<\/p>\n
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis<\/a> have long operated as the driving force behind some of the biggest music hits known to the world. Now, they\u2019re placing their legacy at center stage to connect with fans like never before.<\/p>\n Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, thanks to their prolific songwriting capabilities, the dynamic duo is set to kick off a highly anticipated \u201cNothing But Hits\u201d residency at The Venetian in Las Vegas on April 17.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at the point in our careers where we\u2019re trying to do things we haven\u2019t done before, and playing our own catalog is one that we haven\u2019t done,\u201d Jam told Blavity. \u201cWe started off as musicians before we were songwriters and producers; we were just musicians, and we were playing in Minneapolis, our hometown, and we were playing everybody else\u2019s hits. So now, coming full circle, we get a chance to go back to being musicians again, but we get to play our own hits. So, we feel like that should be a lot of fun,\u201d adding, \u201cIf there\u2019s a place to really showcase that, Vegas is the place.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis and Jam\u2019s paths first crossed through Upward Bound, a federally funded TRIO program<\/a> in the U.S. designed to prepare high school students from low-income families or families where neither parent has a bachelor\u2019s degree for college success, at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n \u201cI think music and musicianship were the kind of catalyst to get us together, because when Jimmy first saw me, before he even knew me, he saw me sitting on my bed in my dorm room, playing my bass, and that was the first thing he knew of me,\u201d Lewis recalled. \u201cHe didn\u2019t know anything about me, and then, before I even knew him, I saw him in the lunch room playing the piano with a bunch of girls around him. So those were kind of the catalysts that got our relationship off to a great start.\u201d<\/p>\n For the first time, Lewis and Jam will take the stage not just to perform their hits spanning five decades for eager fans in Las Vegas, but also to share never-before-told stories behind the music.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s going to be different about it is that you will hear the songs, but you also find out a little bit about the song \u2014 how it was created, and we\u2019ll take people behind the scenes in the creative process, so there will be some storytelling,\u201d Jam explained. He continued, \u201cWe actually have a segment of the show where we actually take the samples, and if you think about a lot of our songs, everything from Rhythm Nation<\/em>, of course, which is Sly and The Family Stone, but also songs that people have sampled from us, like \u201cPoetic Justice\u201d from Drake and Kendrick Lamar, which is \u2018Any Time, Any Place,\u2019 from Janet<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to make those connections, those musical connections, in ways that I think will be special for people to know,\u201d he shared. \u201cMy analogy is always the chef\u2019s table at a restaurant; you can eat your favorite food a million times, but when you see the way that the chef actually prepares it, it gives you a whole different appreciation of it. So we think people will leave our Vegas show feeling like they\u2019ve had an informed listening experience, where even though they\u2019re good, they\u2019ve heard \u2018Just Be Good to Me\u2019 a million times, or they\u2019ve already heard \u2018Can You Stand the Rain\u2019 a million times, but when they know the stories behind the songs, it\u2019ll give them a whole different appreciation of it.\u201d<\/p>\n As musicians, Lewis and Jam don\u2019t experience music the way ordinary individuals do. Their unique approach is the reason they\u2019re the revered hitmakers that they are today.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic is the divine art,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cOne of the sayings that I have is, \u2018Music sells everything but music itself,\u2019 because you have talk radio; the selling point is they play music. You have clothing. You have cars; the sound system has to be right to play music. Everything has to be associated with music in some kind of way. Steve Jobs had these crazy phones, and what made these crazy phones really work well in the marketplace was he put music in it. So music is the king thing that makes everything else feel like it\u2019s worth it. So music is the divine art that moves all things. So we treat it as such, and we respect it as such. And when we try to create it, we try to put things in there that are wholesome, that bring things that you should feel in your life to life.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cA lot of times, people don\u2019t want to speak life into other people, but that\u2019s what music does. If you do music the right way, it breathes life. It breathes words into you that you didn\u2019t know that you needed, but when you didn\u2019t know what to say, you could refer to a song. You could say something to your lady that you couldn\u2019t say, but you could sing the song, and vice versa. Music is everything, man. Music is that conversation that we all have universally that fits. Like Jam always says, if we get in the room with a bunch of gay, white, Black \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter where you come from, Asia, wherever, and you put that beat on, everybody\u2019s head is doing that (nods head to the beat), because that\u2019s speaking to you. That\u2019s talking to you.\u201d<\/p>\n He mentioned, \u201cThe drum was the beginning, and the melody is always there, because life is melody. You know? You hear melody in everything that you hear \u2014 birds singing, cars running down the street. You hear the sounds, industrial sounds, nature sounds. That\u2019s the soundtrack of life. So we\u2019re in line with those things. Music is that divine art that we all should love and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n Jam took a moment to open up about the gift that comes with making the music, crediting a higher source for the expansive career he\u2019s had alongside his brother Lewis over the years.<\/p>\n \u201cGod writes the songs. We\u2019re simply the delivery system,\u201d he shared. \u201cGod has allowed us to deliver some beautiful songs, and \u2018Optimistic\u2019 (by Sounds of Blackness) is our No. 1 favorite song that we\u2019ve ever been involved with in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis added that there are several ways to prep or write a song, \u201cBut our intention always is encouragement, enlightenment, engagement, you know what I\u2019m saying? Just to make sure that we support our people so that they can get through whatever the task or whatever the situation. So you\u2019ve got to be encouraging. You got to be positive. You know, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever written a song to tear somebody down, no. So it\u2019s all about building and making sure that we\u2019re being positive in our creations.\u201d<\/p>\n The pair joked that when the aliens come to invade Earth and open the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis time capsule, two songs they\u2019d play to know everything there is to know about them would be \u201cOptimistic\u201d\u00a0by Sounds of Blackness and \u201cOpen My Heart\u201d by Yolanda Adams.<\/p>\n Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis\u2019 \u201cNothing But Hits\u201d Las Vegas residency will take place at Voltaire at The Venetian Resort on April 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, and 26, with special guests Ruben Studdard and Shanice.<\/p>\n The post Jimmy Jam And Terry Lewis Detail Their Journey From Meeting Through The Upward Bound Program To Vegas Residency<\/a> appeared first on Blavity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have long operated as the driving force behind some of the biggest music hits known to the world. Now, they\u2019re placing their legacy at center stage to connect with fans like never before. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, thanks to their prolific songwriting capabilities, the dynamic duo is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2390506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[360555,24124,320415],"class_list":["post-2390505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-jimmy-jam-and-terry-lewis","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-residency"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jimmy-Jam-And-Terry-Lewis-Detail-Their-Journey-From-Meeting.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2390505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2390507,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390505\/revisions\/2390507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2390506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2390505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2390505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2390505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The connection of a lifetime<\/h2>\n
The pair has been inseparable ever since<\/h2>\n
A chance to hear the stories behind the music<\/h2>\n
On how music is more than a sound for them<\/h2>\n
The songs that define them<\/h2>\n