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| Prince |
Prince Nelson, the maverick
musician who later decided he has no name, is dead. He passed away in at his estate in Minnesota, USA, at
the age of 57.
My first whiff that there was
something wrong was when I saw a report that a dead body had been taken out of
his home by paramedics. It never occurred to me that it was Prince.
Then the dreadful news came. Prince
was dead.
“It is with profound
sadness that I am confirming that the legendary, iconic performer, Prince
Rogers Nelson, has died at his Paisley Park residence this morning at the age
of 57,” said his publicist Yvette Noel-Schure.
According to reports, the seven-time Grammy award
winning singer had been suffering from flu for a number of weeks and was
believed to be recovering, but took a turn for the worse in the early hours.
In early April, he
cancelled a concert because he wasn't feeling well. Some days later, he
performed in Atlanta but after that concert, his plane was diverted and made an
emergency landing because he was not feeling well.
Prince, who was a Jehovah's Witness, was treated
for three hours before being released. At the time Noel-Schure told CNN, “He
is fine and at home.”
Little did she know
that he wouldn’t be fine for long. Police found Prince unresponsive in an
elevator in his home before he was pronounced dead.
Prince shook the
music world. He won seven Grammy Awards, and earned 30 nominations. Five of his
singles have topped the charts and 14 other songs hit the Top 10. He won an
Oscar for the original song score to the classic film "Purple Rain."
The singer's lavishly kinky songs
earned him the nickname, His Royal Badness. Others called him the "Purple
One" because of his outlandish and colourful clothes.
He took the world by storm when he
released “I Wanna Be Your Lover” in 1979. The song sold
over a million copies and went straight to the top of the Hot Soul Singles chart.
After that, the hits came thick and
fast. They included, “Uptown,” “Controversy,” “Kiss,” “1999,” and “Sign O’ The
Times.”
Prince
and Michael Jackson were the first two black artists to enjoy heavy play of
their videos on MTV. His was “Little Red Corvette” while Jackson’s was “Billie
Jean.”
In 1984 Prince released the monster hit “Purple Rain,”
which included the iconic “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” The album sold more than 13 million copies
in the US and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film of
the same name won an Oscar and grossed more than $80 million in the
USA alone.
At
one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the No. 1 album, single, and film
in the US. It was the first time a singer had achieved such a monumental feat.
I remember checking the back of his
albums for credits. The whole project was composed, arranged and produced by
Prince. And he played virtually all the instruments too! Was this guy for real?
I was hooked. Who is this genius that
could play 27 instruments? Physically he was small and frail but musically he
was a towering giant.
If you didn’t like Prince, you were
considered prudish. Even though, back in the 1980s, many of us didn’t
understand his lyrics, we recognized his musical genius.
His feud with the late Rick James over
who was the undisputed king of Punk Funk made tabloids and music magazines sell
like hot cake. These two guys left no stone unturned in a bid to prove their
superiority.
When Rick James formed the Mary
Jane Girls, an all-female group, Prince formed Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6. James launched the careers of Teena Marie and Val
Young. Prince responded by establishing the careers of Sheena Easton, Sheila E.
and Jill Jones.
When
James formed an all-male group called The Stone City Band, Prince formed The Time (now
known as The Original 7ven). Prince wrote and
performed most of the instrumentation and backing vocals, with lead vocals
by Morris Day. Two members of the
group, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, went on to become one of the most
successful songwriting and production teams of the 1980s and 1990s.
Prince, a shy and withdrawn guy, was not
too comfortable around people. This is the reason he missed the recording of
the iconic “We Are The World” in 1984, according to music producer Ken Kragen.
“One of the reasons Prince didn’t turn
up, (and Prince later recorded a song for the We Are The World album), is
because he always recorded alone and not with an engineer,” Kragen said last
year in an interview to mark the 30th anniversary of the recording.
“He would go into the studio, do his own
engineering and record every instrument and sing and no one else would be
there. All of a sudden, he couldn’t be in a room with his peers.
“He knew it was a mistake. It was
unfortunate that he didn’t show.”
Prince
used pseudonyms to separate himself from the songs he wrote for others because
"I was just getting tired of seeing my name."
According
to him, the only reason people wanted to see take credit for everything they do
is ego. Was this a veiled dig at Rick James? Your guess is as good as
mine.
His mystique grew in 1993 when he
changed his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol. He became the known as
“the artist formerly known as Prince.” It stayed that way until 2000 when he
began referring to himself again as "Prince". Such was his charisma
that his fans lapped it all up.
Like
James, many of Prince’s songs had sexually
explicit lyrics. Some were so sexually charged that Tipper Gore, wife
of then US Vice President Al Gore, founded the Parents Music Resource
Center advocating for the mandatory use of a warning label on the covers of
records that have been judged to contain anything unsuitable for minors. The
recording industry later voluntarily complied with this request. That’s how the
warning, "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" was born.
In
his tribute, President Obama said the world has lost a musical icon. “As one of
the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time, Prince did it all, Funk,
R&B, Rock and Roll. He was a virtuoso instrumentalist, a brilliant
bandleader, and an electrifying performer.”
Prince,
who sold over 100 million records, was one of the best selling recording
artists of all time. He had 10 platinum albums and 30 Top 40 singles. At a time
when the word “legend” is thrown about anyhow, this was a true legend.
Image courtesy of Rolling Stone
