Sony denies new Jackson song is a fake

Michael Jackson's record label Sony Music has spoken out against allegations that the vocals on a new posthumous song are fake.

A spokesman for Sony said the label has "complete confidence" that the vocals on the track called Breaking News are authentic despite accusations by Jackson's nephews TJ and Taryll that sound-a-likes and studio trickery were used.

Writing on Twitter, TJ Jackson said he was convinced that the studio had used samples of old recordings and a well known Michael Jackson imitator called Jason Malachi to produce Breaking News. He accused the song, above, of "deceptively merging shady vocals with MJ samples".

"If you heard the a capella you would be even more disgusted. Sampled breaths after sampled breaths mixed in with fake vocals to try to fool u," he said.

"Sounds like Jason Malachi to me too. The vibrato is a dead give away that it's not my uncle. Fans, I am so sorry you were put through this."

Taryll Jackson, who claims to have been in the studio when the "questionable files" were delivered, said that Sony had yet to provide any hard evidence to support the authenticity of the tracks.

"I questioned the validity of the vocals on Breaking News and several other songs and they told me no other takes or tracks exist," he wrote on Twitter.

"They claim my uncle was so happy with the performance he instructed them to delete all the other files. I had the honour to watch my uncle record my entire life and that is NOT how he worked. No outtakes, no other tracks, no backups, no proof.

"I asked for the computer it was created on... they said it broke. I asked for the original hard drive... they said it was destroyed. One dubious excuse after another."

But Taryll said he does recognise his uncle's voice on some of the new songs from the album Michael, which will be released on December 14, and would "support them 100 per cent".

Sony Music told BBC News that it has "complete confidence in the results of our extensive research, as well as the accounts of those who were in the studio with Michael, that the vocals on the new album are his own". ·