Teddy Riley

"I got to cry on his shoulder."

"When I heard he passed away it dropped my heart, my spirit, my soul. 
Everything just dropped. It's devastating,"

Listen. You know where I'm from. We come from the real. We come from a place where we keep it real and it's just so crazy how this stuff here has been going on and now finally when something happens to him everyone wants to come back, pay homage, benefit from this and there's no benefiting from this. People want to throw a party or do something but, this ain't about a party. Yes, we should celebrate him because that's what he would want of us, but all of the making money and all that stuff. No. If you don't have any past things with him or you haven't been there to check on him when he was going through his trials and tribulations, then I don't see where you fit… I don't see where you fit.

"You know, my mom convinced me to get out of bed. 
My mom convinced me and I said ‘alright, I got to get out of this bed."

"Michael was definitely a spirit sent from God"

"I have a legitimate contribution and I have a legitimate friendship with Michael Jackson. I have something that no one, a lot of people have never done with him other than Quincy Jones, Greg Philliganes, Bruce Swedien, Renee from Renee & Angela, and a few people… Babyface got to work with him. I got to work with this man. I got to sit and talk with him. I got to cry on his shoulder. I got to talk and really express some things that were just him and I that I just didn't understand and he helped me understand it. Then there's some things that he wanted to understand like why are they doing this to him. I couldn't help him understand that because it was bigger than me, but I was always that shoulder. I was always that friend he could've said anything to. He expressed a lot of his most deepest concerns and feelings about a lot of things. I know some personal relationships that he has gone through, female relationships and different things like that but I would never disclose that. That's the stuff that I know."

 “Michael Jackson was a woman lover, trust!”

"He gave me my College Degree."

Let me tell you some of the things that I am doing with the family's approval…The one thing that I wanted to do which I told him, and I got a chance to tell him, that I wanted to make “Heaven Can Wait” over with Blackstreet. He gave me the song “Joy,” it's on the first Blackstreet album, he gave it to me for Blackstreet, his name is on the record if you go back to it, and he gave me his blessings. That's the only thing that I asked to do and I will reiterate that with the family because I want that on the new Blackstreet record and whether a part of the proceeds go for his foundation or whatever, I don't care, I want to do the song because that song never came out as a single and that was one of our favorites. When I did that song with him, he held his heart and he said ‘Teddy, is this mine?' I said, ‘It's yours if you want it, Michael' He's like: ‘I want it, let's go get it!' He was so excited. I have a couple of witnesses that were in the room when he said ‘I want that song. I need that song in my life.'

I said, ‘It's yours if you want it, Michael.'

"He taught me the beauty of songwriting. That's how love is made and that's how music is made, with a piano to get you in the mood. That's what it's about."