How two Minnesota producers helped launch Janet Jackson's career

HOST: Did you know that pop star Janet Jackson has had a special relationship with Minnesota? It's quite a story, too. Janet was in her late teens when she released an album that changed her career and lifted her out of the shadows of her famous brothers who made up the Jackson Five, including Michael Jackson.

Something you may not know is that she came to Minneapolis to make that album. And it was also a turning point for the two producers she worked with. MPR contributors Robbie Mitchem, Jamal Allen, and Britt Aamodt bring us this final story in our Minnesota Now and Then series this year.

REPORTER: Janet Jackson is in control.

[JANET JACKSON, "I.D."] 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

This wasn't Janet Jackson's first album. It was just the one that had the most riding on it. By 1985, she'd starred in two TV series.

["GOOD TIMES" THEME SONG] Good times. Any time you need a--

And "Fame."

["FAME" THEME SONG] Remember my name. Fame!

She'd released two albums.

[JANET JACKSON, "YOUNG LOVE"] Young love, ring around the roses.

She'd married and had the marriage annulled.

[JANET JACKSON, "LET'S WAIT AWHILE"] Let's wait awhile. Before it's too late, let's wait awhile.

And she'd done the hardest thing she'd ever had to do in her 19 years-- fire her dad as her manager.

MAN 1: What are you saying?

MAN 2: I'm saying you're fired.

REPORTER: Joe Jackson had built himself up from an Indiana steelworker to the manager of one of the most successful pop groups of the 1960s and '70s.

[THE JACKSON 5, "WHO'S LOVIN' YOU"] So one day, and that was Monday, I stepped up to her and I said, When I had you.

The members just happened to be his sons. Janet Jackson was his youngest of nine children. And yes, it was Joe who'd recognized her singing talent and gotten her the recording contract and given her a career in entertainment, a career that was already pigeonholing her as the sweet, bubble-gummy girl next door.

Her first two youth-oriented pop albums were described by the Rolling Stone's Album Guide as, quote, "bland dance music ready-mades." That wasn't Janet.

[JANET JACKSON, "MISS YOU MUCH"] That's the end? No.

But how do you tell the old man that his little girl has more dimensions than two? That she's complicated? And that sometimes she likes to get nasty?

[JANET JACKSON, "NASTY"] My first name ain't baby, it's Janet. Ms. Jackson, if you're nasty. Nasty!

Janet's solution was to find a new manager, someone not related to her, and to take a chance on a production duo out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

Two years ago, they had been touring with Prince in his opening act, The Time. That is, until they failed to catch a plane and missed a concert. Prince fired them.

But Terry liked to say he actually freed them. They missed the plane because they'd been in Atlanta producing an album for The SOS Band. They were already stepping out of their role as Prince's protégé band members.

Now that they'd been cut loose, they could blaze their own path. But since their parting, Prince had become a worldwide phenomenon with 1984's "Purple Rain."

[PRINCE, "PURPLE RAIN"]

And their old band, The Time, was riding high with a string of hit singles.

[MORRIS DAY AND THE TIME, "JUNGLE LOVE"] Think I want to know ya, know ya. Said I am dangerous.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were standing in a very big shadow, which, coincidentally, Janet Jackson knew something about.

[MICHAEL JACKSON, "BILLIE JEAN"]

Her brother was Michael Jackson, after all, a member of the Jackson 5 whose fame had gone supernova after the release of his solo album, Thriller.

So did the music world really care about the matchup between two lesser known Minneapolis producers and the youngest sister of someone who was way more famous than she was? Did it matter?

The summer of 1985, Janet Jackson hunkered down in Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis's old studio on 43rd and Nicollet, right here in--

[JANET JACKSON, "ESCAPADE"] Minneapolis!

Janet talked to Terry about what was going on in her life, how she'd wanted to break out of the cage that she felt she was trapped in, how she wanted control over her own life.

JANET JACKSON: Well before, there would be someone making the decisions for me, never me. And this time, I'm making my own decisions.

REPORTER: Out of those conversations came the lyrics that Jimmy, the music master, paired with beats, melodies, and eventually a catalog of completed tunes.

Six weeks later, they had nine songs in the can and a feeling that they'd created something magical. But would anybody else notice? The album came out January of 1986. The initial reaction from critics?

CRITIC: Michael Jackson's sister has some new tunes. Prince's former sidemen are the producers. Heh, heh. Big whoop.

REPORTER: But then, they hit play.

[JANET JACKSON, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?"] Get with it.

Control was not only one of the biggest selling albums of the year, but it was a career-defining moment for Janet Jackson, who became a respected artist in her own right and on her own terms.

[JANET JACKSON, "CONTROL"] 'Cause it's all about control. And I've got lots of it.

Her dad, Joe, still wasn't convinced that she'd made the right choice. But a decade later, she would sign the largest recording contract in history to that date until surpassed by her brother Michael. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis did all right, too, earning a reputation as hitmakers, and by 2022, a legendary writer/producer team when they joined their old friend, Janet Jackson, in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Janet Jackson took control of her career, right here in Minneapolis, where the world witnessed the birth of a new superstar. Enough said. Eight.

[JANET JACKSON, "CONTROL"] And let my mother mold me.

HOST: That story was produced by MPR contributors Robbie Mitchem and Jamal Allen, and written by Britt Aamodt. It was made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.