Jermaine Dupri on Britney:

For you growing up, who were the people you paid attention to?

"Teddy Riley was my hero when I was growing up because what he was doing, to a degree, was the most incredible thing in the world. He had more records on the radio at one time than anybody I’d ever heard. Then you had Hurby “Luv Bug” [Azor], who had Salt-n-Pepa and Kid ‘n’ Play. Teddy Riley was a self-contained producer that produced anybody, and what Hurby did was he created a team of people where they were all part of his team. So I decided to put those two people together. That’s when I said So So Def would become like a team, and all the artists were home under that.Then I looked at Berry Gordy as a record owner. I read his book … because I was interested to know how one man created Motown. As far as artists, all of the early MTV artists was all appealing to me because they had style: Prince, Michael, Stevie, Mick Jagger, Sting. Madonna took a lot of the hip-hop style and incorporated it with downtown Philly, New York, and came up with a style that was even more style than she has now. I believe that Britney Spears is headed in that direction, though. I don’t believe that Britney Spears is as crazy as people think she is. I believe that what she’s doing is creating an image for herself so that she can be the new Madonna of today’s world."

Why makes you say that?

"I don’t believe she’s that crazy to put on super-red wigs and get in her car and let the paparazzi film her. I believe she understands the power of who she is right now, and every time she’s out she’s giving us a different look, whether it’s a different wig, bald head, whatever it is. People that are crazy they don’t think about stuff like that. They just move and go on with their life."

"..to me she’s walking the line of what I would probably be telling her to do, because that’s artist development, because you are trying to find yourself. You’re not just looking like Jessica Simpson or Christina Aguilera. She is her own person now and she’s breaking away from everybody. When you see her, that’s Britney Spears, that’s what you automatically say."

"It seems like what she is doing is she believes she has to become bigger than what she’s been in the past and have more image and have [something] more Madonna-ish about her. I could be giving her a bit more credit than she deserves, but I believe she’s thinking about what’s going on."

Source: AOL
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