child star

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…