Back with a political reworking of Can You Feel It, brothers Tito, Marlon and Jackie talk about their legendarily tough father, their memories of Michael and why they always hope for another massive hit
Can You Feel It is one of the great disco songs. Now the Jacksons are determined to remind us that it is also one of the great political songs, with its call for “all the colours of the world” to unite and tell the “marching men who are killing their brothers” that we all share the same blood.
Forty years after first charting, Can You Feel It has been reworked to include clips from speeches by Martin Luther King and
Barack Obama, part of a project to expand the band’s six albums for Epic with remixes and bonus tracks. It makes perfect sense to have MLK and Obama guesting on the song, Tito Jackson says today: “They are the two best rappers in the world.” Tito and Jackie, the oldest brother, laugh. They are Zooming from
Las Vegas, where they both live. Both are youthful and run off high-energy batteries. Tito, whose three sons make up the group 3T, is wearing his customary bowler hat – he says it’s the first thing he puts on when he gets up, and the last thing he takes off at night. Jackie, who has been married three times and has four children, is smartly dressed and smiley. It’s hard to believe they are approaching 70.