Doja Cat is the new Janet

September 30, 2025·36 min·3 clips

Doja Cat's percussive vocals on 'Jealous Type' mimic Janet Jackson's exacting rhythms, revealing a hidden blueprint in modern pop.

Summer is over, apparently. Rihanna Cruz, Charlie Harding, and Nate Sloan use a pumpkin joke as the quick on-ramp to a pop-history comparison. Very Switched on Pop. A broad cultural hook tightens into Janet Jackson leaving family management, going to Minneapolis, and finding the creative engine that finally fits. Janet was not the obvious bet yet. The excerpt traces how two early albums missed before Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis heard what could work. Their backstory matters. Coming out of Prince's orbit and the Time, they brought Minneapolis funk tools into a new pop frame. Then Janet takes control. At 19, she works with them to tell what the conversation calls her real story and take charge of her own narrative. The gear talk is pleasingly nerdy without getting stuck in the weeds. Linndrum, the earlier LM-1, Oberheim synths, and Moog bass all get treated like sounds with personalities. The show does not leave the jargon floating there. A drum machine does not sound like a real kit; it sounds like itself, and that becomes the point. Prince stays close to the palette. The team points to 1999 as the easy reference for those large synthetic steps and sampled-drum snap. A correction arrives midstream, with the LM-1 versus Linndrum clarification keeping the music-producer crowd from reaching for red pens. Jack Antonoff enters through texture. This is not vintage gear worship so much as a way to hear how processed, presented sounds keep showing up in newer pop production like Jealous Type. The comparison stays craft-first. Janet's reinvention comes across less as a biography beat than as a lesson in how collaboration, machines, and control can make pop feel personal again.

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