Janet Jackson, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 album cover shoot, 1989© Guzman
Sombre church bells sound as Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 begins. An eerie, unsettled feeling unfolds as Jackson recites the “Pledge” her voice layered to suggest a group who are bound together on this journey as one: “We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together through our beliefs. We are like-minded individuals, sharing a common vision, pushing toward a world rid of colour-lines.”
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Then she dropped “Rhythm Nation” and the world would never be the same. On her fourth studio album, Jackson transformed from pop star into an icon.
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Forever defiant and entirely her own, Jackson refused to give the record label what they wanted, a sequel to Control. But she had bigger things on her mind, and used her art to make a political statement about issues of race, bigotry, gun violence, poverty, drug abuse, illiteracy, and ignorance.
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Janet Jackson, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 album cover shoot, 1989© Guzman