Hey,

I have a question. I heard a rumor years ago that, Prince was behind Janet Jackon's "Control" album. When I say behind it, I mean that he wrote some of the songs like, "Control" and "What have you done for me lately".

Has anybody else heard this?

Thanks.

Never heard it, and I'm a big Janet fan. It's classic J&L material to me.

The only thing that Prince had to do with Control, is that he fired Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis.

I can't remember what concert it was, but Prince was singing one of his songs and he
went into "What have you done for me lately." Then he kept asking," who wrote that???"
I don't know if that means anything or not.

thebugman6 said:

Yeah, this was from the NUDE Tour of 1990.

The only connection to Prince on Janet Jackson's Control single and video is the production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. They appeared in the video as well as Jerome.

Of course he did, maybe not directly but indirectly. The Control album is blatantly the Minneapolis Sound and who was on the main driving force of the Minneapolis sound???

There's a little piano figure that pops up in a lot of J & L's stuff, which is direct rip-off from Prince...you know the one I'm talking about...

"bling-dun, dun"

Prince uses it all the time on his funkier stuff, an example is Trust, off the Batman album.

It's also on Janet's "what have you done for me lately".

Paris9748430 said:

I have said this several times in the past but no one seems to comment on it - the drumbeat on Janet's 'Pleasure Principle' is very very similar to the drumbeat on 'Electric Chair'. Both have the bit where it breaks down, stops, then starts again.

so are u saying prince stole it from janet cause pleasure came out years before electric chair
and by the way he had nothing to do with the control album

thebugman6 said:

Hey that means a lot. I remember that concert and when he said that.
He also sang, Salt N Pepa's, "Is no of your business" at that same concert.

Something tells me that he did have some input.

He was probably just implying that he felt J&L "borrowed" from him a bit too liberally in his opinion. I don't think P actually had any hands on involvement w/ CONTROL. It sounds pretty consistent with J&L's other productions. I could be wrong I suppose.

I agree. Given the acrimonious split from Jam/Lewis there is no way Prince would have had anything to do with Control. Apparently he doesn't think much of Janet either (genius' sister?) but I don't know whether his attitude dates that far back.

I have a female source who back in '85-'86 had liasons here in L.A. with Jimmy Jam confirm that "what have u done for me lately" was an old demo that Prince and Jimmy Jim worked on for non-other than Vanity 6,the groove itself was Jimmy Jams however It was Prince that did the original background vocals using the effects of the "deep throat" voice heard on Erotic City.I believe there is no credit given for the back up voice "deep" voice on what have u done for me lately.You can speculate on who the voice belongs to.Obviously Jam keep the song after the firing. Strange but true.

Jesus i hope not!

BlaqueKnight said:

YES Prince did - On Nasty boys - Jerome benton sings background vocals - and in the album credits it lists that Jerome benton appears coutesy of PP Records - so he approved that.