LMFAO’s ‘Sexy And I Know It’ is America’s No.1 song. Significantly their previous No.1 has nudged back into the top 10 in its 40th week of charting. Nothing SO startling about that. Songs just stay and stay these days. In the days of physical singles whether we liked it or not record companies had the ability to delete singles from sale to force us to concentrate on a follow-up single or send us to the album containing that popular song. They can’t or won’t do that any more. Nine of the current American Top 40 songs have been around for more than half a year.
‘Sexy And I Know It’ is also back at No.1 in Australia. In 2011 between this No.1 and ‘Party Rock Anthem’ LMFAO spent 17 week at No.1 in Australia. No-one has accumulated such a dominant 12 month run in Australia since Abba in the 70s, and the Beatles in the 60s. No-one else!
We have to take LMFAO seriously. They’re not the decade’s Village People or KLF. They’re doing the business and are symptomatic of the times, not exactly perfomers, not exactly a group – a “project” created by two DJs with an interesting heritage.
Stefan Gordy (Redfoo) and Skyler Gordy (Sky Blu) were born 11 years apart. Stefan, the younger of the two, is Skyler’s uncle. Skyler is Stefen’s father’s grandson. Stefan’s father is Berry Gordy IV, the second of three children from Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr’s second marriage. Gordy (the father) married three times. He didn’t marry Stefan’s mother, like he didn’t marry Motown star Diana Ross, who also secretly bore a child to him. Berry Gordy Jr fathered eight children altogether, four inside marriages, four outside. Stefen is his youngest child. He’s the product of a brief relationship Berry Gordy Jr had with Nancy Leiviska, a Motown executive for 18 years. Leiviska did more than sleep with the boss. She came to Motown as Sammy Davis Jr’s personal assistant, and at Motown saw the company into the video age – long before the advent of MTV. When it came to MTV Leiviska wrote and produced a cutting edge video for Rockwell’s ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’, the first Motown clip aired by MTV. Rockwell, incidentally, was another of Gordy’s sons, another of the non-marriage children. Leiviska also directed and shot Rick James’ landmark ‘Superfreak’ video. She’s not watching her son’s worldwide success with LMFAO from the sidelines. Stefan’s mum administers the ‘Party Rock Anthem’ copyright.
One last family connection. The name LMFAO was accidentally coined by Skyler’s grandmother. When the messaged her to say the duo planned to call itself Sexe (pronounced Sex-say) Dudes, her response was LMFAO, a more profane extension of the Internet acronym LOL (laughing out loud). One could safely assumed that it was the grandmother on Berry Gordy IV’s mother’s side of the family. IV’s mum Raynoma has been the whistle blower on Berry Gordy Jr’s “interesting” history. She was the one who revealed for the first time the child Berry had had with Diana Ross – who had quickly married her manager when she discovered she was with child. Raynoma was there at the start of the Motown story. She helped her husband establish his recording empire. After they divorced and she remarried, Raynoma went back to the company, only to find herself sacked during a cost-cutting exercise. The final cruel blow came when Berry Gordy Jr sold Motown for $61 million in 1988 she expected a “little something. Her name had been on the original company documents but Berry had persuaded her to take it off for the good of the company. In 1988 she didn’t get a cent. SO she wrote a book instead. Now Berry is taking about creating a Broadway musical about his life. How much of the above will feature? The official Motown story is filled with fiction covering over a much more sordid reality.
More of that some other time. Let’s get back to LMFAO, worlds away from the original Gordy family empire. If we dare to attempt to predict the future we shouldn’t expect RedFoo and SkyBlu to party on for much longer. They’ll become a hit factory for others, as producers and maybe even as record label executives. In recent history there’s a long list of hitmakers who’ve been handed the keys to the front office, often a case of being prompted out of their depth. In the Gordy boys’ case their father paved the way.
Like the Black Eyed Peas – Will.I.Am was RedFoo’s junior high school friend and an early supporter –LMFAO, together or separately will become a money spinning corporation. RedFoo also has business background in investment and money. While their father’s Motown Records’ music will always remind us of the 60s and 70s, in a very different way LMFAO already have and will continue to shape the times were living through right now. Whether ‘Party Rock Anthem’ is the new ‘Lambada’ or ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is yet to be determined.
Tags: Berry Gordy Jr, LMFAO, Motown Records
