One Song - Janet Jackson's 'Control' album (w. special guest Jimmy Jam) - Pt. 2

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Diallo and LUXXURY continue their conversation with legendary producer Jimmy Jam in part two of this special double episode of One Song. They break down the making of Janet Jackson’s classic album ���Control” with deep dives into the writing and production of Miss Jackson’s classic songs: “Nasty” “Control” and “When I Think of You." This is the second episode of a two-part special with Jimmy Jam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't miss the Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters. Merrill Street, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are back. In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. I did not hire you, and all I need to do is find my time until you fail. On May 1st, I'm going to make something of this job. Rain. Be the bridges I burn. Night my way.

Forever. I just love my job. Get tickets now. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. All right. Well, we're going to get back on to the... subject of the album Control.

And this was the fourth single. Don't you miss when albums had so many singles? There were seven singles from this

album ultimately. Isn't that insane? I love them when you read a track list. You're like, these were all singles. This was the fourth single came out on

October 17th, 1986. It's actually track number one on the album. Right. And I believe you've got some parts to play.

You know what I've got right here? I've got the stems. Yes. So let's listen to them. So the beats on control. I wanted to ask you a little bit about,

we were talking about Minneapolis, the Minneapolis sound. Something was happening in that moment in music. And with, I guess, funk and electronic funk or boogie maybe is a better way to put it with the bass lines and everything. But drum machines, there was almost a separation and what the kick and snare were doing and what the hi-hats were doing. It almost sounded like two different performances because you'd have these crazy like 30-second note, like, it's almost like

what drill or trap would be now with the hi-hats. So I'm going to play the beat. And another thing about this song, which is unique about on the album, is that 13 of the 24 tracks are percussion and rhythm and drums. So a lot going on here rhythmically. I really want to get into that with you. But let's listen first, and we'll build it starting from the ground up.

I love that clap by itself. So satisfying. That's the, you know, the yeah, that giant river. That became L.A. in Babyface's trademark. I can see that, yeah. Yeah, they did. I remember asking them about that, and they said, oh, yeah, we got

that from control. Yeah, we got that from you. Yeah. We got that from this. Yep. Exactly, yeah. Well, we're going to build now. We got another layer going on top of that.

Is that Calbell? Cowbell. I'll play it by itself because it's fun to hear that, the high step there. A pambrian in there, too. Snap. Yep. And then last we have. It's so funky.

But it's 13 things. Mm-hmm. And then we have bongos, percussion, some more tombs. The ping and zing track, as we call it. Okay. I'm going to build it back. So I feel like you had a lot of fun building this track.

Is this a Lindrum situation? Lindrum situation. Okay. And talk about the day you made the beat, or if you could remember, like, kind of what was going through your mind as you were making this? Well, the funny thing is we still have the drum machine that all that stuff was done on.

I mean, we still have everything that all this stuff was done on. And I looked at that machine the other day, yesterday, as a matter of fact, and it looks like a different machine to me than it looked you know almost 40 years ago like it's a it's a it's a different thing because a lot of it was i don't know there's ignorance but i didn't know necessarily what i was doing on it i just knew as being a drummer there were just certain things that i just wanted to try to get out of it and the changes and the different like little combinations of things i don't know i just felt like you could

build a song from a beat which wasn't necessarily always the way i mean a lot of songs start off with chords and that, and then you put a beat on it. This was a case of actually doing the beat first and then figuring out musically what it should be. So it was just kind of a different way of working, and that to me was what drum machines allowed, those tools allowed us to do. You might have just answered my next question, because I was going to ask you about there's a very famous drum break in this song, which is Crazy Town.

As a drummer myself, I still have to go back and replay it to count, like, I get lost. I'm going to play it for you. This happens. The weird break is at 4.58. I'll play it in the actual song so you can hear it in context because otherwise your brain's going to get real messed up. So this is control. The weird drum break.

Yeah, I mean, like, I'm a drummer. Even I got lost. I was like, oh, where's it coming back? And that is so good call. What the hell is that, dude? You build this from the ground up and you're like, yeah, we're keeping that. We're going to build on top. And everyone's going to know what's going on.

You're not, what the hell? I love it. Was that so that the club would actually just stop and be like, what's going on? No, it was that we always wanted to have drama and emotion and dynamics. We just always wanted those elements in songs. So we weren't purposely trying to do something off, but it literally was, you know, if you counted, it still lines up. But it was just, I don't know, it was just, kattan, boom, khan, do, do. So you performed that?

There was a beat. Something was programmed. And on top of it, you kind of added. Yeah. Some of it, yeah, some of it. That actually, no, that actually ended up being programmed like that. I performed it, but I recorded the performance of it, if that makes sense. And so as the song would go, all I would do is just switch sequences, if that makes sense.

Like different patterns. Different patterns. I would just switch patterns. And that was the other thing. A lot of times I didn't know I would try to kind of count, like to be on an even number of measures or whatever, but a lot of times I wouldn't know. So that's why sometimes changes would happen, you know, on an odd thing or whatever. It's one of the best parts of the song.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of that kind of thing. And then I remember even on the courses of the song, on the control, there's a snare drum that happens on the two and the four. That was never programmed in there like that. So I'm playing those live. So they're kind of, they're a little off. They're a little glitchy. But we always wanted to do that.

And then I mentioned Pings and Zings. We always put, like I hear the Viberslap in there, and you know, you hear like the and you hear like stuff like that. We always did live percussion, even with the drum machine stuff, to keep it, you know, a human element to it and also live symbols too. The bass line for this is one of my favorite bass lines on the album and bass sounds, I should say. Yeah. Because it is so nasty.

Mirage. This is the Mirage bass. I couldn't help with my face. I feel like you got to get the ugly face. I feel like Seinfeld hurt that and he was like, I need that. Give me that track. It's very, bing, bing, bering. Give it a track.

And in the mix, you know, this is like a high point of American culture right here is this snippet right there. I love that part. Thank you. Vocals. I mean, like, should we hear the bridge? We haven't heard. You guys are masters when it comes to a bridge. Yeah, got my own life.

I'm going to make my own decisions. I mean, you can hear me sing that, but why don't we hear Janet sing the bridge? Got my own mind. I want to make my own decisions. It has to do with my life. I want to be the one in control. So that's you going, did it? Yeah.

The other thing I'd notice, too, in all the vocals, you hear, you know, the headphones are so loud. Yeah, the headphone bleed. Yeah, she loved the headphones like super loud. We'd always be fighting that. We'd always be fighting that on the mixes. Earlier on the show, you were talking about that first conversation or that first week when you were driving around, and Janet's like, when do we start?

And you said, we've already begun. I wanted to play that first line that you guys wrote for her. Yes. And here it is. Got it. When I was 17, I did what people told me. I did what my father said And let my mother mold me

I mean that just sums up the entire album So it makes so much sense that you hooking her with that being like That's where she And they just came from conversations Just from conversations Yeah it was just conversations We just at the end of the day We'd just go to the studio and just kind of write

And that's where Terry would just kind of start writing stuff down Like remember when she said this? Remember when she said this? And start writing stuff down So yeah that's where that came Did that also lead to him having? titles with lyrics or just sort of ideas that, like word clouds that kind of went together for like this story, this story, this story. Definitely.

Was the title thing, a separate process like after maybe a lyrical idea was developed? It was a little of both, I think. There would be certain words that she would say or certain phrases she would say that we just would pick up on. Sometimes they would be titles. I mean, we just write them down a lot of times as titles. And then sometimes it became part of a lyric, not necessarily a title. But yeah, it's just kind of as you get to know.

people, there's different patterns of speaking that they have, certain words that they like to say. And we also talked a lot about just certain songs that she really liked. She was a huge Slye and the Family Stone fan. And we talked about, you know, kind of the marriage of, you know, funky tracks, though, but with very melodic, you know, changes and that kind of stuff. So we just kind of, it just was kind of a get-to-know-you type of thing. You know, I'm going to ask you about, since you mentioned Sly, is that where the Rhythm Nation, is that where that sample was, Is it her idea to start with that, to use that sample on Rhythm Nation? No.

Rhythm Nation came because there was the concept for Rhythm Nation. We had no clue what the track was. I was eating at a place called Filio. It was an Italian restaurant in Uptown, Minneapolis. And you know how there's always music playing in the background and stuff. And I never really... And thank you from Sly was one of my favorite songs that one, right? And I remember the song came on, and I remember just kind of acknowledging,

Oh, I love fly, blah, blah, blah. But then I get back into conversation. For some reason, all of a sudden, when the break happened on that, ding-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-d-j-d- I literally was like, check, check, please. You just heard that loop as being... I heard that instantly. I just was like, I got to get back to...

They were like, where are you going? I said, I got to get back to the studio. And I took that loop. I put it in an AMS that had like maybe six seconds of sampling in it. I just put that loop in it, and I just triggered it but actually the kick drum from the Lynn. I just did it. And I remember Janet walking into the studio,

and when I played it, she just kind of got, she got the look on, the ugly look, the ugly face look, right? She got that look on her face. That beat-type face. And she, right? And she looked at me and she said,

is this Rhythm Nation? I said, I think so. Yeah. And I put the rest of the stuff on it. And that's how it became Rhythm Nation. That's what it was. It was literally totally subconscious just hearing that. I love that story.

And the reason why I wanted to ask you that, so it's perfect that it came up naturally is that I'm just interested in how from control to rhythm nation, the evolution of sampling of your process go from using that sort of like industrial sounds that are sampled, but they're really on the floppy disk of the machine to like, clearly your brain had already and this happened to me personally. When I started making music, I would start to hear stuff in the world and I'd be like, oh, there's a drum break I can use. Like you just hear music differently once you start to use sample. So that story I recognized that you had obviously got to

down down that road as well. You had begun to think we can use samples in our music. Was there like a song or a moment where that change happened for you? Where you're like, okay, this is part of what we do now. That's a great question. Well, on that album, I mean, besides, on that Rhythm Nation album, obviously Rhythm Nation, but also All Right, which was the... Love All Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So All Right was the sample from Think, Lynn Collins. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. that I think. Yeah, that's what that's from. Yeah, a lot of good samples from.

Yeah. But when they come out, when they come out of that break, it just goes after the tambourine, which everybody uses, right, the infamous James Brown tambourine, where it goes, and the woo! Yeah. Yeah, right?

It comes out of that break, and when it comes out of the break, when the band comes back in, it goes, boom, and d-boom, all right. And that was the loop. There you go. That's it.

Your ear just picked that up and they're like, we can use that. Totally. And I started listening to songs as loops, though. That was the other thing, is once sampling started happening, I literally would listen to songs and just listen to the loop and just hear the loop. That's a special skill because we talked a little bit about sampling before and how you surprised somebody when your answer to their question, what do you think about sampling was?

I think that's great. Because that type of ear, that's why a band like, say, you know, daft punk or big daft punk fans, part of the special skill of being someone who uses samples is being able to able to hear a small part that can be foundational to a new piece of music that can be transformed. And it's not like taking no shade to vanilla ice. But, you know, sometimes if you take like a two-bar loop, it's a little bit, it can feel a little lazy or a four-bar loop or whatever it is, like a very long piece of lunchbox.

Exactly what my son always says. He calls stuff lazy. We just had that conversation last night about, he said, that's so lazy as opposed to like Jay Dilla or somebody who's really, right? And I said, no, to me it's. Not everybody can do it, though. Oh, he thinks all sampling is lazy? He thinks that kind of sampling is lazy.

Yeah, he's just in the broader sense, but not an animal. But finding that part of the song, which is not the beginning, because so many samples are like the beginning of the song, because it's easier. That's the obvious. Finding a very unusual section that isn't maybe where a lot of bass content or, like, rhythmic content, that to me takes a special kind of. I can't agree more.

I always say that Pete Rock sampling, I love music by Ahmad Jamal, is one of my favorite samples of all time. It's a tiny section of the song, and he made it into the world as yours by Nause. We only have so much time, unfortunately, when we do this show. So we aren't going to do any deep dive on the stems of pleasure principle. Let's Wait a While, which is like such a fantastic, epic, iconic slow jam. Funny how time flies, which was, you know, I love that song,

but then it's also got a second part in my brain from when the Lost Boy sampled it for, I think it was the song was Renee, which is a great, great hip-hop track for the 90s. But we are going to dive into this final song. And we have to talk about this one because it was your first number one Hot 100 single. And that's huge.

I mean, like, luxury. And it was Janet's first number one too. It was Janet's first number one. It's Jimmy and Terry's first number, first of 16 number one singles. I lied when I said we weren't going to talk about your 16. because you have had 16 number one singles, my friend. That's hilarious. It's when I think of you.

And luxury, what you got for us on when I think of you? Quick question. I read somewhere where this song was inspired by Casey and the Sunshine Band. Is that true? That's very true. That's very true. I'm a huge Casey and the Sunshine band fan. I think their rhythm section was probably one of the greatest rhythm sections.

And actually is the I would call it the foundation of New Jack Swing. Wow, I can almost do it. Well, I actually interviewed Teddy Riley for my show, and I asked him that. I said, that was my theory. And he said, why do you think that? And I said, so the song I get lifted.

Yes, which is a cover. George McCray. Yeah, George McCray did it first. But Casey and the Sunshine Band produced it and wrote it. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. So when you hear, on all of Teddy Ray,

Riley's stuff, right? Right? I said, so my thing is, I think that was the foundation. And he laughed and he said, okay, you know what's even crazier? He said, what was my first big hit? And I said, I want her. I want her. Right?

The baseline. Boom, boom. No way. That's the way I like it. Casey and the Sunshine Band. That is not an accident. Wow. Those songs go hit every now and then I never noticed that.

Oh, man. Casey in the Sunshine Band, I'm telling you. I just dollar been bought that George McCray record, like literally a couple months ago. Yeah, like so good. It's so good. But yeah, Casey and Rick Finch is his partner, writing partner, the production partner, amazing.

And the guitar player, I can't remember his name. I can't remember his name. But the guitar player on that, the secret of those records to me was the guitar player. Because if the drum beat and the bass lines were the simplest bass lines, you could ever, right, it was very cool in the gang, is what it was. Yeah.

It was just the simplest bass lines. But listen to, I like to do it. Listen to, I'm trying to think. Oh, the beginning of I'm your boogeyman before the song actually kicks in. Listen to the guitar riff. Oh, man, I can't wait to hear it. Maybe we can play a little snippet of that. Oh, my God.

For the listeners right now. It's like crazy. And it's got a little bit of that swing to it? It's totally got, it's this thing. So my thing on when I think of you was that same kind of thing. feel because simple bass line boom boom boom boom boom doom do and everybody always said tighten up and I said

no it's not tighten up that wasn't the because I love tighten up Archie Bell in the Drill I love that song but that wasn't the thing it was literally Casey in the Sunshine Band it was that kind of feel that those records gave it was just very kind of a floating sunshine

yeah sunshine happy but to the New Jack Swing feel specifically there's a little bit of a pause before like a little bit of a ding ding to ding It's not quite jazz, but that's what that is. It's not straight eighths, right? Just a little bit of a swing to it. Yeah, a little bit of that, for sure.

And I asked Teddy, was he influenced it all by Nasty? Because to me, Nasty was the first New Jack Swing song, just in my opinion. Not necessarily New Jack Swing song, but the first one to kind of have that kind of upbeat thing. You'll be glad to know there's a musicologist on Wikipedia who agrees with you. Yeah, okay. You always want to have the musicologist,

Yeah, when the musicologist signs in. That's not for the Grammys. It's for the nerds. But no, but he said he wasn't, he said that didn't really, but I remember being, sorry to go off. I remember being with Babyface and L.A. at this club called Carlos and Charlies. And I won her came on. And I remember, I said, ooh, what is this? Because the little glint reminded me of nasty, right?

And I think L.A. said, oh, it's Key Sweat. And I said, oh, yeah, Key Sweat. I said, oh, yeah. Keith Smith, the stockbroker? Yeah. I said, this is cool. This is cool. And then Babyface said, no, the dude that did the record, Teddy Riley.

You got to check him out. And I said, oh, Teddy Riley. And that was, so Babyface was the first one that said the name Teddy Riley to me. And I've been a fan ever since. Let's hear some sense from the song that the Jackson themselves knew would be the biggest kid. They knew it. You played the song, you played the whole album. I played the whole album for him.

all said, what's that one song? And I'm like going, nasty? No. What have you done for me lately? No. Pleasure principle? No. I said, what song are you talking about? The song with the piano in it. I said, oh, when I think of you, that's going to be number one. And they were right. And they were right. Let's hear some of that piano. Marage piano. Marage. I'll add some stuff in gradually. Marage horns. Play this part till the end. So those Mirage horns, those are samples obviously, right? Those hits, those horn hits are samples.

Sampled the floppy disc, mirage. Yep. Literally the piano sound, the horn hits. The little marimba sound is DX7. DX7. And the bass line is DX7. And then there's also some guitar. There's Terry plays guitar on this one.

Terry plays guitar on it because we couldn't, we didn't have a guitar play. We couldn't find a guitar player and we needed to finish the song. You're still looking for the female guitar player, front sounds like. Yeah, right, exactly. But I don't think this entire part that is in the stem is what you use. I think some parts are muted, right? So when I play this, yeah. I mean, that's very...

Here's the remix, the live remix on the fly. And if you really want those 808s, but that didn't exist, those 808s you were saying. No, we put that in, we did that for the single. So when on the single, we wanted to spice it up a little bit because radio had already played... Well, the radio had already played it a ton, and at that point, you know, we were just like,

let's put it. And then we did a different intro, We started with the 808 on the remix, started with the 808, and then we had this little bell line that went, boom, boom, bum, bum, bum. Yeah. Remember that? So that's what we did,

just to have something a little special, you know, for radio to play, so it didn't burn out. It wouldn't be a conversation about control if we didn't hear a little bit more of Janet's vocals. Let's hear some Janet on when I think of you. Baby,

anytime my world gets crazy, all I have to do. To calm it Is just think of you Such a great Like delivery too She seems so confident I also love this big harmony stack

That you know I love to build harmony stack So let's do that now When I think of you So in love Is that you in there? That sounds like It sounds more like Terry maybe Maybe

Ooh So in love Ooh So in love ooh So in So I love, so in love with you, so in love break. And then this part, you got to listen to this part. What's going on here?

We're all just standing around the mic, I think. Is this like fat boys? Like, are you beatbox? Right. But here's the best part coming up. Okay, I got a question. We're going to talk about the blap. And you know we're going to talk about the blab.

What's the blab? Something happened because all of a sudden we hear this. What's going on here? That's the laugh I was thinking about, though, but I was talking about you hear laughter on her. Totally. I'll play the whole thing through. I don't know.

Did somebody just like go boo or something? It seems like a very genuine like blap. I don't remember. I honestly don't remember. It's cool. I know the laughing is in the mix. Oh, yeah. The blaps in the mix.

Yes. Oh, yeah. It's totally. there. Totally there, but I can't remember what it was. And this is her doing it, right? Or is that somebody else? Like kind of sneaking up to the microphone and going clap.

We don't know. Wow. Yeah, that one's going to, we're going to have to come back for another episode. We need Robert to figure that out. Jeez. Wow. I'm going to talk to her today, so I'm going to ask her. You're going to ask Janet today?

I remember. I'm asked Terry, too. Okay. We tell them hello from us. Yes, please say hi. Will. Hi, guys. Absolutely well.

Just be like, hey, these two nerds are I know. Don't know their names. I have one more question, and this could be a mystery, but this is an un, you know, some of these stems say, you know, Jimmy did this. Terry. Who is this low male vocal? Is this you or is this Terry? Because when I think of you. Terry.

That's Terry. Absolutely. Mr. Background, we used to call it. Nothing else seems to matter. Yes. Because when I think of you, baby. So beautiful.

All I do. think about is a remix of this. This would be so with his vocals up here and her supporting. Like that's kind of a different song. And it makes me think like you should, you know, totally, yeah, definitely a totally different song. So fun. This song is so fun.

Terry's got, Terry's, I always called him Mr. Background because he could blend with anybody. Like a lot of the, like I'll tell you, the background vocals on human, humanly. On humanly? That's him. Ooh, human. That's Terry.

Yeah. He just had a very... And apparently it's not any of the girls from... It's not the other girls. Who's that other girl on the train? I love that. Do you want to just quickly tell that story? It's such a satisfying story.

Oh, no. When we were doing Human, Terry worked with Phil Oakey, the lead singer, for like six days to get that vocal. Like, he really worked hard to get the lead vocal. And so when we did the backgrounds, we used Terry, a combination of Terry and Lisa Keith, who in Lisa Keith was like our secret weapon background singer for everything. and when they heard the song, the girl said, who's that other girl on the track? And we said, that's Lisa Keyes.

She's a background singer. I don't think we like that other girl on the track. So the next day, Phil, and Phil was seeing, I think it was Joanne. Joanne, yeah, I think. So anyway, the next day he comes back to the studio, he walks in the room and he goes, I just have to say, I don't like that,

we don't like that other girl on the track. And we looked at him like, huh? I just have to say, we don't like that other girl on the track. Is he kind of winking? He's not actually winking, but he's just kind of standing there very stiffly like delivering a line. And after about the third time he said it, we said, oh, you just have to sing. We don't like the girl on the track. And he said, yes, I just have to say.

We said, we get it. We get it. We get it. Okay, cool. And we called A&M and we just said, hey, we're taking the song off the record. And they said, what are you talking about? It's a single. We said, no, either we finish it the way we want to finish it or we're just going to take it off.

That's crazy because you have the first number one single in your lives, and then five weeks later with the Janet, with when I think of you, and five weeks later, Human by the Human League is your second number one single. And then we're not going to talk about how you have 14 more number one singles after that. Okay. I got to ask you, because you've said a couple of times about Prince, you know, the firing. To me, the most interesting part of that story is that apparently he called Terry and offered him the chance to come back, you know, but you couldn't come back.

And that's, that hits home for me because I'm part of a writing team. And Bashir Saladin and I have done a lot of TV together. And we've worked together for 15 years. You know, I come to this podcast as a guy who's primarily known as a comedy writer and actor, as opposed to luxury, who's a music performer. I say all that just to say, there have definitely been times that we've worked with people who got along more with one of us than the other. Yeah.

You know, and there was definitely one time, and I can't say his name because he's still super duper famous. He's, I don't even know if I want to say if he's in the music field or in the comedy field, but, you know, to this day, we sort of laughed because we're like, that dude really tried to break up the team. Like, you know, he tried to sort of play favorites and sort of be like, hey, you know, you're the funny one. You know, like, it's the same way, like, I feel weird sometimes even ask you, oh, was that you or was that Terry? Right. Because ultimately it came out of the same kitchen. Like I love how gracious you are to Terry, and I feel like Terry's got to be gracious to you. I think that's the only way of team works, because if you're at all open to the idea of somebody coming in and saying, you're the special one, it can be broken up 18 ways.

Sure. There have been people who preferred me over Bashir. There have been people who preferred Bashir over me. And most people that we really get along with sort of understand there's sort of an unseen cooking and recipe that's going on. And that's exactly what it is. I mean, there's people that you could ask different artists. You could ask Janet, and you could say to Janet, who does what? And she could go, well, you know, Jimmy does most of the stuff.

Terry's around, but he does some of the lyrics, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you could ask Usher, and Usher would go, I never see Jimmy. I know he's, I know he's around, but, you know, like literally we each have our own relationships with people. And at the end of the day, it was interesting watching the Beatles documentary because I always just assumed linen and McCartney were joined at the hip and everything they did was together. But there's songs that were 100% linens

and songs that were 100% McCartney. At the end of the day, it was linen and McCartney. That's the way Jammin' Lewis are. There's songs that are 100% mine. There's songs that are 100% Terry's, but we have a 50-50 handshake agreement that we did back in 1982. Which is so powerful.

And we just, that's what it is. So even if I've never heard, There's songs that I literally would come out I'd hear them on the radio and I go, Terry, when'd you do that? And he'd go, oh, I did that last week, you know, or whatever. And I'd be like, but I got 50% of it. So it takes away all of the things

that you would ever nitpick about creatively. Like, that's my chorus. Well, that's my verse. Well, that was my title. Well, that's my melody. You can't, no, because then you're trying to nickel and dime and that's not what it is. And I'd even ask, and this is a question,

because I feel like, you know, Luxury and I have a partnership. Bashir and I have a partnership. Every partnership is a little bit different. Did you guys fight like brothers? Were you guys ever like at a total impasse where one of us like, hey, look, this is more my project than yours. I got to make sure it's this.

Or was it always, it was never contentious. Never contentious. In 40-something years. No, never contentioned. Well, 50 years now. 50 years this year. Wow. June 17th, 1973.

Happy birthday. That's the day we met. Happy birthday. Thank you. So we, no, we've never, I make the distinction. It's a subtle distinction. The moment you've been waiting for is here. GMC's truck month is on.

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I think I said at the Rock Hall. We've never had an argument because an argument is something you're trying to win. And I never want to win at something that my partner is losing. Because if I win an argument against him, that means he lost an argument.

So that's not right. We do have disagreements. A disagreement is something you're trying to solve. And that's the way we put it. So it's like the best way should win, not whether it's my way or your way. What's the best way?

And that's the way we look at it. So we have disagreements, but never arguments. And as far as we naturally gravitate, Terry in a lot of ways on Janet stepped away from it because he knew we would be working on something and then they got it. And he's got other things to do. So he would step away from that and allow that to happen.

And then when we would need him for something, like, you know, we need a lyric idea for whatever. And Terry would be like, oh, I got it and just like do it, you know, like have it. So that was the way we always work together. And then like I say another strengths and like needing to be a part of everything. And same even with Usher. It was funny. Usher. I remember there was a song with Usher that Usher was like, Terry, I need Jam to write me this song that's like blah, blah, blah.

And Terry was like, yeah, you got it. I'll tell him whatever. And I did, and I came up with the song, and Usher loved it. He was like, oh, my God, this is great. And it's like, well, yeah, all you have to do is ask. I mean, I'm here. I mean, it's not like I'm not here.

But yeah, there's certain people you would ask and you go, oh, Jimmy does everything. I don't know what Terry does. And people would go, Terry does everything. I don't know what Jimmy does. I never see him. I can't express enough. It's obviously we are not at your level,

but when Bashir and I work, like, there's times when I'm in one writer's room and he's in another writer's room. And we'll literally confer at the end of the night or like, you know, maybe on set, maybe in the editing. Yes. After it's all done. Like, you know what I'm saying?

They're like, was that the best take that we got for the? Okay, so why don't we just change the storyline in the scene? Like, there's all kinds of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that people don't ever see it. Yeah. So I want to ask one more question before we move on about the prince firing. This is my own controversial take. Okay. This is my controversial take.

Controversial take. And I say it as a Prince fan. I say it as a Prince fan. I feel like Prince was driving. the culture, you know, throughout the 80s in just a real way. And I feel like after probably diamonds and pearls, there's a period where he's not driving the culture. And hip hop has come on and hip hop is sort of the dominant driving, like driving the culture. And I don't know at what point. Did you ever work with Prince again after the fire? Like, did you guys work on any of the later

stuff? Well, yeah, we never worked directly with him, although when we did the pandemonium album, we basically took tracks that were started back in the Prince days of the 80, like the late 80s, early 80s, yes, and we'd worked on this. This goes to my point, and this is my contract. I'm not asking you to sign off on it at all, but I'm always like, how could Prince have stayed more in the center of the culture? Because you guys stay in the center of the culture, literally from the SOS band, you know, into the 2000s. like you guys are at the center of the culture in ways that quite frankly again i say this is prince fan he was not i my hot take is that if he had not fired you had had had sort of let you guys grow and then circled back to you and been like you know jimmy terry let's get in the studio you know

like i think he would have stayed more on the scene i think you know like i think you know like i went to a prince concert in 1998 like you know it it wasn't it wasn't the hot take it in town by that point. Sure. And I just feel like he could have, he could have used y'all, you know, in some of those, you know, in the 90s and in the, in the 2000. I think, you know. You don't have to, you don't have to. No, but there's, well, there's so, there's so many things there.

The one, I will say this. Terry always used to tease Prince all the time. And he used to say that, um, he always used to tell Prince, produce a record that doesn't sound like you. Prince was so kind of singular in what he did that it was hard to get out of what he did and he was so good at it if that makes sense. So I think that was part of it. He was masterful at it.

But I think about the bad dance album. I'm like, I love the bad dance album. If Jimmy and Terry had been on the bad dance album, it would be up there with Purple Rain. That's my own personal. I love those songs, but I just feel like there is something that's missing and it's almost like he's trying to, at that point, chase your sound a little bit?

I don't know. I'm not trying to cause any ruckus, you guys. No, there's no ruckus. And at one point, you know, at one point we did, unfortunately he passed, but he came to us and he said, if you produced an album on me, what would you do? And we said, well, we'd go back, we'd go in the vault, and we'd grab all that stuff from the 80s, from the early 80s that's sitting around, and we'd start there, and then we'd make a record.

And he was like, great, let's do that. So he wanted us to produce it. So he did come back around to that, which was great. And our relationship at the end with him was wonderful. Yeah, it was wonderful. And but, yes, he was very... That's the movie that Hollywood honestly needs to make. I don't know how...

I think you can make it. It's not like, you know, there's certain stories that Hollywood wants to make, but there might be bullets flying on set if you really tell the truth. I don't think that's the case with flight time and Prince and the revolution. and everybody else from Minneapolis. I would love to see that story be told. Some of the people, I will say, there was definitely,

because we music directed the print special that the Grammys did, like three years ago. Yes, I remember, yeah. And there was a lot of PTSD with a lot of the people that had stuck around and had a lot of bitterness and a lot of stuff. I mean, we got out unscathed

because he basically pushed us out the nest and told us to fly. Terry always called it freed. He said he didn't fire us. He freed us. That's what he said. But he was very much, Prince held on very closely to the people who he really wanted to be there.

And I think it was probably a little codependency because I think he felt like these people need to be with me to excel. And I need them with me to excel. He didn't feel that about us. But Prince's fatal flaw seems to be his need for control, like getting back to this album. Like that word seems to define everything.

All the stories are about he needs to be controlling every detail including what you're doing. you do and what you don't do and when you do it when you don't do it. Absolutely. But he's good at doing it. But sometimes you have to let people, you have to let people go.

You have to let people. I always said, it was funny because somebody asked about Motown, or people always mention Motown. They go, there'll never be another Motown. And I said, I agree. There will never be another Motown. But I think the closest thing that could have maybe happened would have been if we would have done what we did

under Prince's. At Paisley Park. At Paisley Park. If he had been a different kind of leader. If he would have just said, whatever you guys want to do, you can do it, just do it under this.

And so now everything that we do is Paisley Park. So now Janet and New Edition and Mary J. Bligeon, everything that we do now is all in the Paisley. Absolutely. That would have been amazing. And we would have loved that. And the Prince Records like you mentioned would have been, I think, a lot cooler.

Unfortunately, we are coming to the end of the episode. And there are a few more things that we'd love to ask you about control, but I think what we're going to do is we're going to basically say, I think if you can, share with us how you feel like this album in particular did change your life. Wow. It was a total life changer

certainly because of the success after the fact, but also because it was a proof and concept of a whole lot of things. One was moving to Minneapolis to do our studio up there, rather than staying in L.A. Yeah. The concept of working to getting to know

what the artist wanted to say rather than just giving preconceived notions to them. So I think that was part of it to us as engineers at this point because we basically engineered that record. We had an engineer walkout on us on the album before we did, which the one with Saturday Love, the Shirel record. You walked out. Yeah, we had an engineer walk out in a disagreement.

And so we had to learn how to run our studio. And it wasn't a laptop. It was like studio with tapes and patch bays and all kinds of crazy stuff. So anyway, when we recorded that record, we actually recorded control way too loud because we didn't know. And so when Steve Hodge came up to mix it, he said, who recorded this? And we were all proud. We did. We did.

He said, it's way too loud. And we said, what do you mean? He said, everything's in the red. And we said, yeah, that's the way Prince did it, you know. And he said, yeah, but Princess machines were set up where zero min zero on the VU meter. Your machines are set up where zero is plus six. So you're already plus six at zero.

Before I can get us in there? Yeah. And we said, can you save it? And he said, yeah, it'll be fine. He said, but the next album, I'm going to teach you guys how to record. I'm going to come up and teach you guys how to record. And the next album was Human League. Oh, wow.

The next album was Human League. So, yeah. But anyway, so for a lot of reasons, yes, control was life-changing, obviously a lifetime friendship. with Janet. She's godmother to my oldest born son. We're just, you know, we're as close as we

can possibly be way beyond work. And I think that's a test of groundbreaking, for sure. That just goes to show, I think, you know, just being in the room with you today, if it's not coming through to the listeners, you know, just a good person, you get the sense, it's just

a good person, you get the sense, I think the word you used was humble. Yeah, generosity, too. And there's so much generosity. and, you know, we've been in some rarefied spaces. We've been around some unique, very, very talented but difficult individuals. You are not that. You just seem to be just this really gifted, amazing, talented person who also happens to be a sincerely cool guy.

So we can't thank you enough, sir, for coming through the podcast today. Well, I'll say thank you for having me. But I will say that when we were working with Michael Jackson, I remember Michael said to me, he said, how do you want to be remembered? And I said, I thought about it for a second, and I said, I want to be remembered as a nice guy. And he said, no, no, no, no. For all your number one records or your, you know, all your hits.

And I said, no, I just want to be remembered as a nice guy. No, no, no, no, no. For your, you know, this. And I said, no, I said, listen, Michael, that's all statistic stuff. I said, that doesn't mean anything to me. I mean, that's cool, but it doesn't. really mean anything. He didn't get it. So fast forward about a year later, we had sampled, I think, Billy Jean or something for something. And they said, you'll never get it cleared.

It'll never get clear. And we were like, okay, cool. So anyway, I called Michael. And I just said, and it was funny because I remember my office, there was a girl Sue that worked for us. And Sue never came back to my office. She always would just sit up front and just intercom, right? She comes back to my office. She goes, Michael Jackson's on the phone. I said, okay. And she says, no, Michael Jackson's on the phone. And I said, yeah, I heard you. She said, no, not somebody calling for Michael Michael Jackson is on the bottom. I said, I got it, Sue. I got it, right, right.

Michael, how you doing? Great, great, great, great. He said, I know you want to ask me something, but can I just say something? And before you ask me, I said, yeah. He said, so people always ask me what it was like working with you. And I just say, Jimmy Jam was the nicest guy. And I said, exactly, Michael. And I said, you know, the cool thing?

When people asked me what it was like working with you, I tell him the exact same thing. He said, oh, really? He said, oh, that's so nice. What did you need? I said, well, we sampled Billy Jean. Oh, just called John Brank. I'll tell him to take care of it and whatever, whatever. And everybody's like, how'd you get that cleared?

And I said, I guess I'm a nice guy. So that at the end of the day is, it doesn't mean I'm not going to get along. Doesn't mean we're not going to disagree on things. It doesn't mean any of that. I just think nice, kind, all of those things. To me, I was just, I wasn't born with it. I was raised like that between my parents, maybe. And probably some of Minnesota nice is kind of sneaks in.

there. But I just think, I don't know, to me, that it doesn't take any more energy to be positive than it does to be negative. And a lot of people wake up looking to be offended. Like, they almost wake up with an attitude like, what's going to offend me today? Or who am I going to talk about today in a bad way? I wake up and I go, whose life can I make better today in some way, in some little way? I would be remiss if I didn't thank you, like, very profusely for the fact that you Instagrammed me. And our conversation begins. with you saying I like your breakdowns, but I was nearly in tears thinking,

that's a bit much, but like it was one of the most moving things as an artist that the next thing you said was, I think I got into you and you named one of my songs because of my song, I need you. And I was like, I can't believe that you've heard of me for anything,

but for my music. It was very, very meaningful and moving. I just think it's important. Yeah, and so it's cool because it talks about why we're here today. It's because if I see something,

I don't like to leave things, unsaid. We talked a little bit about Prince earlier. There were so many things that I felt like I didn't get to see or I didn't get to say to Prince. And I've always tried to make it a point when I see something that I like from somebody, I let them know it. If it's a DM or whatever, I don't even know whether they're going to ever read it or whatever, but I want to let people know when I enjoy something that they're doing. And that's how we met initially and then how we have met. Thank you. Thank you for being so generous. I think that's one of the main reasons, other than your God, getting talent that you literally you and Terry you guys go from you know the band are the band driven

R&B of the of the you know late 70s early 80s all the way to the present almost nobody else can brag that and I think that we just are very grateful to a very nice man known as Jimmy Jan. Thank you so much for coming through today. Let's give them a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you everybody. And luxury as always, help me in this thing. Well, I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, D'allel Riddell. And this is one song. We will see you next time.