The music video for "Hold My Hand," the first official single off Michael Jackson's posthumous album "Michael" (out Dec. 14), premiered today (Dec. 9) at 12:01 a.m. on Jackson's official Vevo account.
"Hold My Hand" highlights a menagerie of Jackson devotees and everyday people -- ranging from dancing youngsters to the sick and elderly. Senegalese singer Akon, who is featured prominently on "Hold My Hand," is also featured in the song's video, clad in all white and performing against a white background.
Fittingly, Jackson's camp found a way to include footage of the King of Pop himself in the video, through archived performance clips through the years. The uplifting video for "Hold My Hand" celebrates Jackson at his very best -- dancing and performing at the height of his career.
Collaborators such as Akon claim a message of positivity was Jackson's intention while working on the songs that would eventually find a home on "Michael." "He wanted to put out music that was positive enough to bring the world together," Akon recently told Billboard.com.
Speaking specifically about "Hold My Hand," Akon said that he originally wrote the single for himself, but after being tapped by Jackson to work on his next album, he knew Jackson's presence on the track was necessary. "The song was pretty much finished, but his delivery creates a whole other environment -- his tone and energy just made that record seem completely different," says Akon, who ended up recording the song with Jackson in Las Vegas in 2008. "We decided we would make it his record featuring myself, because I felt like he'd give it more mileage, and the record would be so, so much bigger if it was a Michael Jackson record."
