Janet Jackson

Janet Damita Jo Jackson is an American singer, songwriter, and actress who emerged from the famous Jackson family in 1982 and spent the first years of her career recording material written entirely by others. The dramatic turning point came in 1986 with the album Control, produced by Minneapolis duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, on which Jackson co-wrote every track and publicly declared her artistic independence from her family and management. From that album forward, she maintained an extraordinary level of creative authorship throughout one of the most commercially successful careers in pop and R&B history, selling over 180 million records worldwide. Her collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis is one of the defining creative partnerships in modern pop, a relationship in which Jackson typically develops the conceptual and lyrical ideas while Jam and Lewis construct the musical architecture. She has earned five Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe nomination, and numerous Billboard Music Awards across a career that has consistently combined social commentary with infectious dance-pop production.