In this week's cover story Billboard gets the full album details on Michael Jackson's posthumous album 'Xscape', speaking to L.A. Reid and an all-star cast of producers who re-imagined archival tracks by the King of Pop.

Reid tells Billboard how 'Xscape' -- eight tracks of Jackson vocals set to new music from Timbaland and J-Roc, Rodney Jerkins, Stargate and John McClain, the former A&M Records executive who is co-executor of the Jackson estate with Branca -- came to be.

At first, Reid says, "I had no idea what was in the vaults." But he says this now with a smile, and the confidence that comes with pursuing an unorthodox strategy and creating something no one believed possible - an album that deserves to be discussed in the context of the remarkable music that Jackson made from Off the Wall in 1979 to Invincible in 2001.

When first listening to the source material "You can hear [Jackson's] foot in the booth when he's singing, and his fingers snapping," says Jerkins. "It was all raw, it was real. It wasn't like, 'Take the snaps out, take the stomps out.' No - it's real. It's him in the booth, and he's feeling what he's doing."