point, the speakers overloaded and caught on fire!” Jones recalled to Rolling Stone.
– Threatening MTV –
“Thriller” was the moment when Jackson started to pull in influences from across pop culture, with Eddie Van Halen’s hard rock solo on “Beat It”, and pop ballad “The Girl is Mine” with Paul McCartney.
There were pioneering rap rhythms on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and a sample from “Soul Makossa” by saxophonist Manu Dibango (who got a large pay-out after Jackson’s team failed to secure authorisation).
Initially, the record failed to break on to the newly established MTV channel, which refused to show the video for megahit single “Billie Jean” on the grounds that black music did not “fit” with its white-dominated rock programming.
The boss of Jackson’s parent label at CBS, Walter Yetnikoff, “threatened to publicly denounce MTV as huge racists and block their access to videos of rock artists in its catalogue”, said Cachin.
Yetnikoff won that battle but then found himself clashing with Jackson over his plans for a $1 million video for the album’s last single, the title track “Thriller”.
Jackson wanted to work with director John Landis, having loved his movie “An American Werewolf in London”, while Yetnikoff thought the plan was pointless when the album was already at number one.
“But Michael had a vision, and he was stubborn,” said Cachin.
The ensuing 14-minute mini-film, which had its Hollywood premiere in front of a star-studded audience, helped revitalize album sales.
Not only did Jackson transform into a werewolf and raise the dead from the dead, but the elaborate and ambitious music videos that followed would go on to define the following two decades of modern culture.
The Nigerian film industry has been thrown into mourning following the death of veteran Nollywood actor Francis Duru, who died at the age of 57 after a brief illness.
Duru’s family announced his death on Friday in a statement shared on the actor’s official Instagram page. The National President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Abubakar Yakubu, also confirmed the development.
Born on July 27, 1969, Duru rose to prominence for his portrayal of Ahanna in Amaka Igwe’s 1995 film Rattlesnake, a role that helped establish him as a recognisable face in Nollywood.
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The actor featured in several other productions throughout his career, including Blood Money and Merry Men, earning recognition for his contributions to Nigerian film and television.
Over the years, Duru established himself as a veteran performer whose work contributed to the growth and development of the Nigerian entertainment industry.
His death comes months after he dismissed speculation about his health following the circulation of a video in June that raised concerns among fans.
Duru’s passing marks a loss for Nollywood, with colleagues, fans and other entertainment industry stakeholders expected to pay tribute to the actor and celebrate his contributions to Nigerian cinema.
Nigerian ceramic sculptor and artist, Chris Onaivi Ekuafeh, has opened Unity Forged in Clay, a solo exhibition that draws on clay, culture and personal experience to explore one of humanity’s enduring questions, “How can people remain different and still belong together?”
The exhibition opened on Saturday, September 26, at Quintessence Gallery, Victoria Island, Lagos, and continues until October 10, 2026.
Featuring 13 ceramic works, Unity Forged in Clay is Ekuafeh’s first solo exhibition on Nigerian soil and follows his first solo show in China in 2025, after a residency at the Taoxichuan Arts Centre in Jingdezhen, one of the world’s historic centres of ceramic art. At the heart of the exhibition are two deceptively simple questions: What is unity? And are we united as a people?
Ekuafeh, however, thinks unity does not necessarily have to demand uniformity. “Unity, for me, is not sameness,” he said. The idea is reflected throughout a body of work in which distinct forms, patterns, faces and cultural references coexist while retaining their individual character. “Unity unveils to me bits and pieces of different entities coming together to achieve a thing,” he said.
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Works in the exhibition include Identity, Where We Connect, What the Fire Kept and Kin, with titles across English, Yoruba and Ekuafeh’s native Igarra language. The choice of language, like the forms themselves, is driven by the story and meaning of each piece rather than by a single cultural frame.
The works reflect a creative journey formed across several Nigerian environments and traditions. Born in Kano and trained at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he studied Industrial Design with a specialisation in ceramics, Ekuafeh says his exposure to northern Nigerian architecture and material culture first awakened his fascination with clay.
The geometric patterns associated with northern architecture continue to appear in his work, while the distinctive faces he carves into some of his pieces draw from his Edo heritage. Lagos, where he now lives and works, has added another layer to the practice, exposing him to contemporary artistic influences and encouraging an increasingly research-driven approach. The result is an artistic vocabulary in which culture, identity, spirituality, emotion, community and human connection repeatedly intersect.
Ekuafeh said clay is more than a convenient artistic medium. His relationship with the material begins from sourcing from the earth, digging, preparing and processing the clay before shaping it into finished work. That physical process has become part of his understanding of both creativity and human experience.
The work captures that connection through scenes of the artist working directly with clay – pressing, shaping, carving and building – alongside reflections on diversity, fracture, belonging and the continuous work required to sustain unity. Rather than provide predetermined answers, Unity Forged in Clay invites viewers to arrive at their own.
Individual works combine sculptural forms with recurring markings, human features and patterns that encourage closer looking. Some begin with sketches and carefully developed ideas; others evolve more organically as Ekuafeh works with the material, allowing the form to develop alongside the thought that inspired it.
This tension between intention and discovery is central to his practice. Clay becomes both material and collaborator. And the exhibition is a visible expression of the process. Unity Forged in Clay is an opportunity to bring years of experimentation, cultural inquiry and technical practice into a focused solo presentation before returning to the studio to develop the next body of work, Ekuafeh said.
Beyond that, however, Unity Forged in Clay leaves its larger question with the audience. “If different particles of earth can be worked, fired and brought together without losing the marks that make each form distinctive, what might that suggest about people, communities and society?”
Photo Caption: From Left, Ofuma Agali, Business Lead, The Candella & Company; Saheedat Lawal, Gallery Supervisor, Quintessence Gallery; and Chris Ekuafeh; at Ekuafeh’s ‘Unity Forged in Clay’ exhibition, held at Quintessence Gallery, Victoria Island, Lagos, Saturday, 26 September 2026
Veteran Nigerian actor and film executive, Oludotun Baiyewu Jacobs, popularly known as Olu Jacobs, has died at the age of 84.
His death was announced by his son, Olusoji Jacobs, in a statement shared on Instagram on Wednesday, September 16, 2026.
The family described the late actor as “The Lion of Lufodo” and appealed to bloggers and social media influencers to respect their privacy as they mourned his passing.
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“It is with gratitude to God for a life well lived and fought, that we announce the passing of our dear husband, father, grandfather and uncle. The Lion of Lufodo,” the statement read.
The family identified him as Oludotun Baiyewun Jacobs, MFR, and gave his dates as July 11, 1942, to September 16, 2026.
Jacobs was one of Nigeria’s most recognised veteran actors, with a career spanning theatre, television and film.
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