No question Janet Jackson is an instantly recognizable pop-music icon. But the Jackson family's only daughter said she was "honestly floored" when told she would be Music Television's first-ever mtvICON honoree.
"I thought, 'This isn't supposed to be happening now,'" she said in a recent phone conversation. "Not necessarily that it should be happening at all, but it's not supposed to happen until I have grandkids and I'm kicking back in my rocking chair," and the 35-in-May Jackson is far from both.
"I truly don't see myself as an icon. I HAVE had a long career, but I started working when I was 7," she said, the words tumbling out in a softly feminine speaking voice less breathless than the one we've heard on TV.
"And then I just stopped and thought you know, what an honor this truly is."
The presentation, which will be taped Saturday at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Los Angeles, and will air at 7 p.m. Tuesday on MTV, recognizes Jackson's myriad contributions to music, dance, video and pop culture; those contributions will be celebrated in interviews and performances by artists who point to Jackson as an influence in their own careers.
"This journalist just told me he was interviewing the girls in Destiny's Child, and all they wanted to talk about for half the interview was me," she said and then laughed out loud. "I asked him, 'Was it good?' And he said, 'Oh, yes, all they wanted to talk about was what an influence you'd been on them.' I met the girls a few years back in Europe and they were very sweet, but when I hear them or someone like Britney (Spears) say how much she was influenced by me, it's just so flattering."
Jackson pauses for a breath and then says in a wiser-woman tone: "It truly is another generation, and they came out of nowhere, didn't they?"
She's had a break from the direct glare of the pop spotlight since "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," in which she starred with Eddie Murphy, left the big screen six months ago. In the interim, she's been at work on her first new album in three years, "All For You." The title track single hit radio a week ago, Jackson said.
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