A PRESTIGE HONG KONG EXCLUSIVE
BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT
by Mariel Rittenhouse

Where do you spend most of your time?
Right now I’ve been spending a lot of time in Atlanta because that’s where I’m recording the album, but it’s between LA, New York and Atlanta.

Where’s your favourite place to be?
I’ve got more than one. Somewhere on an island where the sand is white and the water is turquoise-y, aqua, and it’s nice and warm outside and there’s a beautiful breeze. I live for that. And Europe, I love Europe – and I live for Asia.

Will you do a big world tour when your album is released?
Yeah. I was actually supposed to tour with the last album, but we didn’t because I was actually in Atlanta and Island asked me if I would consider not going on tour, start the new album and then go on tour.

When a platinum hit is born, do you just know it?
You can hear it. You can hear it because it has all the right elements after you’ve sung it; you can hear it. But to the magnitude it will be, you don’t. If it will spend one week at number one or six weeks at number one, you just don’t know. You can have all the marketing in the world and all the publicity in the world, but if the music isn’t right, then you have nothing.

Have you been surprised by a song that hits it big or isn’t as big as you thought it was going to be?
No, not really. When I really think that a song is going to be successful, for the most part it is. I thought “Together Again” would be successful, but to the magnitude that it was, that I didn’t know. There’ve been a couple of those instances. Sweet surprises.

I think many of us imagine the Jackson/Dupri household as an absolute love fest of music, singing and dancing. Is that the case?
There is always music flowing through. It’ll be about video games, it’ll be about things that we enjoy doing, doing together. But there’s still always music flowing and all types of music flowing through it.

Do you ever listen to your own music?
The only time I listen to my music is when we have to put a tour together. Isn’t that crazy? It’s so funny because I was just speaking to someone the other night and he said that his wife was pregnant and they wanted to thank me and I said, “Why are you thanking me?” And he said, “Because the baby was conceived because . . .” of me! You don’t know how much I get that. I get that so often, it’s so funny. People are listening to my music having children and I don’t listen to my own music and I don’t have any kids [laughs] so maybe I should listen to my music! People walk up to me and introduce me to their daughters and say she was conceived because they were listening to me. They’ll tell me what album. It’ll be The Velvet Rope or the Janet album, more so than the others. It’s so weird. I’ve always called it baby-making music. You know, let’s do a baby-making song.