BY CHEMELLE RICE
Stunning award winning artist, Janet Jackson has released her first album in 7 years, and is sure to send the world of music rocking.
Her new album unbreakable has been in the works for a while, and is now set to make an impact of its own. Jackson has always been a sexy girl with an infectious personality, and was once a powerful sex symbol in the music industry, with her sexually provocative records combined with her beautiful looks and good singing voice making her one of the best paid artists in the industry. The first single of her new album ”no sleep” depicting an intimate romance between her and an unspecified lover, implicitly expresses the impact love has on her in a such a way that can displace the biological requirement for sleep. In this respect, tracks in her album tacitly reflect her lover for her husband of 3 years, businessman, Wissam Almana, in a single that also features J. Cole and has dominated the Bill board R & B charts for 6 weeks.
Skilfully reconciling grief and depression with joy and progression, her album in a round about way sums up both the challenging and comforting moments of recent years. In particular there is no doubt that the impact the death of her brother, Michael Jackson- who was an international renowned singer of his day, is reflected in the sentiment and mood of her tracks. Dealing with those immediate years following the demise of the celebrated and only Michael Jackson, could not have been easy at all, especially given the controversy that surrounded the cause of his death. It must have been a trying time for both her joy and her career.
There has also been talk of a conversion to Islam mentioned in the U.K’s widely circulated Sun Newspaper, which seems credible, as she is likely to have been swayed by her Muslim husband to take on the faith, which is a far cry from her Jehovas witness background. Also, her late brother was said to have converted to Islam, so there might have been enough influence for her to pick up the religion. This may mean that we will see a high limitation placed on any sexual display of her attractive femininity , though any extent to which this may compromise her appeal is yet to be seen. One certainty is that her new album is sure to get the attention of the music world and her wide fan base. Janet Jackson has sold over 160 million records world wide in a music career that has spanned over three decades.
But reining in her famously sexual persona onstage doesn’t appear to have affected her power to sell.
Her new album’s first single, “No Sleeep,” featuring J. Cole (a slow jam about a weekend of steamy intimacy featuring lines such as “I’m loving what you’re doing to me and I don’t wanna do without it”), has been at No. 1 on the Billboard Adult R&B chart for six weeks. It’s vintage Janet, and the rest of “Unbreakable” sees her continuing in that mold.
“Artists like Cat Stevens and Mos Def wear their spirituality a little more on their sleeves,” says Dion Summers, vice president of urban programming at SiriusXM. “If Janet has converted, she’s definitely not putting any religious edicts forward on the album.”
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