Usher, Mary J. Blige and Janet Jackson will appear on a new compilation album by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
The legendary songwriting and producing duo – comprised of James Samuel ‘Jimmy Jam’ Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis – are most famous for producing Janet’s breakthrough 1986 album ‘Control’, but they’ve also collaborated with a whole host of R&B superstars and have finally decided to release those songs with some new ones that have never been heard before on one record.
In an interview with Billboard, Terry, 60, said: "We’re working on a Jam and Lewis album, which is a compilation project, and this will be volume one of many to come. We have music with all our friends we worked with over the years, and we have some new unreleased music and that is extraordinarily fun. It’s some new material, some going back and pulling things out. All of the above. We have people like Janet, Usher, Mary J. Blige, Heather Headley, Alexander O’Neal, The Sounds of Blackness … you know, just people from our history.
"That is the fun part about it. If you can go back and find an old track and update it and make it relevant, that in itself is fun. It’s stuff you remember and thought should have had a life at the time you created it, but it didn’t. That’s the way it works."
The LP will likely include Mary’s hit ‘No More Drama’ which Terry says, "took maybe four years, five years before it actually came out and became a hit. She put it on the back burner and then it finally came out".
The pair’s latest work was Janet’s ‘Unbreakable’ album, and Terry says it felt like "getting the band back together".
He also said it was important that it was "all Janet" despite them being the production masterminds behind it.
He explained: "It wasn’t about what we created as a production team; it was about what we created as an overall team, with Janet. What I tend to do is always just lean on the artists to see what’s in their brain and in their heart. One of the things we always say is, ‘What comes from the heart reaches the heart.’
"We wanted her to have the concept of what she wanted to say, instead of us putting words in her mouth."
A release date for their compilation project is yet to be revealed.
Meanwhile, the duo will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday (06.14.17).
Usher, Mary J. Blige and more to feature on Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis LP
