MY MEMORY OF BELINDA

“I grew up with the wrong belief that Grady Harrell ain’t alive. That, out of envy Michael Jackson killed him when the hit Belinda was released. Man, childhood”

That was how Gimba, a friend reminisced on his facebook status update yester night and his reminiscence kinda sent me tumbling down memory lane too.

I surfed around my brain, rummaged through memories, flipped through mental files and all I could pull out was the chorus

“Belinda ay ay ayyyy Belinda

Oh oh belinda”

Jus’ like the dude who put up that update, me and my friends held similar belief at the time. We thought Grady stole from Michael, so Michael did him in, mafia style and that was why we didn’t hear any songs from him again. Of course, MJ didn’t do nada to him, Grady was jus’ a one hit wonder (though, sticks and stones, the first single off his ’89 album, Come Play With Me, did relatively ok)

Back then, I would silently mumbled my way through the verses but my young voice would grow strong and loud when it came to this hook

“Belinda ay ay ayyyy Belinda

Oh oh belinda”

I can still remember the video, Grady had his hair all slicked out, permed hair was the rage, and everybody who was somebody, from MJ to Lionel Richie, Shalamar, Kool and the Gang, Prince…they all had their dome shiny and greasy. Grady busted a couple of moves in the video, almost but not quite like MJ but then, who could do it like MJ? Nobody!

If you grew up in the eighties then you’d most definitely know the jam, it was a monster hit, a guaranteed party starter. What? Y’all thinkin’ I wasn’t old enough to party? Of course, I was…old enough to children’s’ party down in the village. Lol

One thing I’ve noticed about hit songs whose titles are peoples’ name, they tend to influence parents choice of name for their kids. I’ll bet one of my balls that a lot of the girls born in eighty four and eighty five were named Belinda cause of that record!

I challenge you guys to do your own little research and you’d see that many of the kids given birth to in the eighties were given names like Belinda, Susan, Billy jean, Diana, Nikita and so on because of the hits by Whitney Houston, MJ, Mrs. Elton John Or is it, Mr? Go ahead and ask your pops why they gave you the name you bear today, you’d be shocked how they got your names; they pro’ly got it from their favorite songs from back in the day!

By the way, Belinda was released in 1984; it was contained in Grady’s first solo album, MWANA on MCA records in 1985. I have no idea what Mwana mean but it sure sounds like a Nigerian name!

Grady listed one of his childhood idols as Michael Jackson...Aha! Our little minds weren’t too far from the truth, right? Maybe, jus’ maybe MJ did do Somethin’ to him!

Ummm, can I tell y’all one little truth before I wrap this shit up?

I still don’t know the verses! Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I promise I’ll get the lyrics off the internet so that next time I get my ears on the record, I would sing loud and clear, from start to finish!