Janet Jackson

Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer. She is noted for her innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows. Her sound and choreography became a catalyst in the growth of MTV, enabling her to rise to prominence while breaking gender and racial barriers in the process. Lyrical content that focused on social issues and lived experiences set her reputation as a role model for youth.

The tenth and youngest child of the Jackson family, Jackson starred in multiple television shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including Good Times, Diff'rent Strokes, and Fame. She signed a recording contract with A&M Records in 1982 and became a pop icon following the releases of the albums Control (1986) and Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989). Her collaborations with record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis incorporated a variety of music genres, which led to crossover success in popular music and influenced the development of the new jack swing fusion genre. In the 1990s, Jackson became one of the highest-paid artists in the industry, signing two record-breaking multimillion-dollar contracts with Virgin Records. She established her image as a sex symbol with a leading role in the film Poetic Justice (1993), and the albums Janet (1993) and The Velvet Rope (1997). Billboard named her the second most successful artist of the decade in the United States.

The release of her seventh studio album All for You in 2001 coincided with Jackson being the subject of the first MTV Icon special. By the end of the year, she joined her brother Michael as one of the few artists to score ten number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. However, the backlash from the 2004 Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy resulted in an industry blacklisting under the direction of Les Moonves, then-CEO of CBS. Jackson subsequently experienced reduced radio airplay, televised promotion and sales figures from that point forward. After parting ways with Virgin Records, she released her tenth studio album Discipline (2008), her only album with Island Records. In 2015, she partnered with BMG Rights Management to launch her own record label, Rhythm Nation, and released her eleventh studio album, Unbreakable, the same year. Since then she has continued to release music as an independent artist.

Jackson has sold over 100 million records, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. She holds the record for the most consecutive top-ten entries on the US Billboard Hot 100 by a female artist (18) and remains the only artist in the history of the chart to have seven singles from one album (Rhythm Nation 1814) peak within the top five positions. In 2008, Billboard placed her number seven on its list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, and in 2010 ranked her fifth among the "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years". In 2016, the magazine named her the second most successful dance club artist. Her accolades include five Grammy Awards, eleven Billboard Music Awards, eleven American Music Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and eight Guinness World Records entries. In 2019, she was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Janet Damita Jo Jackson was born on May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. She was the youngest of ten children in the Jackson family, a working-class African-American family living in a two-bedroom house on Jackson Street. Her mother, Katherine Esther Jackson (née Scruse), played clarinet and piano, had aspired to be a country-and-western performer, and worked part-time at Sears. Her father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, a former boxer, was a crane operator at U.S. Steel and played guitar with a local rhythm and blues band, the Falcons, to supplement the family's income. Janet's great-great-grandfather, July "Jack" Gale, was a US Army scout. Family lore held that he was also a Native American medicine man. Janet grew up with two sisters (Rebbie and La Toya) and six brothers (Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael and Randy). Another brother, Marlon's twin Brandon, died shortly after birth. The Jacksons were devout Jehovah's Witnesses, although Janet would later refrain from organized religion.

At a young age, Jackson's brothers began performing as the Jackson 5 in the Chicago-Gary area. In March 1969, they signed a record deal with Motown, and soon had their first number-one hit. The family then moved to the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles. Jackson had initially desired to become a horse racing jockey or entertainment lawyer, with plans to support herself through acting. Despite this, she was anticipated to pursue a career in entertainment and considered the idea after recording herself in the studio.

At age seven, Jackson and her sisters performed at the MGM Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. A biography revealed her father, Joseph, was emotionally withdrawn and told her to address him solely by his first name as a child. She began acting in the variety show The Jacksons in 1976.

In 1977, she was selected to have a starring role as Penny Gordon Woods in the sitcom Good Times. She later starred in A New Kind of Family and later got a recurring role on Diff'rent Strokes, portraying Charlene Duprey from seasons three to six. Jackson also played the role of Cleo Hewitt during the fourth season of Fame, but expressed indifference towards the series, largely due to the emotional stress of her secret marriage to R&B singer James DeBarge. Jackson later elaborated on her time on the show in an interview with Anderson Cooper, revealing that the cast would occasionally play pranks on her, but she spoke fondly of them.

When Jackson was fifteen, her father and manager Joseph Jackson arranged a contract for her with A&M Records. Her debut album, Janet Jackson, was released in 1982. It was produced by Angela Winbush, René Moore, Bobby Watson of Rufus and Leon Sylvers III, and overseen by her father Joseph. It peaked at No. 63 on the Billboard 200, and No. 6 on the publication's R&B albums chart, receiving little promotion. The album appeared on the Billboard Top Black Albums of 1983, while Jackson herself was the highest-ranking female vocalist on the Billboard Year-End Black Album Artists.

Jackson's second album, Dream Street, was released two years later. Dream Street reached No. 147 on the Billboard 200, and No. 19 on the R&B albums chart. The lead single "Don't Stand Another Chance" peaked at No. 9 on Billboard's R&B singles chart. Both albums consisted primarily of bubblegum pop music.

After her second album, Jackson terminated business affairs with her family, commenting "I just wanted to get out of the house, get out from under my father, which was one of the most difficult things that I had to do." Attempting a third album, Jackson teamed with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. They set out to achieve crossover pop appeal, while also creating a strong foundation within the urban market. Within six weeks, Jackson and the duo crafted her third studio album, Control, released in February 1986. The album shot to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and was certified fivefold Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), selling over ten million copies worldwide.

Control was declared "remarkably nervy and mature" for a teenage act, also considered "an alternative to the sentimental balladry" which permeated radio, likening Jackson to Donna Summer's position of "unwilling to accept novelty status and taking her own steps to rise above it." The album spawned five top five singles, "What Have You Done for Me Lately", "Nasty", "When I Think of You", "Control", and "Let's Wait Awhile", and a top 15 hit with "The Pleasure Principle". "When I Think of You" became her first No. 1 hit on the Hot 100. Control received six Billboard Awards, including "Top Pop Singles Artist", and three Grammy nominations, such as Album of the Year. It also won four American Music Awards from twelve nominations, an unbroken record.

At this point, Jackson was successfully "shaking off the experience of being a shadow Jackson child", becoming "an artist in her own right". The album's lyrical content included several themes of empowerment, inspired by an incident of sexual harassment, with Jackson recalling "the danger hit home when a couple of guys started stalking me on the street and instead of running to Jimmy or Terry for protection, I took a stand. I backed them down. That's how songs like 'Nasty' and 'What Have You Done for Me Lately' were born, out of a sense of self-defense."

Its innovative fusion of dance-pop and industrial music with hip-hop and R&B undertones influenced the development of the new jack swing genre by bridging the gap between the latter two styles. The accompanying music videos shot for the album's singles became popular on MTV, and obtained a then-unknown Paula Abdul a recording contract for her choreography work with Jackson. Billboard stated "[Jackson's] accessible sound and spectacularly choreographed videos were irresistible to MTV, and helped the channel evolve from rock programming to a broader, beat-driven musical mix."

In retrospect of her influence on the channel, Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly commented: "The videos from Control were all over MTV, and Janet established herself as an instantly dominant pop figure talked about in the same sentences as Madonna and her older brother Michael." MTV's Meaghan Garvey asserted "it's hard to overstate the significance of Control, whether in terms of the pop landscape, the evolution of the music video as a vessel for promotion and expression, or Top 40 feminist anthems." She also argued "it's important to note that Control's self-actualization anthems were expressions of black female pride. Control spawned a whopping six videos—great ones, at that—which played an immeasurable role in the shift toward visible black pop."