Billboard is reporting stirrings in the Janet Jackson camp.
More than six years after her last record “Discipline” hit the streets, the youngest member of the Jackson siblings is said to be back in the studio working on new music.
The news comes from vocal producer and engineer Ian Cross, who assisted her last three studio albums. In a new interview, he opened up about the collaboration.
“Janet [Jackson] and I had a little bit more of a special relationship because we became friends naturally,” Cross told Barefoot Sound of their ongoing working relationship. “You meet a lot of people and you become friends with a couple of them, but sometimes there is one person you become really good friends with. She asked me to work on an album with her called Discipline in 2007 and, again, just do the same thing, produce the vocals. That led to her hiring me full-time to work with her. That’s where I’m at now.”
“The Janet Jacksons of the world can’t just spend their time in one studio in one city anymore…we’ve been working in Qatar. We’ve been working in Paris, the Middle East, and now we feel like we can work anywhere,” he said. (BTW, Janet’s husband, Wissam Al Mana, is a Qatari businessman, which helps explain her city-hopping recording schedule.) “The new album is going to be great. It’s a process. There’s a lot in store, yet to come.”
Jackson was last on tour in 2011, with Number Ones, Up Close and Personal.
