From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Chapter 595: The Third Day

JD Records did not apologize for what Dayo said during the interview.

That was the first thing people noticed.

After a full night of arguments, think pieces, angry posts, fan wars, stitched clips, and old Michael Jackson performances being thrown across timelines like sacred evidence, many expected the label to soften the ground by morning. Some expected a statement full of careful regret. Others expected Dayo to post something vague about being misunderstood, respect the legends, love and light, back to the music.

Instead, JD Records released the full interview.

No dramatic caption. Or a defensive thread. Neither was it a long explanation that sounded like it had been written by a committee afraid of losing sponsors.

Just the interview clip in proper quality, subtitled in multiple languages, with the section before the viral line left intact. The part where Dayo called Michael Jackson the blueprint. The part where he said Michael changed how the world understood performance. The part where he admitted that the eras were different, that streaming and physical sales could not be treated like the same weapon.

Then came the official line, simple enough that even people who hated it could not pretend they did not understand.

Respect for a legend does not mean fear of the standard he set.

That was all.

It did not calm the internet.

Nothing would have.

But it changed the shape of the argument.

For the first few hours after the label’s post, the people who had been defending Dayo finally had something cleaner to work with. They stopped arguing from cropped clips and started throwing the full answer into comment sections. Michael Jackson fans who were willing to listen found the respectful part. Some still disliked the ambition. Some still felt the word "surpass" had been too heavy to throw into public so casually. But the fair-minded ones admitted Dayo had not spoken like a man trying to insult the dead.

He had spoken like a man staring at a idol and refusing to pretend he did not want to climb and surpass him.

The bad-faith accounts did what bad-faith accounts always did. They ignored the full clip and kept the shorter one. That was expected. Alice had told everyone inside JD Records not to waste the morning chasing people who had already decided the conclusion before hearing the evidence.

But outside the company, the conversation became harder to simplify.

By noon, Beautiful Things had become the most argued-about song in the world.

People were not only listening because they loved the song anymore. They were listening because they wanted to judge the man behind the statement. Vocal coaches replayed Dayo’s live performances and tried to decide whether his control justified his confidence. Dancers compared his stage clips to old performance traditions. Producers returned to the bridge again, not only because of Luna’s hidden vocal, but because they wanted to understand how a song could be built for replay without feeling empty after the first listen.

Some people entered the song looking for proof that Dayo was arrogant.

Some entered looking for proof that he was chosen.

Both groups pressed play.

That was the strange cruelty of controversy. It did not care whether a listener came with love or resentment. Once the music started, the count moved the same way.

At JD Records, the public-relations team watched the wave but did not celebrate it. They had learned not to clap too early around Dayo. Every time they thought a moment had peaked, he found another way to make the ceiling look temporary.

The JD EFFECT.

Valerie sat in her office with the third-day report unopened on her desk for almost ten minutes.

Not because she was afraid of the number.

Because she knew once she read it, the campaign would shift again.

On the wall screen, three feeds played without sound. A British panel debated whether modern artists had become too comfortable declaring greatness before time tested them. A Nigerian entertainment host laughed openly at the idea that Dayo should ask permission to dream big. A U.S. music-business analyst stood in front of a chart comparing physical-era sales, streaming-era reach, and what he called "cultural repeat value," whatever that meant.

Ulrich stood near the bookshelf, holding a printed brief on physical sales. He had read it three times already.

"You’re delaying," he said.

Valerie did not look up. "I am thinking on what to expect "

"You think faster than this or just open it let’s see what’s inside you can’t keep thinking."

"I am thinking slowly on purpose and heyy dont rush me eh."

"That is not comforting."

"It was not meant to be we are already breaking records in Days that should be impossible."

The room final quite down.

She finally reached for the report.

Ulrich watched her face as she opened it. Valerie was not easy to read, which was part of why she survived in rooms where louder people mistook noise for power. But after the first page, her fingers paused it Just kept sill.

Ulrich straightened a little. "How bad is it?"

Valerie read the line again, then closed the folder halfway and laughed once under her breath. It was not amusement. It was disbelief finally finding the smallest crack in her composure.

"Bad?" she said. "No. Bad would be easier to explain."

She pushed the folder toward him.

Ulrich picked it up.

The first number sat at the top.

6.72 billion global streams in three days.

Beneath it:

Day Three new streams: 1.81 billion.

Number one in 112 countries.

For a moment, Ulrich said nothing. He had spent enough years in the industry to know when a number was large, when it was historic, and when it became inconvenient because everyone now had to pretend they knew what came after it.

"This is confirmed?" he asked.

"Platform-confirmed internally. Public certification will take time, but the numbers are clean enough for planning."

Ulrich lowered the report. "The Michael Jackson controversy did not slow the song."

"No," Valerie said. "It gave people a new reason to test it after all its not eveyday you see someone wanting to suparss the impossible. "

"We’ll its not looking like Impossible anymore." Valerie muttered but it was loud enough for the executive to hear and they couldn’t help but nod unconsciously.

That was the part the executives had expected in theory but still found strange in practice. The interview had not replaced the song. It had attached a question to it. People could not argue about Dayo’s ambition without returning to his work. If he was arrogant, the song had to be inspected. If he was serious, the song had to be inspected. If he was delusional, gifted, disrespectful, brave, overrated, chosen, dangerous, or merely lucky, the song had to be inspected.

Inspection, in the modern era, looked a lot like replay.

By midafternoon, the record list was long enough that Alice stopped trying to make it sound elegant.

"Fastest to five billion," she told the executive group over a call. "Fastest to six. Biggest three-day global streaming total. Highest third-day retention for a release of this size. One hundred and twelve countries at number one. Search volume is still rising. The interview clip is driving traffic to the song, and the song is driving people back to the interview."

Someone from international marketing asked, "Are we releasing the full record list now?"

Alice rubbed at her temple. "Not all of it. If we dump everything, it starts sounding like we are shouting numbers because we’re afraid of the legacy argument. We lead with the cleanest ones and let the trade outlets carry the rest."

Valerie agreed. "Mention the three-day total. Mention the countries. Mention the five and six billion records. Keep the tone calm."

"Calm," Alice repeated, dryly. "We are announcing six point seven two billion streams in three days and you want calm."

"Yes."

"I’ll do my best to make history sound well-behaved And calm...." She said the last part like she didn’t even belive it was possible.

"Thank you."

The public announcement went out an hour later.

It was almost too plain.

Beautiful Things has crossed 6.72 billion global streams in its first three days, reaching No. 1 across 112 countries and becoming the fastest song to pass both 5 billion and 6 billion global streams. JD Records thanks every listener, fan community, platform partner, and supporter carrying the record worldwide.

There was no mention of Michael Jackson.

That absence was deliberate.

The argument found the connection anyway.

Within minutes, trade publications moved.

BEAUTIFUL THINGS CROSSES 6.72 BILLION STREAMS IN THREE DAYS AMID LEGACY DEBATE

DAYO JASON’S MICHAEL JACKSON COMMENTS FAIL TO SLOW RECORD-BREAKING SINGLE

CONTROVERSY BECOMES FUEL AS BEAUTIFUL THINGS SETS NEW THREE-DAY GLOBAL MARK

The old guard did not fold. If anything, some became more stubborn.

"Streams are not Thriller," one columnist wrote again, this time in a longer piece that traveled widely. "Dayo Jason has speed. Michael Jackson had permanence. The former is impressive. The latter is history."

For once, JD Records did not disagree with the whole sentence.

That was the delicate part.

Michael Jackson’s legacy could not be treated like a weak opponent. It had to be honored properly, or Dayo’s chase would look cheap. Thriller was not just a number on a chart. It had lived through formats, households, generations, tribute performances, documentaries, memories, costumes, dance floors, and arguments that outlasted the people who started them.

So when the physical-sales discussion moved into the open, JD Records released the information with care.

Not as a victory.

As evidence that Dayo’s campaign had more than digital weight.

The first physical batch of Beautiful Things had sold out globally: 3.2 million units across CD single, vinyl, and limited regional editions. Paid pre-orders and backorders had reached 11.7 million units. Retail allocation requests had climbed to 28 million units, though JD Records was careful not to count those as sales.

Valerie insisted on the wording herself.

Sold-out physical stock: 3.2 million. Paid buyer demand: 11.7 million. Retail allocation requests: 28 million.

No inflated phrasing. No pretending requests were purchases. No turning backorders into legacy before the product reached people’s hands.

That restraint surprised some critics more than the numbers did.

A music historian posted, "This is the first smart move JD Records has made in the physical-sales debate. They are not claiming Dayo has touched Thriller. They are proving his audience is willing to buy."

Another wrote, "The distinction matters. Dayo has not climbed Michael’s mountain. But he has reached the base with more people behind him than most artists bring to the summit of their careers."

The comparisons began anyway.

People pulled up Thriller again. Not as a casual reference, but as the mountain itself. Released in 1982. Years of sales. Decades of cultural presence. More than sixty million copies estimated worldwide. Certified tens of millions in the United States alone. A record that had not simply sold, but stayed as a part of history a legendary record without argument.

Respectful fans posted old footage of Michael performing, moving with that impossible precision that made even grainy video feel alive. Dayo’s fans, when they were smart, stopped trying to argue against the footage. They posted Dayo’s interview line instead.

The blueprint.

That became the safer ground.

Not Dayo against Michael.

Dayo because of Michael.

Dayo after Michael.

Dayo trying to build higher because someone before him had proven the sky could be challenged.

Of course, not everyone accepted that framing. Some still called the physical numbers a marketing trick. Others said paid pre-orders did not matter until fulfilled. Valerie agreed with that one privately, which annoyed Alice because agreement made it harder to fight. But the conversation had shifted again.

Now even the skeptics had to say two things at once.

Dayo had not surpassed Michael Jackson.

But Dayo was not only streaming he had advantage Yes but he wasn’t small when it came to physical-sales.

That mattered.

In a hotel room between two promotional stops, Dayo finally saw the full third-day report.

Sharon handed it to him after he finished a video call with a European radio show where the host had spent half the interview trying to get him to repeat the Michael Jackson line in a more dramatic way. He had refused. Not because he regretted it, but because lightning looked foolish when someone tried to bottle it twice in the same jar.

He sat near the window, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, city lights beyond the glass. The room smelled faintly of coffee, rain, and too much travel.

Sharon waited while he read.

She had stopped trying to guess what his face meant. With Dayo, shock did not always look like shock. Sometimes it looked like silence. Sometimes like calculation. Sometimes like a man hearing music nobody else could hear yet.

He reached the bottom of the report and stayed there.

"Six point seven two," he said quietly.

"Yes sir 6.2 billion"

"One hundred and twelve countries."

"Hmm yes and it broke the record of songs entering No 1 in countries."

Dayo nodded "And the Physical sold out?."

"The first batch, yes. Paid demand is strong, but Valerie told me to repeat her exact wording if you asked. She said, ’Do not let him call backorders sales just because he is handsome and dangerous.’"

Dayo looked up.

Sharon kept a perfectly straight face. "Her words."

"I am not sure I believe that."

"You shouldn’t. Amanda said the handsome part. Valerie said the dangerous part."

That got a tired laugh out of him.

For a moment, Dayo let the report rest on his knee. The numbers were enormous. He knew that. He was not numb to them, even if others might think he was. The first hour had shocked him. The first day had humbled him. The second day had warned him that the campaign was no longer behaving like a normal release. The third day made the Michael Jackson statement feel less like a wild sentence and more like a door he had opened and now had to walk through without stumbling.

He did not think he had surpassed Michael.

Not yet.

Not even close after this was the Michael Jackson....

Michael Jackson’s shadow was not a thing to step over because three days had been loud. It was years, decades, bodies moving in imitation, songs surviving through families, performances studied by children who were not alive when they happened. Dayo understood that better than most people arguing online, because in his old life, Michael had not been a historical file to him. He had been living proof of what performance could become when discipline, pain, genius, and spectacle collided.

Dayo had watched him with awe.

Now the world was asking whether that awe gave him permission to chase or required him to kneel.

He already knew his answer.

Sharon checked another message and frowned.

Dayo noticed. "What?"

"Valerie wants confirmation on the physical campaign language. She says the old guard is watching every word."

"She is right."

"She also said you are not allowed to tweet anything poetic for six hours."

"I was not going to."

Sharon’s silence was immediate and suspicious.

Dayo looked offended. "I wasn’t."

"Sir."

"What?"

"You have a history."

Which was not a lie he had history of doing things as he saw fit.

He handed the report back before she could continue. "Tell Valerie the language is fine. Respectful. Clean. No crown talk. No victory talk. We have not earned that."

Sharon’s expression softened slightly. "And what have you earned?"

Dayo looked out at the city.

"The right to keep going."

That was the part the public did not see. Ambition looked loud when it left his mouth in an interview. In private, it often felt heavier than pride. Saying he wanted to surpass Michael Jackson had not made the mountain smaller. It had made it visible to everyone. Every step now would be judged against it.

That was fine.

Mountains did not care whether climbers were comfortable.

By night, the third-day numbers had fully entered the public bloodstream.

Supporters celebrated them as proof. Critics warned that proof was not legacy. Neutral observers admitted the campaign had become impossible to ignore. Fan accounts built timelines showing the first hour, first day, second day, third day, interview spike, physical sellout, and follower growth. Older fans continued posting Thriller tributes, and this time many Dayo fans replied with respect instead of defensiveness.

That was a small victory.

Not peace.

Just maturity in a few places where the internet usually had none.

Then, close to midnight, when the day should have been ending, another headline appeared.

At first, it came from a sports-health blog with a cautious title.

Sources: Dayo Jason Preparing For Marathon Completion Attempt Amid Music Campaign

Most people ignored it for thirty seconds.

Then larger accounts picked it up.

Then someone found old footage of Dayo training.

Then another account remembered that there had been rumors months ago about Dayo planning something endurance-related.

Then the headline sharpened as it moved.

Dayo Jason Reportedly Planning To Complete A Marathon During Record-Breaking Release Week

The internet stared at it like it had been slapped.

A fan posted the first reaction that captured the general mood.

"Wait. We are still fighting about Michael Jackson and this man is about to go run?"

Another replied:

"Dayo said promotion mode. We thought interviews. He meant side quests."

By the time JD Records saw the spike, the story had already begun moving on its own.

Valerie received the alert at her desk, read it once, and closed her eyes.

Ulrich, standing in the doorway with his coat halfway on, noticed her expression.

"What happened now?"

Valerie turned the screen toward him.

He read the headline.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Ulrich slowly removed his coat and placed it back over the chair.

Valerie reached for her phone.

"Wake Alice," she said.

Outside, the world was still arguing about whether Dayo had gone too far by pointing at Michael Jackson’s mountain.

Inside the next headline, Dayo had already started running.