Janet Jackson Essay Example
Janet Jackson Essay Example

Janet Jackson Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (617 words)
  • Published: November 20, 2016
  • Type: Essay
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Anet Damita Jo Jackson, a singer, songwriter and actress. Janet Jackson was born on May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. The youngest of nine children born to Joseph Walter Jackson and his wife, Katherine, Jackson. She grew up in the affluence of a show business family. The Jackson children were raised in the Jehovah's Witness faith, as Katherine Jackson had been baptized as a Jehovah's Witness in 1963. LaToya Jackson famously on file for their disturbed childhood—including charges of physical and sexual abuse by Joseph Jackson.

The tensions within the family certainly increased on account of Michael Jackson's emergence as a solo artist and a superstar beginning in the early 1970s. In late 1969, Jackson took her daughters Rebbie, LaToya and Janet, and her youngest son Randy, to join her husband in Los Angeles, where they

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had moved to further the band's career. Janet Jackson first appeared on stage in April 1974, singing and doing impressions alongside her brother Randy in the Jackson family's Las Vegas act. In 1976, she appeared on The Jacksons, a summer replacement television show.

Her performance earned her the attention of a producer who hired her to play Penny, a regular on the TV comedy series Good Times, from 1977-1979. She continued her television work in the short-lived A New Kind of Family (1979-1980), the sitcom Different Strokes (1981-1982), and the teen drama Fame (1984-1985), based at a New York City performing arts high school. Unlike many of her siblings, Janet Jackson attended a public school in Encino, California, for some time before switching to Valley Professional School, from which she graduated in 1984.

Durin

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her time on Fame, she was able to break away from her family's supervision while on location in New York. In September 1984, she escaped with James DeBarge, a musician in the group DeBarge, also on the Motown label. Jackson's family disapproved of DeBarge, and the marriage was brief, as she applied for an annulment in January 1985, which was granted the following November. With the guidance of her brother Michael, she released her debut album Janet Jackson, in 1982.

The album reached No. 4 on the pop charts and had three hit singles, including "Young Love" and "Give Your Love to Me. " The self-titled album sold about 250,000 copies, as did her follow-up, Dream Street, which featured contributions from her brothers Michael, Tito, Jackie and Marlon. Jackson continued her acting career with a costarring role opposite Eddie Murphy in the blockbuster comedy The Nutty Professor II (summer 2000). A year later, she released another smash hit album, All For You, which like The Velvet Rope was more sexually explicit than her early albums.

The success of All For You and her succeeding world tour, along with a reported $80 million recording deal with Virgin, put Janet Jackson squarely back on top of the pop world. As if to confirm her success, Jackson won an American Music Award for favorite female pop/rock artist in January 2002. Jackson's star continued to rise until an incident at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 caused a slight falter. During a live performance with Justin Timberlake, Jackson's right breast was exposed during a "costume reveal.

The "wardrobe malfunction" stunt caused an uproar among both

fans and the Federal Communications Commission, and Jackson failed to appear at the Grammy Awards and dropped out of a television project in which she was to play Lena Horne at the elder actress's request. A successful African American female singer, Janet Jackson's life seems to be on the upswing. She got engaged to Qatari billionaire Wissam Al Mana in December 2012. The couple will reportedly got married the following spring with a ceremony in Al Mana's native country.

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