Here's the text of the interview with Jam and Lewis about Janet's next release and theyr opinion about the tit accident.
interesting!
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/t...cript.html

Tavis: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis are the most successful music producers in contemporary music history. Just some of the names they've produced over the years--how about Janet Jackson, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Patti Labelle? The list goes on and on and on. One of their current projects is an upcoming documentary about the prolific pair and their company Flyte Tyme. Here's a sneak preview for you.


Janet Jackson: They're married. They truly are. I think if one of them was… [laughs] If one of them was a woman, they'd really be married. I mean, they--their success is amazing to have lasted, and not just that but to continue to have major success, to still be major players in the game. Um, there's a great deal of love and understanding there, and that's what's really important. They truly understand each other. They're old married men. Ha ha ha! And I'm their little girl.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! Now, the question is, Janet, is it Mr. and Mrs. Jam or is it Mr. and Mrs. Lewis? That's the part I can't figure out, but I hear the point she's making. Nice to see you guys.

Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis: Good to see you, Tavis.

Tavis: Let's just start there since Janet was in the clip. I can hold this for another 13 minutes, or we can go there right now.

Jam: OK, let's go there now.

Tavis: Let's go there right now. You saw it. What did you make of it when you saw it? [Jimmy Jam applauds] Oh, come on! You don't mean that, Jam!

Jam: Oh, you know what? [applauding]

Tavis: You don't mean that! You applauded when you saw Janet do that?

Jam: Well, I applauded the whole halftime. I thought the halftime show was great, personally. I thought it was cool. I mean, I'm a red-blooded American male, so what can I tell you? Although it's nothing I haven't seen before.

Tavis: Right.

Lewis: Yes! Yes. Yes.

Tavis: I could take that and run with it, but I'm not gonna go there. I know exactly what you meant, but we'll leave that alone, Jam. Um, T. Lew, what'd you think when you saw it?

Lewis: I was shocked. I mean, I didn't know that was gonna happen. So I'm sitting there at halftime of a football game. I didn't expect that, but it didn't trip me out or anything. You know, I think the bigger idea to examine here is just what's acceptable and what's not. You know, I think socially that's a real gray area right now. So I think to single out one thing and examine it as under the microscope and say that that thing was bad and not examine everything else is not good.

Jam: Yeah. But you know, you're talking about a football game where you've had Viagra commercials, you've had beer commercials, you've had--I mean, you have nothing but sex in the actual advertising that people are spending money for.

Tavis: Cheerleaders on the sideline, violence of the game itself.

Jam: It's part of--it's part of society.

Tavis: Maybe the answer, Jam, is that if she had done this on MTV, since it was produced by MTV--and that's a whole other issue--but since MTV produced this thing, if she had done it on MTV and not halftime of the Super Bowl, maybe it was just the venue. Maybe she just miscalculated the venue she did it in and not necessarily what she did.

Jam: Well, that would mean that something was calculated, and I don't think anything necessarily was calculated, and also, there's another person involved in this, who's Justin. So I think to kind of place some sort of blame or some sort of accusation on her, I think, is incorrect.

Tavis: OK, so I've been in a number of debates over the last few days since this thing happened, knowing that I was gonna have the chance to talk to Jam and Lewis on the show. Does this--and I know you guys-- you'll be straight with me. You always are. Does this hurt Jam and Lewis or does it help? And when I say Jam and Lewis, I mean since this new CD drops, what, March...

Jam: 30th.

Tavis: Janet's new CD drops March 30. Does it hurt sales? Does it help sales that she did this? Now even though--even though--let's accept for the moment you're right that it wasn't calculated. But now that it's done and it's out there and people are "Aah!" does it help or does it hurt sales? Were you guys mad when you saw this? Like, "Come on, Janet! You just cost us record sales." Or were you like, "Strong J, strong J, strong J! The record sales are gonna go up"?

Lewis: Well, for me--I mean, we're working with Janet right now just finishing up the record, and I'll tell you how important it was to me. I never asked her about it. We never talked about it. So it's something that happened. Whatever. We're moving on with the music, and the music will speak for itself on March 30 or whatever that date will be.

Jam: You know what? And I would say that we really had no part of really dealing with Janet or making music in general--we never really think about the sales. That's kind of what the record company's job is. We try to think about doing great music, and that's kind of been, I think, part of the reason we've been around for so long.

Tavis: How is this new project gonna distinguish her from her previous projects, number one? And number 2, how is it after you work with an artist for as long as you've worked with Janet that you don't find yourself in a rut making Janet sound the same as she did on the last couple CDs?

Jam: I think a lot of it is just her personal growth. I mean, she grows as a writer, as a performer, as a singer, as a woman. She, you know, she brings a lot of that to the party, and I think this time around… Well, we've been collaborating with a lot of other great producers--Dallas Austin, who, you know, is obviously one of the top people in the game right now, and people like Rich Harrison, people like Kanye West--and they bring a fresh approach to what we do. So I think it's fresh collaborations. But in another way, it's still the Janet that you love. It's the Janet that is fun, playful on one hand. There's the sensual, sexy ballads on the other hand. I mean, it's really all of those things, the kind of more rock edge to things. It's kind of what she is. She's a lot of different kind of components.

Tavis: I've known you guys for a while, and you guys have always been and still are much too modest because it's not just--respectfully, T. Lewis--it's not just the growth of the artist. That's true, and I take nothing away from Janet or any other artist you guys have worked with. But it is that there are artists sometimes who have plateaued, or they're trying to find a way to remain relevant, or they're trying to make a comeback, they're trying to play to a new generation. I think now of one of my favorite artists, Patti Labelle. Patti's career had kind of done this for a minute, and she hooks up with Jam and Lewis and the song "Say My Name, Patti, Patti" comes out. That CD is slammin' because she worked with Jam and Lewis on the CD. How is it that you help bring artists back or help them reinvent who they are, Terry?

Lewis: Well, I think it's all about inspiration, and I think it goes both ways. I mean, we work with great people, and we actually, fortunately love the people that we work with as human beings first. We get inspired by that, and I think they feel our inspiration, and they then become inspired from what we do, and I think a collaboration between the 2 things is great. You know, we've only sent one artist home in our whole career.

Tavis: I was about to go there.

Lewis: Only one.

Tavis: I was about to go there. You gonna tell me who it was?

Lewis: No! I would never do that. That's why he's at home. [all laugh]

Tavis: But you only had to part ways with one artist?

Lewis: Yeah.

Tavis: And what was that--OK, you won't tell me who it was, but what was it about?

Lewis: Well, it was about he would never come and sing. He would always have a--a voice problem.

Tavis: Right.

Lewis: And at that time, to make the story even better, at that time we had a friend, and his name was Alexander O'Neal, and he was a great singer.

Tavis: He's amazing.

Lewis: And we had some great songs, and this guy wouldn't sing the songs. Every day he'd come in and say, "My voice is skipping." And finally he came in, and we said, "Well, if your voice skips today, you can skip yourself back on home." And so we put Alex on those same songs, and his career was born from that.

Tavis: That's a--his career was born out of that?

Lewis: Exactly.

Tavis: That's amazing.

Jam: Those songs were, you know, "If You Were Here Tonight," "A Broken Heart Can Mend," all the first things on Alex's first album.

Tavis: That brother was a fool, whoever he was.

Lewis: Well, his voice was skipping, so...

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Lewis: That's how that works, man.

Tavis: How do you decide then--that's funny--how do you decide then who you want to work with? 'Cause there's a long list of people every day who want to work with you guys, and the truth of the matter is, and I believe you when you say that you love the folk you work with 'cause, you know, y'all ain't got to work ever again if you don't want to. You done sold enough records, and you got royalties. You ain't got to work again. But you do it, obviously, because you love doing it. But how did you decide who you gonna love in terms of who you gonna work with?

Jam: I think we're fans. I mean, we're music fans, and so people who are out there that are known, like you say Patti Labelle...you know, Terry really said it. We get so excited to work with these people that they sense our excitement, and then they realize, "Yeah, I am pretty good. I'm pretty good." So that's one side of it. The other part of it is kind of keeping some diversity in what we do. I mean, we've done in the past year everything from, you know, we just worked with Nona Gaye on halftime for, uh, excuse me, for the national anthem for the NBA.

Tavis: The All-Star game.

Jam: For the All-Star game, with Marvin. I mean--so there's all kinds of different kinds of projects we do. We're not just locked into doing one thing, and so the variety keeps it fresh and keeps us really excited about working with everybody.

Tavis: What do you find, T. Lew, most exciting and most disappointing about the music industry today? You've seen this thing change a lot in the years you've been around. What do you still like about this business and what bothers you about this business?

Lewis: Right now I see hope for the business. I think… Originally, the music industry was built by entrepreneurs, small companies that then got gobbled up by the big companies, and we had real music people running. When we got in the business, there were real music people that were heading these companies and owning these companies, and they were concerned about the quality of the product, the artists' development, and the artists, and that became more of a corporate thing. It became about dollars and cents, OK? And at that point, the soul of music started to leave, you know? Because nobody was evaluating and trying to create anything other than for a profit. So, I think now, with the entrepreneurs getting back out in the street, out of these big companies--because the big companies are letting everybody go--then we start all over again and rebuild this thing from the ground up, and that's exciting to me.

Tavis: What do you like, Jam, and what's troubling you about this business?

Jam: Well, I think it's very much what Terry said. I think the music people will have a chance to rebuild the industry and make it about the music. On a corporate level, it's about--many times about billing in the fourth quarter. A record is gonna come out because we need the billing in the fourth quarter, not because the record is done or because we have a great album, and I think it needs to move away from that.

Tavis: But when you say, Jam--and not to cut you off--but when you say that you think that music people are going to have a chance to recreate this business and rebuild it, when Terry says he thinks there's hope for the industry, you guys are creative types. You're what they call… You wear suits, but you're really not suits. You're the creative types.

We all know the story of L.A. Reid, who got blown out of the building back in New York even though he had 31 people nominated for Grammys on Sunday night, more than any other record label. They blew him out the building unceremoniously because he apparently was spending--from their perspective--spending too much money. So, talk to me how I juxtapose you telling me that the creative types are gonna make this thing work better than it's already working, but here is one of the most creative types who, boom, got the boot.

Lewis: Well, see, I differ with you here. We're suits, and we are suits, because we run a business, and we've run a successful business for the last twenty--how many years?

Jam: 22.

Lewis: 22, 3, whatever. He's the stat guy.

Tavis: Who's countin'?

Lewis: So we are business guys. People from our generation--other than L.A.--have never been put in a position to be L.A., and the fact that he got kicked out of Arista the way he did, you know--well, it's actually probably a good thing for him.

Jam: It was a good thing.

Lewis: Because he can be more creative doing his own thing. When he was La Face, you couldn't find a more successful guy. He created that from scratch. And he is great at what he does. And there are a lot of us out here that are great at what we do.

Jam: It's great to have people in power. You know, L.A.'s a drummer. He still sits behind the drums and plays. And to have a music executive who's actually a drummer, it's few and far between. The great thing last night was OutKast winning album of the year, calling L.A. Reid on the stage and saying, "We would not be here without L.A. Reid." If L.A. Reid wouldn't have taken his chance on OutKast 10 years ago, 11, 12, however long ago it was, we wouldn't have the music that we have today. So the fact that he now is gonna move to a new place, do his thing again, I mean, that makes the future of music very bright.

Tavis: Well, I'm glad the future of music is bright and it's bright in part because of the work that you two do. I'm out of time now, but tell Janet when that CD drops, she's got a seat right here to talk about it if she wants to accept.

Lewis: All right.

Tavis: Nice to see you guys. Jam and Lewis.

Copyright © 2004 The Smiley Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A Broken Heart Can Men

Thank you so much! As a devoted Janet fan, I really enjoyed reading that.

Did anyone mention Prince? Jam and Lewis should have to on every interview.