Janet Jackson says, 'it just comes to me' as she explains sexy songs and dances on her new world tour - pop singer - Cover Story

Jet, Dec 27, 1993 by Robert E. Johnson

The house lights in the huge, 17,000-seat arena at Chicago's Rosemont Horizon dimmed and the bright stage lights were turned on. So was the crowd. There stood Janet Jackson. Her frenzied fans, cheering and screaming, gave her a wild, standing ovation before she even sang a note.

"My first name's not Baby, it's Janet - or Miss Jackson, if you're nasty," the child star who blossomed into a superstar said, alluding to one of her best-selling songs, Nasty.

It was a magic moment. Poised in a dance position was Janet - singer, songwriter, producer, actress, choreographer, dancer, cultural and fashion trendsetter.

The crowd was ready to check out the hype that launched her much-anticipated worldwide concert tour which kicked off on Thanksgiving Day in Cincinnati.

Her publicity releases trumpeted: "The tour promises to be an innovative feast of sight and sound, a theatrical experience with spectacular choreography, staging and lighting."

With a 10-piece band and eight high-stepping dancers behind her, Janet mesmerized the crowd by opening with the hit song, If. It is a song about sexual fantasy and she used it to showcase her pelvic thrusts and flashy dance moves. This was a liberated Janet, who flirted with eroticism but steered clear of moves that would be considered pornographic.

"It just comes to me," Janet says of her sexually-suggestive songs and dances. These vocal phrasings, she insists, "are not anything that I try to do purposely."

But those who know Janet best will tell you that every move that she makes on stage is carefully choreographed and rehearsed to perfection. This is a lesson she learned from her family of show biz stars, especially her brother, Michael, whose pelvic thrusts are as legendary as his magical moves.

She had performed less than 15 minutes before she paused and paid tribute to Michael, who is undergoing treatment for abusing pain-killing drugs. He says that he began using the painkillers to ease the stress brought on by his high-energy performances during his world tour and the charges that he sexually molested a 13-year-old boy. With tears trickling down her cheeks, Janet's voice quivered as she asked the crowd to "please say a silent prayer for my brother, Michael."

Janet's heart was in the prayer because it was Michael, who advised her to control her career. "I make my own decisions and couldn't imagine anyone else doing that, because I'm in control of my own destiny," she says. "And if anything happens, or if a mistake is ever made, it's because it's something I chose to do - it was my mistake."

She recalls that when she was in Paris to make a video, Come Back To Me, Michael stayed in touch via phone from Los Angeles and would talk as long as two hours.

With his insights into show biz passed on to her, Janet asserts with conviction: "Probably contrary to a lot of people's beliefs...I'm the person who controls my career and my life. There are some people who have a hard time taking direction from me, because I'm young, I'm a woman, and also because I'm a young African-American woman. And it can be difficult at times. Racism is an awful thing, it's horrible. And it's not just racism against Aftrican-American people, it's against a lot of races as well."

Although her brother, Michael, was on her mind at the concert, Janet followed a show biz tradition, quickly shifted gears and took the Chicago crowd on a whirlwind trip through song hits from her current album which she simply titled: janet.

On stage, as in the album, the "song-and-dance superstar" achieved a mission. She says the songs "focused on my feelings about the different aspects of love, and all its ups and downs." She says her decision to engage in sexual frankness through songs and dance allowed her to emotionally reveal more of herself as she did in the movie, Poetic Justice. In that film she says her character "experiences love and pain in much the same way I feel I have in my life. No matter how wealthy you are and no matter how poor you are, love is love and pain is pain. It's still that same feeling."

Her 20-song program that was non-stop for two hours, included the uptempo What Have You Done For Me Lately, Nasty and Throb.