Janet Jackson can still remember the first song she wrote.
She was nine years old and bored, one rainy afternoon in 1975.
Her older brothers – already international megastars – had just returned from an exhausting 10-month world tour. While they recuperated, there was no-one to keep her entertained.
Finding herself at a loose end, Janet sneaked into the recording studio in family’s backyard in Encino, California, and started playing a tune she called Fantasy.
“I laid down the drum track, I did the background vocals, I sang and I played everything on it,” she recalls.
With an empty day successfully filled, she left the tape on the system and went to bed, not thinking much about it.
But when she arrived home from school the following day, the song was blaring down the driveway.
“I was so embarrassed. The studio door was open and Mike was listening to it,” she says, referring to her brother Michael.
“I think Randy was listening to it, my father was listening.
“Then my father said, ‘You’re gonna sing’.
“I said, ‘No, no, no, I want to go to the college and study business law.'”
But when Joe Jackson told his children what to do, they fell in line.
“It was kind of hard [to argue] because, look at where he led my brothers,” she says.
“So I said, ‘OK, I’ll give it a go.
Nearly 50 years later, Janet Jackson is one of the most successful recording artists of all time.
With era-defining albums like Control and Janet, she has sold more than 100 million records, been named an MTV Icon and, in 1990, broke the glass ceiling by becoming the first woman to be nominated for best producer at the Grammys.
“That was jaw-dropping for me,” she says. “You think it should have happened a long time ago.”
We meet backstage at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the star is about to play the 73rd show of her Together Again tour, which reaches the UK in September.
Her most successful concert tour to date, it explores Janet’s entire career, from the sweaty R&B grooves of Nasty and Rhythm Nation to seductive slow jams like That’s The Way Love Goes and Any Time, Any Place – all performed with her trademark whip-crack choreography.
On stage, she’s a commanding presence. In person, she’s shy and softly spoken.
“I don’t like talking,” she confides. “And I don’t like interviews. I don’t think I’m very good at them.”
In the midst of a New York heatwave, this puts a chill up my spine. I’ve watched enough YouTube videos to know Janet can be awkward and distracted under the spotlight.
But the fears quickly melt away.
Today, Janet is candid, relaxed and funny – not only breaking into song, but busting out dance moves and, most surprisingly of all, joking about her ill-fated love life.
“How many times have I been married now?” she laughs. “Three, I think.”
There’s an ease that suggests the star has resolved – or at least found a way to make peace with – her battles with low self-esteem and body image.
The key, perhaps, is that she has someone else to care for.
Her first son, Eissa, was born in 2017 and is present for her New York show, standing proudly at the side of the stage wearing ear defenders.
“Being a mum is the most beautiful thing,” she says.
“I love every single minute of it.
