Janet Jackson was born on May 16, 1966 in Gary, Indiana but raised in Los Angeles, California. She was the youngest of nine children born to Katherine Scruse and Joseph Jackson. By the time she was a toddler, her five older brothers, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael were performing music at nightclubs and theaters as The Jackson 5. ? late 1980 she joined the cast of Diff’rent Strokes, portraying Charlene Duprey from 1981 to 1982. At age sixteen in 1982, Jackson signed a recording contract with A&M, releasing her self-titled debut album the same year. The album peaked at number sixty-three on the Billboard 200. She followed that with the 1984 release of Dream Street. In 1986, she released her breakthrough album Control. Control peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 album charts and earned a nomination for the 1987 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It also produced five hit singles. Since Control Janet Jackson has released seven studio albums. She is ranked by Billboard magazine as one of the top ten best-selling music artists in the history of contemporary music, having sold over 100 million albums worldwide and RIAA lists her as the eleventh best-selling female artist in the United States, with 26 million certified albums.
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