The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Talk ‘Nothing But Hits,’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Michael Jackson, Prince, Music Culture & Producing + More

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Today on The Breakfast Club, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis Talk ‘Nothing But Hits,’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Michael Jackson, Prince, Music Culture & Producing. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Some icons. Some legends. They're back. This second time on the show. Ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Welcome. The icons. Thank you for having us.

How are y'all? Man, a little wet because it's raining. Y'all stay true to the uniform, though. Now, you know, usually the suit. They've got the suit on today. No, no, we got to, no. It's a given. It's winter. It's like, you know, we're trying to be,

got to stay warm, you know. That's right. Well, how are y'all feeling, first and foremost? Oh, I feel great, man. You know, busy. I like that. But if I'm not busy, I've got to get busy. Being busy.

So that's just what it is. Do the other artists reach out to you guys like they should? I mean, because you put up. so many hits on the board, so many points on the scoreboard. I wonder if the younger artists really say, you know what, I got to tap in with Jimmy, Jamie, Jamie, and Terry Lewis. Sometimes. Sometimes.

I mean, what happens now is because so many of the artists are tapping into the 80s and the 90s, they're either sampling our stuff or they'll just call and say, hey, well, you could get down with me and do some stuff, you know? So, yeah, so that definitely's happening, which I think is very cool, you know. And if you don't know, if you're just joining us, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, icons, they work with artists from Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, Prince, Usher, Mary G Blige, Mariah Carey, George Michael, Boyce Man, New Edition,

Shaka Khan, Tony Braxton, her, SOS, Ben, Yolanda Adams, just to name a few. I don't even like to say that y'all worked with those artists. Those artists worked with y'all. Yeah. Because y'all shaped culture. There was a period where y'all sound is what absolutely positively shaped culture.

Well, it's a team sport. You know, it's a team sport. I mean, we work with really talented people. I always say we work with talented people that make us look good, you know? So that's what it is. And it's a team sport, even, you know, us being here with y'all today

because we could make all the music we would want to. And if there wasn't a delivery system where people could actually hear it, without y'all talking us up or playing our songs and that, it's like the tree that falls in the forest and nobody knows about it. So Terry has a theory on that.

He says, we don't make hits, we just make music. Y'all make it hits. Everybody makes it. It takes the whole ecosystem to create a hit. Do you think producers today still shape culture the way that y'all did or has like the algorithm replaced the producer ear so to speak i don't think algorithms will ever replace anything that's just people who don't know having a way

to know something um still it comes from the gut man what makes people feel something what makes the hair on your arm stand up you know and make you get goosebumps that's that's what moves the needle all the rest of it man is just people talking about things that they don't know nothing about yeah It went that way, this way. Trending. It's trending that way. But it doesn't always trend the way that you wanted to go or what you think is going to do. And if someone knew that equation,

oh, man, everybody had a hit. Everything they do would be it. That's right. You know, we just recently had Teddy Riley up here, right? We were talking about the new Jack Swing era. And we was talking about Teddy and Keith. And I was thinking of myself, shouldn't Jimmy Jim and Terry Lewis's name be added to creating that new Jack swing sound?

And do you have to feel away when sometimes? you guys are not mentioned in that creation of that? I feel like Teddy is a king of New Jack Swing. Meaning that he took that style, patented it and gave us something to

all be a part of it or follow along with it. I feel like the first New Jack Swing song, although there was no title for it, there was no moniker for it. It's probably Janet Jackson Nasty. Which was Control album, which was 40 years ago this year.

So we saw it make everybody feel old. 40 years ago that album came out. But that's, I think that, and I remember the first time we heard I want her by Keith, and I remember we were with Babyface in L.A. We were just hanging out in a club. And that song came on, and we all thought it was nasty at first because like the little synthesizer parts. And then Babyface said, oh, no, L.A. said, oh, no, that's Key Sweat.

That's Key Sweat. And I said, oh, yeah, Keyes Sweat. That's dope. I like that. And then Babyface goes, yeah, Keith's cool, but the dude behind him, Teddy Riley, he's the one. So FACE was the one that really turned us on to Teddy Riley and love what Teddy does.

So I think we're part of it, but I think there's no question that he's a king of New Jack's Wing. And by the way, and I'll tell you a quick Teddy Riley story. So I always said, my theory was the foundation of hip hop was always James Brown, right? It was always based on funky drummer or the Lynn Collins think, you know, the tambourine and that,

was across so many hip-hop records. But I always said the foundation of New Jack Swing was Casey and the Sunshine Band. Oh, yes, sir. Right? And everybody, everybody said, no, no, what are you talking about? So when I interviewed, I had a show on Sirius X-N back in the day, and I actually interviewed Teddy. And I told him that theory. And he laughed.

And he said, oh, my God. He said, can I tell you something? He said, you know the baseline of I want her? And he goes, doong, doong, boom, boom, boom, right? That's the way. He said, that's the way I like it, Casey and the Sunshine Band. If you listen to that song, it's the same bass line. The other foundation of that is I get lifted.

That's Casey and the Sunshine Band. George McCrae sang the song, but Casey in the Sunshine Band played it and produced it. So he said, yeah, you're absolutely right. So I was like, okay, cool. So now I can go to people that I think I'm nuts and go, no, I got it from the guy. But Teddy's amazing, absolutely amazing. The more conversations that I'm a part of here where I learned so much about like music history, I'm like, is there ever going to really be a way to really archive all of the hip-hop, R&B, so real music history?

Because every time I talk to somebody, I learned something new or a different angle way to think about it. Like, do you guys think we'll ever really be able to document all of it? And we're doing it right now. Yeah, I think you can. It's just that for music, I don't think anyone can take credit because everything is based on something else. You know, the shoulders that we stand on dictate kind of where we can see our purview on something. And so everybody has something in their air that affects them in another way. And we just keep taking in another place.

But it all is based on the same stuff. So nobody can claim credit for anything because like KC, that was my favorite stuff. You know, that was my theme song. That was your theme song, right? Do a little dance. I'm in the club. Make a little dance. Get a little bit.

I come there with the swag. Yeah, that's right. That was it. Well, congratulations on your Las Vegas. residency coming in April. Thank you. How does it feel to have that? That's big. That's nice.

You know, about probably, we might have talked a little bit about it when we did our album, when we did our Jammin' Louis volume one album, but we had said back at that time, there was three things we wanted to do. We wanted to work with Babyface, which we ended up doing, which was great. We said we wanted to do our own album, which we did Jammin Lewis Volume 1, Volume 2 is on the way.

But then we also said we want to go play our own music live. Because if you think about it, we started off, before we were songwriters and producers, we were musicians, you know, playing in bands and playing everybody else's hit songs. And that was part of our learning process, part of our education,

how we learned to even songwrite and produce. And so now, going back full circle for us, we get a chance to play some hit songs, but they just happen to be ours, and go back to our musician roots. So we're really, really excited about it, and Vegas is a perfect place to do it. And we got a nice little intimate room called Voltaire

at the Venetian resort, and it's going to be nothing but hits, as we call it. But we're also going to be telling the stories behind the songs, like the way those songs were made and all that. And we think it's going to be a great little format, a little time travel, a little virtual time travel. So all 42 Billboard number ones, we're going to hear? Well, we're going to get as many as we possibly can.

Yeah, we definitely are. I tell people it's going to be more of a tasting menu. Like, we're not going to do like a whole seven-minute remix of something. It's over seven minutes long. Yeah, yeah. No, we're not going to do that. But we'll hit you with that intro. We'll get you there.

You know, verse, chorus, you know, might hit a bridge or something. Gotta hit bridges because we love bridges. We got to hit the bridges and whatever. And then boom, we run on to the next. So it's more like a mixtape or more like if a DJ's doing a mashup. It's more of that kind of thing. Now, you guys work with so many people. I'm sure all these artists will be there.

Will it be some of those things where somebody's in town and be like, so-and-so's on the stage? Yeah. Janet Jackson's here, ladies and gentlemen. It's the 40-year anniversary of control. It is. It absolutely is. Well, the thing that happened for us was we kind of tested this concept. We went to Japan. We did like, I think, 16 shows in Japan or something like that in the past couple of years

just to kind of test the concept of what it is. And what happens is if you have friends in the audience, most of the time they'll want to come on stage. So we did a show in Atlanta during Labor Day last year. And for instance, and I will say Ruben Stuttered is kind of our male singer because he can handle anything from Alexander O'Neill to. to Usher to whatever. And when we started doing Bad Girl,

he just walked where Usher was sitting and Usher was there watching, just enjoying the show. And he kind of looked at Usher and like, and Usher got on stage, hit, you know, hit Bad Girl, hit, you remind me. And it was like, oh, okay. So we always say you never know who's going to show. And that's way we look.

And, you know, listen, we talked to Dr. Dre yesterday. He said he's going to come. He's going to come play cowbell is what he said. I said, we put a cowbell up in the front. Cal bell. On the catwalk. Yeah, on the catwalk. Cowbell on the catwalk.

We got a catwalk that goes out in the audience, which is cool. So everybody gets a good seat and stuff. It's going to be a lot of fun, man. And yeah, there's going to be a lot of friends dropping through. And you never know. Each night's going to be different. We're doing six nights. It's a limited residency.

But each night will be a little bit different. How did the residency come about? It was a friend of ours who just was a huge Jammin-Lews fan and happened to have a room in Vegas. and said, you guys should come to my room and play. And we just said, okay, let's check it out. And then we went to the venue, and the venue was just perfect. Gorgeous.

Yeah, it's beautiful. And we just thought, okay, yeah, I think we could do something here. Really cool. And like I say, we're at the point of our careers where we want to do things we haven't done yet. And this fits perfectly in that slot of things we haven't done yet. Hold on, I'm watching y'all. And I saw your man with all of those. Please tell me that that's a line of glasses.

Tell me that y'all. Yes. That's a line of glasses. Man. Can I get one, please? I'm not to grind a man. But I have to make sure there's a sorted, you know. We got to make sure we get to.

I want them right now. Okay, okay, okay, we got you. We got you. Okay, so what do we got, Terry Lewis? These are the Jimmy Jams. I need those. All right. These are like I'm wearing right here.

So what's the difference between the Jimmy Jam and the Terry Lewis? Okay. You got the Terry Lewis right there? We fit in the seat. Okay. Because I got a Terry Lewis right here. Is that a Terry Lewis? Oh, that's a Terry Lewis right there.

I need the Jimmy Jam. I need the big ones. Which one is green glass? I'm getting a little older. Yeah, we definitely need to do those. Okay, so wait a minute. Which one? Who wanted Terry Lewis?

You got her? You got her? You got a Jimmy Jam? Yes, all right. So then there's a female pair too. Oh, yeah. Oh, there we go. Which one is a female?

Oh, yeah. I'm doing mine of you like this now. It looks nice, every. All right? This is the jam, right? Oh, those are there. That's Jam. All right there, so right there.

All right there. Thank you so much. You gave him the female pair? Yes. Yes, he did. Well, wait. Well, wait. Well, how do you know the difference?

Because they both say Jam and Lewis? Sometimes it's the shape. There's just the shape of them. Oh, got you got you. Let me see. Let me see you. That's the female right there. Okay, there you go.

Yeah, that'll look great on her. That's funny though, because y'all are shaped differently. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm up the bags, too, because you could also use this as a little purse outside. Yeah, thank you so much.

How can people order this or they want to order it though? We give credit to Terry's wife actually in Dera. She's our merch manager. Okay, so she's the one to make sure that it's not only the product itself but the way it's packaged. Yes. And if you notice there's a little case and a little thing in there for your cloth. It's, you know, basically our... This is genius.

It's so hard of the glasses in the bag. Yeah, so how can people get these? Because I mean, we're talking about it. Somebody might want to order it or how can they order these? So Flight Time Lifestyle is on Instagram. That's the place to go. And if you go to Flight Time Lifestyle, it's F-L-Lice style. F-L-Y-T-Y-T-Y-M-E lifestyle.

And you can go there and there's a link to get you to the actual merch. And we'll have these in Vegas and, you know, but you can have your, get shows now and then you can wear them to Vegas when you come. And when it's sunny, in Vegas. When it's sunny and get Vegas. Yeah, because y'all all need to come and y'all need to get out of this rain and all this crazy stuff. And I tell people it's a great excuse to go to Vegas.

Is this the first time that you guys are ever approached about a residency? We did one other one. Well, for us, yes, for Jimmy and Terry, yes. We did do a residency with the time, with our group the time. Got you. Right after we did the Grammys back in 2000, maybe, I can't, I shouldn't, I don't remember what year it was. I can't remember yesterday.

No, I always say I remember 40 years ago better than 40 minutes ago. But, you know, that's how it goes. But we were approached because we performed on the Grammys that year. It was a 50th anniversary of the Grammys. And we performed with Rihanna, actually. And I remember when we came off, everybody said, hey, what are y'all going to do? And we said, this is just a one-off. And they said, no, no.

And then a guy that actually ran the Flamingo Hotel, Tony Braxton was appearing there, but Tony was having some health problems. And he said, I got three weeks that I can put you all in if you all want to do a residency. So as the time, we did a residency. And it was during the summer. And it was great. It was probably the best summer vacation we ever had. That was the greatest.

Yeah. Just do what you love, man, and be done by, you know, we go on at seven. We're done by nine and we're having dinner with our family. Yes. It was great. Terry said it's the least. ever worked in our life. Yeah, never worked at it.

It was great. I always wonder about that time with the time, no pun intended, but how did Prince contribute to your growth as just produces, musicians, artists, everything? I don't know, I'll start off by saying the reason we're here is because of Prince. I mean, Prince was the one that, I mean, I met Prince in junior high school, we went to junior high school together, took piano classes together and stuff. We both knew how to play, but it just got out of class a little bit, you know. But he was the one that really, and I will say Morris Day,

because Morris actually wrote, there's a song called Party Up on the Dirty Mine album, and Morris actually wrote that song or the track to that song because Warner's wanted Prince to do something a little more funky because he had gone into more of his rock thing. And Morris gave that song to Prince, and Prince said, what do you want? He said, I'll give you, you know, I'll give you 30 grand or I'll give you whatever amount of money. He said, or I'll get you a record deal.

And Morris said, I'll take the record deal. And Morris said, okay. And then Prince said, put a band together and we'll get you going. And Morris came to our band, and we were actually like a competing band of Morris back in the day. But he came to us and said, okay, you're all going to be the band. And we're like, okay, cool. And that's what got us going. That was back in 81.

So that was the thing that got us going and put us on the map. So all thanks to Prince, all thanks to Morris Day, they were the ones that started us. And of course, we got, you know, the famous story, we got fired by Prince. But Terry likes to say he didn't fire us, he freed us. and literally the same night that Prince freed us we were at Sunset Sound he freed us we went over to a

studio called Larrabee right across you know the way and ended up mixing what became our very first hit and that was just be good to be by the SOS band so literally the same night we got freed we had our first hit and you know the rest of history

after that very much a Hollywood story well God knows bro yeah God definitely knows what's your thoughts on AI oh I do want to ask one other question I'm sure y'all still maintained a relationship with Prince after that. I think when people have these conversations

about like who's the greatest artist of all time, I don't think they really understand what people like Prince did, or even like a Stevie Wonder, the fact that they could write, sing, produce, play instruments, like they're not just singing the song somebody wrote and dancing.

Yeah. You know? I think the impact, I mean, it's a ripple effect. And that's the thing that you, when you talk about Prince, and think about this, he played every instrument. His debut album to me is like the best debut album of all time. Because he played every instrument.

He sang every note, wrote every song. I mean, he did everything on that record. And so that was his thing. But if you think about it, the way we dressed, the way we, and you think about the ripple effect now, you know, when you hear like, you know, a Bruno Mars, there's no Bruno Mars without Prince. And he acknowledges that.

Matter of fact, Bruno Mars thanks us. He's like, when he has, had 24 carrot and all that stuff out. He was like, thank you Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. So to me, that's the ripple effect, and that's all because of Prince. And the fact that we're still here, we get a chance to be blessed to talk to you guys today. That's because of Prince. So that's that ripple effect.

So when you talk about the greatest, some of it is what they did in the moment, but also that ripple effect that they have, you know, and Prince's, there's nobody better to me. I was asking, you know, what's your thoughts on AI and the fact that some of these artists now are using AI to be an artist? You know, what's your thoughts on that? And they're using it to create music and create sounds. What's your thoughts on that? I have a lot of thoughts. You want thoughts of feelings.

My feelings say, okay, I don't like the concept. But the facts are, the facts, it's here. It's like any other tool. They said the drum machine was going to put drummers out of business. It didn't. It just, if you took the drum machine and learned how to use it, it just became a tool, like auto tune or anything else becomes a tool at a certain point. AI, to me, it's three phases of AI.

I say there's people that are trying to stop it. They're on the tracks trying to stop it. It's not going to work because the cat's out the bag now. So there's only two positions left. You can get on the train and ride it or you can get on the train and try to drive it. And I'm a driver. So I'm thinking, let's figure out how we can use it to the best of our abilities to enhance the things that we do as songwriters. And our songs, maybe we can make our songs better.

I don't know. So I'm not afraid of it because it's just technology. But nothing's going to replace humans in a club with a guitar and a voice that put, you know, that hair on your arm standing up, you know, and goosebumps. So, A, I can't do that. So everybody that's trying to use it to, yeah, get on the field, well, what is it doing is it's diminishing the field because it's flooding the field with the fans. And when the fans are on the field, the game is not important anymore.

Somebody's got to watch and make it important. And y'all have worked with so many different people over the years. Have y'all ever turned down an artist, writing for an artist or producing? because I ain't trust them with your music or it just didn't align with y'all? Yeah, we've turned down things for sure, but not for that reason.

We didn't feel like we were the best people for the job. So we are fans of the people that we work with. We're fans of music. And we love music retro and forward, whatever, and we want to protect it. So we protect ourselves by not doing something that we're not inspired by. I'd like to say we don't really,

If we say no, it's always with a but. It's like, no. But, you know, who would be really good for this is this person. So we redirect a lot of times. We will redirect and get the right people involved. Or a lot of times we will advocate. We were talking about it the other day. So Pink is up for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.

That's a girl, yes. And Pink came to Minneapolis to work on some stuff with us. And we said, well, you play us what you got so far. And she started playing all this stuff. It was the stuff that Linda Perry did with her and Dallas Austin did with her. And we were like, what do you need us for? You got a record, right?

And she said, well, L.A. thinks that, you know, because it's so different from what I did before because her first album was a very R&B album. And I said, oh, okay, so we called L.A. And I said, take your record company hat off for a minute and just put your musician hat on. I just want to give you two examples. And I said, the first one was a girl in Canada.

She was popular in Canada. She had a few hits and stuff. She came to America. She made a record called Jagged Little Pill. And he said, Morris said yeah and I said then there was a guy I said he had a you know double platinum album big record I said the next album he came out changed his whole style had bikinis and leg warmers and a trench coat he said Prince and I said yeah and

he said so you're telling me you think pink is Prince and Alainis Morris said yes I said now put your record company back your hat back on you have your first single he said what's that I said get the party started because that song will not lose her audience that you already has but it's gonna start game her that audience where she's trying to go. And I remember when the album came out like three months later, everybody started calling us. This is before internet or anything.

You couldn't just text people. They would call us and they go, what did y'all do on Pink's album? We said, we didn't do nothing on the album. Well, she thanks you in the line of notes. She said, thank you Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. And I said, oh, we made a phone call. So that's it.

So we've done a lot of that. So that wasn't a no, but it was, you know, you got what you need right here. You don't really need anything from us. Wow. When the last night, you can, you know, you keep saying, that you know that music that makes your hair

stand up on your arm when the last time you felt like that about some music uh yesterday when we heard uh open my heart by yelanda adams wow wow that's um when because people always ask us you know our favorite song and we always say you know it's the song i always say i'll put it like this favorite is tough because there's it can be a whole lot of reason something is your favorite but i think that i always say my analogy is always if there's a time capsule the time capsule says jam and louis on it and a hundred years from now the aliens come down or whatever they open the time capsule and the song that would play for me would be optimistic by the sounds of blackness.

Ooh. Listen to it at least three times a week. Okay, so that song to me because it says, because that song would tell you everything, if you didn't know us, never heard of us, that song would tell you everything you'd want to know about it. And so, you know, our rhythm, our melodic sense, our, you know, our sense of lyric, all of those types of things. And then Terry always says in one, not even number two, but one A, would be open my heart, Yolanda Adams, for that same reason that you can't listen to that song. Terry would always talk about how people would pull over.

And Sylvia Rohn, you know, chairman of at the time, Elektra Records, when she said, do you guys want to do with Yolanda Adams? We were trying to sign Yolanda Adams at that point, and we said, yeah, we'll do Yolanda. And we did the song, and I remember she said, oh, man, that song gave me chills. It made me cry, you know, whatever. And we were like, cool.

And I remember they put out a couple singles, but it wasn't that single. And we were like, yo, Sylvia, what happened to open my heart? And she said, you know, as a record company person would say, well, you know, at summertime, you know, we got to be up-tempo and we got to be whatever. And we like, yeah, but it made you cry. And I remember she gave it to, I think it was Elroy at a GCI in Chicago. It's a little to Elroy.

Yeah, okay. She gave it to him. He played it the next morning, I guess, whoever the morning jock was, was like, who's this record? Everybody's calling me about this record you played last night. what is that record? I don't even have that record and it was Yolanda and at that point they knew okay yeah this thing's gonna go

forget that it's a ballot in the middle of the summer it didn't matter and of course it changed everybody's lives in a positive way so I think those are the kind of records that we want to be involved with and I love that you know the records that sometimes that happens as records that we've helped create but we always say God creates

the records we're just the delivery system absolutely another thing I want to ask y'all right why does pop music often looked at as a a white genre when it was black, a black producer like a Quincy Jones and a black artist like a Michael Jackson and black producers like you two

and a black artist like Janet Jackson who changed the trajectory of pop music. Well, pop, I think, the intention of pop was only to refer to it as popular. And I don't think it was race or gender specific at that point. I think people have a need to own everything. White people.

Yes, okay. others have the need to claim everything and i think that messed the game up like i actually prefer how they do it in in europe like there's one chart and if you own it you own and if you're not you're not so if the competition is fair at that point let the games begin and let the music speak for itself so i don't know it's it's a way to separate what's the difference between gospel and I have no idea One is white and one is black Oh yeah yeah yeah

That's true damn I haven't thought about you Yeah so so everybody needs They feel the need to put things in boxes Right But if we're talking about God Are we talking about God? Yeah

Same God, right? I think Yeah How do y'all feel about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame conversation And Ozzy Osbourne Got in trouble again for saying that Like hip hop artists

R&B artists shouldn't be I'm sorry Sorry, not Ozzy Osmer. I didn't confuse that. The guy from piss. Oh, Gene Simmons. Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, no worries.

Wrong white person. Gene Simmons, yes, he got in trouble again because he was saying that basically artists that are hip-hop or R&B should not be. The title is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's kind of pissy, but you know what I'm, that's how he feels. And that he's trying to protect himself in that. Because black folks created rock and roll.

So how can he be mad at the other people that are getting in because they created the genre that you specifically want to claim? Right. So you can't be mad at other people for getting in because... Well, you can be. Well, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work on any level. Yeah.

Well, I mean, if you think about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the first people that were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right at the very beginning, you know, you had Chuck Barry and Fast Domino. and, you know, it was the black pioneers, the people, Lil Richard, like the people that really invented what is known as rock and roll. And rock and roll was not, at the origin, was not a white dude with long hair and a guitar. That was not what it was.

It morphed into that, but I think we see now it changing to be more inclusive. And also rock and roll is more of an attitude than a genre of music anyway, you know. And I think hip-hop, if anybody in. bodies, you know, aggressiveness, different, you know, ness coming through adversity to make music, that's the hip-hop community. So to me, that's as rock

and roll as it gets. And he credits them as well when he talks about it, but it's just like the irony of like that credit and then the separation and then it sparks a whole conversation again about that barrier and that guideline. Yeah, well, maybe they should just call it the Hall of Fame. I agree.

I should just be the Music Hall of Fame. That's it. Yeah. If you want to you know specific in a way that is general you know it's about the music isn't it about the contributions isn't it yeah well I think I think the importance of it is that I think the music the conversations around music are always great so if somebody has to say something that's you know slightly off you know just off I guess Ignit okay then I think it's great that we have the conversation about it because it keeps music important and keeps it relevant and I'm glad

we have the conversations. And I think, you know, once again, for younger people, we're coming at it from, I mean, we're coming from old guys, you know. But I think that everybody needs to know that conversation and how those kinds of things happen. Because otherwise you think that it's just the status quo, you know, the things were always like that. I mean, a whole different thing.

But I know my kids, for instance, when my kids were growing up, Obama was the president. They thought, oh, that's normal. That's what it is. And it's like, no, no, no, no. It's not normal. And now they see what the new normal is. And they're like, whoa, wait a minute now, you know,

because they historically don't have that. So I think you have to have the context. And I think that, but I love the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And the other thing about that is the people that vote on that, that room is changing a lot. I mean, because it goes to the fan vote also, but that room in that room is changing. And so I think that there's a need to, you know,

people like Luther Vandross on the ballot this year, which I think, you know, think about Luther Vandross, he was a major contributor. to David Bowie. Yeah. You know? So I just think that the connections

and those types of things are really good, but I think the conversations are really healthy to have. You know, the debates are healthy. Now these brothers got to go. I know they got to go.

I got one last question. When it's all said and done, do you want Jimmy, Jam and Terry Lewis to be remembered for the hits or for the blueprint y'all created for producers to control their own destiny? Ooh,

that's a good question. Well, I always say, the story I always say about that. is it, Michael Jackson asked, he said, how do you want to be remembered? And I just said, I want to be remembered as a nice guy. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. Is it because of all your hit records or all your, that you sold so many?

I said, no, no, no, that's all statistical stuff. So, like a chart position, that's statistical. I said, I want to be remembered as a nice guy. And about a year later, I'd sampled some of Michael Jackson's stuff. And they said, oh, you'll never clear that. You'll never clear that. And I called Michael. He called back and he says, I know you want to ask me a question,

but can I just tell you whenever they asked me what's like working with you guys I just go Jimmy Jam is the nicest guy and I said thanks Michael and he goes yeah yeah I'll clear have John Brankett call

and I'll clear the sample and whatever we ended up not even using the sample but my point was is that was the impression and I said to Michael I said the good news Michael I said when people asked me what it was like to work with you I tell them the exact same thing he's a nice guy so I always want I would always go for that

over the talent but the way you articulated as sort of a blueprint or sort of a you know, an inspiration or all of that. That's what we would like to be, I think. You know, that, I mean, the hits are great in the moment. But once again, as I talked about earlier with Prince, you know, Prince had some big hits. But his effect on people and the fact that we're even sitting here right now,

we want to be that for people. We want to be the reason that they're sitting here and being able to do what it is that they do and for to have them say, I mean, I'll tell you, we're talking about, you know, white people. Charlie Puth. Charlie Puth came on a thing we did the other day and he was like, y'all, the reason I even make cords

the way I make my cords and that kind of stuff, you know. So that's the kind of impact. Yeah, Charlie's a good dude, right? But you want, that's the kind of impact you want to have, and I think that means a lot to us to have that. And I would just add a little bit of sauce on that. Sandwich is really nice, Jim, Jam. Put a little sauce on it, Terry Lewis.

I think from the age that we came into this, you know, there were people before, certainly Gamble and Huff, who was our blueprint. Yes. You know, Quincy Jones, who was like a mentor. I love the way our career arc

and business acumen helped to shape the business side of it for producers that came after us. Now, although that's all changed now because nobody gets paid now because of streaming. But we actually, actually made the producers have some power at a certain point.

Because before they were just tools, and we became personalities and tools. And that helped us, just like you guys are. Y'all are personalities, so that gives us a voice even a louder bullhorn. So we were able to advocate for all the people that we love. You know, I love musicians, I love artists, I love producers, Anybody who's creating music, and Kenny Gamble said it best, because as my mentor, we would always talk to him about things.

He said, you know, our music is supposed to be pure, wholesome. It's supposed to feed and nourish us. So we have to be careful with what we do in terms of what we create for our communities. And I still believe that. But there's room for all of it. Yep. You know, but for every, you know, piece of fried chicken, you eat, you better eat a salad. Yep.

Ladies and gentlemen Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Thank you brothers for joining us And you know anytime you guys are in town Pull up on us please Thank you And listen tickets can be purchased For their residency at a VoltaireLV.com

VoltaireLV dot com April 17 through the 26 And thank you brothers again Thank you very much It's the breakfast club good morning Hold up Every day I wake up The Breakfast Club

Are you all done? Next month Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live in South by Southwest. This is the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display.

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