True You (10 page)

D
uring my teen years, I spent a great deal of time in silence. The quick collapse of my impulsive marriage was nothing I wanted to talk about. I had neither an explanation nor apologies. I was young, and I was foolish, and I had made a bad decision. When I decided to get out of the marriage, I made a good decision, one
based on a concept of self-care. I certainly didn’t have a fully developed sense of self-worth, but I was slowly—very slowly—beginning to build such strength.

Even before I met James, I had begun dabbling in another area—artistic expression.

One day I wandered up to the recording studio that had been built in my family’s backyard. I just started messing around. I’d watched my brothers work there for years. I myself had written poems and short stories since I was eight. I wrote my first song when I was nine and called it “Fantasy.” But I never thought much about it. A few years later I began toying with the idea of writing music.

There was something about this rainy winter afternoon that had me fooling around at the keyboard. Joining words to music was new for me, but I liked it. I wasn’t self-conscious, because I didn’t take it that seriously. I was simply playing with thoughts and sounds in my head. I didn’t think the thoughts were profound; I didn’t think the music was great. I was merely expressing myself. The lyrics were all about my teenage-girl notions of loneliness and love.

I was able to work the mixing board well enough to lay down my music tracks and record my voice. And just as I didn’t take the lyrics and melody very seriously, neither did I have much regard for my singing. I just did it. And after hearing what I did, I didn’t even smile or feel especially fulfilled. The truth is that I didn’t think about it at all. It was a few hours spent in solitude in which I was able to voice some feelings.

A few days passed, and I forgot about the music I had made.
Then one day I came home from school and saw that the door to the recording studio was open. The song that I’d written and recorded was being played at full volume. My first reaction was embarrassment.

When I got to the studio, I saw that Randy and my father were there.

“I guess I forgot to erase the song,” I said.

“Why would you want to throw it away?” asked Randy.

“It isn’t anything,” I said.

“Who wrote the melody?”

“I did.”

“And you did the drum and piano part?”

“I tried,” I said.

“And the background vocals?”

“Are they out of tune?” I asked.

“No, they’re in tune. And what about the lyrics?”

“They’re kind of stupid, aren’t they?”

“They sound pretty good. What do you think, Joseph?”

“Janet,” said Joseph. “Did you really do this?”

“I guess so.”

“It’s not half bad,” Joseph declared.

“I don’t like it,” I said.

“You can sing. I believe you can become a singer,” he said.

“I don’t want to sing,” I said. “I want to act. I want to go to college and study business law.”

My plan was to support myself as an actress. I greatly admired theatrical artists like Cicely Tyson. I had practically memorized Tyson’s lines in
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
. I also
loved classic actresses like Joan Crawford and contemporary ones like Meryl Streep.

“Acting is okay,” said Joseph. “But you’ll never make the kind of money acting that you will singing. You have talent as a singer.”

“But singing isn’t really something I want to do.”

“Do you have any more tapes like this?” Joseph asked, ignoring my last comment.

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s a good start. And it gives me a lot of good ideas about where you should be going. It shows me something I haven’t seen before.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. But deep down I didn’t feel that it was wonderful. Joseph was taking an interest in a career for me—that part was okay. But the plain fact was that I was not being asked what
I
wanted to do. I wanted to complete junior high, then high school, then college. There was a world of learning I wanted to explore.

But before I could explain to Joseph why I wasn’t interested in a singing career, my father closed down the discussion. It was his way. And that was that.

A few weeks later Joseph returned with the news: he had secured me a contract at A&M Records. I was set to do an album. I was all of fourteen years old.

I didn’t want to do an album. I wasn’t ready to do an album.

“Teenage artists are always the rage,” said Joseph. “Frankie Lymon was. Michael was. And you’re next.”

But another part of me—a powerful part—didn’t want to proceed with the project. Unfortunately, that part stayed silent. I was
being a good little girl and doing what I was told. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining. It’s paid off well. I’m just telling you my reaction. And an essential part of the story is rooted in my inability to confront Joseph. Why, in fact, did I retreat so passively?

If I had felt better about myself, would I have spoken up and protested?

If I had not been afraid of Joseph, would I have resisted his plan?

If I had felt more secure in my body and in my soul, would I have found the strength to say “No, not now. I need to wait. I need to grow. I need to feel my way into the world and not be pushed”?

I’m still not sure.

A private moment.

T
he truth is that in my career, I
was
pushed. I went along with the pushing. I went along with the program. I went into the studio and, as a young teen, began to sing under the guidance of producers Leon Sylvers III, Angela Winbush, and René Moore. Singles were released. “Young Love” was a hit with young people. I was
about to fall in love, or what I thought was love, but my relationship was not as successful as the song.

I was still self-conscious about my image, my body. What would I look like on the album cover? How would I show my shape, which was still a source of uncertainty and, at times, of out-and-out shame?

I got the idea for a cover when I saw a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor taken early in her career. She was submerged in a swimming pool. You could see nothing but her face above the water; her body was hidden beneath the surface. I thought the pose was dramatic and I loved the fact that I could do the same thing and not have to reveal anything but my face. The record company hired the famous Hollywood photographer Harry Langdon, the sweetest man imaginable, to take the picture. He knew exactly what I wanted, but it was still a difficult shoot. With the photographer, his assistant, and other people around the pool, I was reluctant to take off my robe and stand there in my bathing suit. I was too shy to ask everyone to look the other way, so at a moment when everyone was distracted I quickly slipped into the pool.

We copied the original Elizabeth Taylor pose, and that was that. After Langdon was satisfied that he had gotten the right shot, I waited till everyone left before getting out of the pool. As a result, my first album cover as a solo artist would reveal nothing below my neck.

By today’s standards, the record, titled
Janet Jackson
, did well, selling more than three hundred thousand copies. But by the standards of 1982, the year of its release, it did not. It was seen as a failure. And it certainly did not bring me any closer to the fame that had been achieved by my brothers.

The same is true of
Dream Street
, the follow-up album. At that point I was still a teenager going with the flow. In my family, smash hits meant everything. It wasn’t enough to merely put out a good record. Joseph had taught us that anything less than number one meant failure. That lesson, though, hadn’t really sunk in yet. I wasn’t worried about reaching the top of the charts. I was just letting my father lead the way.

I knew that Joseph cared about success and that he cared about success for me. It took a while, but after
Dream Street
, at age eighteen, I also began to think about what it meant for me to care for myself. That was a different concept.

Slowly—very slowly—I was beginning to understand that if major success were to come, it would have to come on my terms, not my father’s. If my early albums did just okay, as opposed to great,
I
would have to figure out why. If I wanted my music to reflect more of me, I’d have to put more of myself into it.

I wasn’t afraid of falling short. I’ve always been pretty brave as a performer. I’ll go out there and do what I have to do. But falling short while following someone else’s agenda is frustrating and even infuriating. Falling short while following your own instincts is another matter. I could live with that. I could also see that, as I became more of an artist, my art needed to be self-reflective. I always had my own thoughts and ideas. But was I ready to put those things into songs or, better yet, into a concept album?

I thought so—but could I really step out and be myself? Could I be that brave, and that vulnerable?

My other fathers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

A
t nineteen, I felt the need to take control of my life. I moved to Minneapolis to make the album
Control
, and everything changed. It was a watershed moment; my life was never the same again. The move had to be made, but it took everything I had to find the courage to do so. Yet it was exciting as well. I had admired producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for a long time. We
had seen each other at different award shows and talked. I loved the music they were making and knew I wanted to work with them.

I was at an emotional dead end, however. Up until then, I’d depended on an authority that I recognized and respected. But I had also decided that the authority did not have the right answers. Remember, I had been an obedient child and was an obedient teen. So to figure out the next move on my own—and not on the basis of what others were saying—was scary.

I knew that I was leaving a big part of my childhood behind in moving to Minneapolis. I was losing the main connection to my father, which was about business, work, and career. Now I realized that to move forward, I had to start thinking for myself. I had to figure out where I was and where I wanted to go. I not only had to deal with feelings I had previously suppressed, but also had to put those feelings into lyrics and melodies. I wanted to write, not out of obligation, but out of passion. That meant identifying myself as my own person.