"It was a shock to me — that the man was up and practicing the night before and then boom! On the floor. That's not the way it was meant to be," lamented Redfoo, one-half of the electro-hip-hop group [artist id="3132138"]LMFAO[/artist], in New York last week. He and nephew/bandmate Sky Blu join the millions of Michael Jackson fans around the world still reeling from the loss of arguably the greatest entertainer in history.

In just over a month, artists from across the globe have shared their sorrow at the falling of the pop-music icon, but for Red and Sky — who are the son and nephew, respectively, of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy — Michael Jackson's passing runs deeper. It was a death in the family.

"We are in the Gordy family," said Red. "Berry Gordy found Michael and the Jackson 5. And we basically grew up around Michael and Jermaine. Jermaine is married to my sister. Married to his aunt," he said, pointing to Sky.

In fact, the LMFAO duo were among those seen seated near the Jackson family during the globally televised memorial service for Jackson in Los Angeles. And as the media storm ensued and the business of retrospectives swelled in the weeks that followed, the twosome tried to make sense of what was going on around them.

"I tried to look at it as, 'What can I learn from this?' " said Red. "Society just ... he must have wanted to check out ... or escape, because of these critics. And it's funny, because we have critics now. They say if you buy the Party Rock album, it inspires one to drink."

"Another thing they say is, 'If you buy the album, it inspires sexual activities,' " said Sky.

"So we clap to that," confessed Red. "We are not gonna let it get us down so we feel like we can't go out in the public anymore. He was exactly who he wanted to be. And we model ourselves after that."

In the end, the LMFAO guys take comfort in the fact that while they were not able to share their music with Michael Jackson personally, they heard he'd given them his stamp of approval.

"We have a mutual friend," recounted Sky. "And a month before he passed, she was hanging with him, Michael, on a porch. They talked for about an hour about how proud he was about us, and how he was into the music and really digging it. And I was like, 'Wow!' Because my dream was to talk to him about it, as a man. And say, 'Man, look what we are doing now.' "