The success of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 cannot be understated. The 1989 album topped the charts, shattered records and certified Janet Jackson as a pop culture icon. For that landmark album, Janet, 53, reunited with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the producers that helped shape her breakthrough album, Control. The results were historic, as Rhythm Nation remains the only album to have seven commercial singles peak within the top five of the Billboard Hot 100. Thirty years after Rhythm Nation, HollywoodLife caught up with Jimmy Jam at the City Of Hope’s 15th Annual Songs Of Hope event, and he shared with us EXCLUSIVELY that Janet has a new song coming out.
HollywoodLife: Are you looking forward to seeing Snoop Dogg here tonight?
Jimmy Jam: “I am definitely planning to hit up Snoop Dogg. I’ve been trying to reach him for a little while and haven’t been able to connect with him, so I’m going to grab him tonight, for sure. We’re doing a Jam and Lewis album, which is something we have never done.”
“We started doing the album about 35 years ago or so, and the story goes that we had created some tracks for our album when we were working on the Control album with Janet Jackson. She heard one of the tracks and took it for her album, and it ended up becoming ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately.’ So it really started her career and ended ours, as far as our album goes, but it worked out really well. So now, 35 years later we decided that we are doing the album. One of the songs we have is a song with Morris Day and Jerome from Morris Day and The Time, and we would love to put Snoop Dog on that song.”
What about Janet Jackson is she on a song?
“Our song with her, at least her part of it is done. We’re going to add a few things to it, but she is on the album, and she has a beautiful song on there.”
Congrats on the 30th anniversary of Rhythm Nation. Did you talk to Janet about it?
“It’s the 30th anniversary of rhythm nation it actually came out today so thank you! I did talk to Janet. We’ve been texting each other back-and-forth. She’s actually going to be in the US and is going to do a date in San Francisco over the weekend. So she invited us to come down there and see her we might go do that we might.”
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This forthcoming song on the Jam & Lewis record will be Janet’s first new song since 2018’s “Made For Now,” her collaboration with Daddy Yankee. Janet’s last studio album was 2015’s Unbreakable, another partnership with Jam and Lewis. While that album didn’t reach the same heights of success as Rhythm Nation, it still topped the U.S. Billboard charts. Since Unbreakable’s release, Janet has been busy. She’s given birth to her son, Eissa Al Mana, 2, been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and conducted her highly-successful Janet Jackson: Metamorphosis residency in Las Vegas.