His album, titled "Dirty Mind", has been banned by radio stations across America because of its lyric content but Prince aims to promote it on the road until people get behind it...
THROUGHOUT the long and varied history of Black music, I don't think there has ever been a more controversial artist than Prince, the highly talented and individualistic genius from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He has to his credit three albums — with the newest, titled "Dirty Mind", being by far the most pro-vocative. Because of some of the lyric content, the album has been banned by several radio stations — a dubious honour that has previously only been afforded to white acts!
"I think this album is the most direct of the three and that I have really found myself," the softly-spoken twenty-year-old says in his defence. "This album deals with more definite events and not so much with fantasies and dreams. For the listener. I believe I have covered a wider range of subjects. too — though that wasn't something I planned consciously in advance.
"The funny thing about the album, though, is the fact that l actually never planned to release these songs — they were really only demos that I had recorded for my own satisfaction. The two albums before were completely planned and thought out — this one was totally spontaneous. In a lot of cases. I recorded the tracks first and then just added the lyrics as I went along — often making them up as I went along, too. That's why there are some really strange lines in there!"
As with its two predecessors, "Dirty Mind" can well and truly claim to be 'all his own work'. All of the songs are Prince creations and the versatile youngster also played all of the instruments, too. It was actually recorded back in the summer of 1980 — straight after Prince's first American tour.
The album has also paved the way for the recent and far more successful nationwide tour. As those who have seen the show will willingly testify, his is a magnificently different show. Having never witnessed a Punk concert. I can't honestly say whether Prince took his ideas from that area of music — suffice to say that I have never witnessed an R&B type concert of this ilk! The whole thinking behind the tour is for Prince to support this album.
"And I'm going to stay out there until the people get behind the album," he states firmly. "So far, airplay has been limited and so actual sales have only been mode-rate. A lot of radio people are so used to playing junk than when something different comes along they are frightened to programme It.
"Probably, if I had actually planned a new album in advance — the way I did with the other two — I wouldn't have used any of these songs. But, once they were done, I realised that this was the real me. It deals with real subjects and the language is the way we really talk. When I say 'we', I mean young people. Everything is so much more to the point, I believe.
Obviously, Prince's frame of mind was considerably different at the time of his recording this set. For example, the album lacks those sparkling ballads that have been a hallmark of the previous two.
"I guess I just wasn't in that mood." he smiles softly. "When I did the other two albums. I think I was in love — and I wasn't when I did this one. You see, I think I always tend to write what I feel at that given moment."
ANOTHER pet peeve of this forthright young man Lis in being labelled. Just about everywhere you look, he has been termed 'Punk'. "That's just a fad," he points out — almost as a put-down! I hate being put into any specific category so I never planned to get caught up in that punk thing. But then I'm not an R&B artist either — because I'm a middle-class kid from Minnesota, which is very much White America.
"My background has restricted me to some degree and, frankly, my family don't understand what I am doing one little bit. In fact, they don't understand me!"
One of the intriguing things about this ninth child (he has four sisters and four brothers) is the amazing Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll transition that takes place once the stage lights are switched on. Sitting with him backstage after witnessing his amazingly extrovert show, it's hard to imagine this gentle, softly-spoken and highly sensitive young man swaggering around on stage exposing the majority of his booty for girls and guys alike to howl with uncontrollable desire over.
"Once I'm on stage, I do change." he agrees. "A lot of what we do on stage is not planned — and that helps, I think. For example, we wear what we feel comfortable in. A lot of clothes would be restricting because the show is so... athletic, shall I say. Sometimes, sure — I get nervous. But I think I get more nervous about interviews than I do about being on stage!
"I used to be even worse with interviews, though! Now I guess I've got more to talk about. Before, well, what was there I could say about 'Sexy Dancer'? With the album, I've got things that I can actually talk about and discuss.
"Songs such as Party Up' – it deals with a seventy-five year old politician type guy who's got of foot in the grave and sipping Pina Coladas in Palm Springs and he's ready to press the button and start a war that the young people are going to have to go out and fight for him. It's never his son... oh, no, he pays off the right people so that his son doesn't have to go! I just believe that this kind of a decision shouldn’t be left to one person to make - especially someone of that age
PRINCE'S visual image is " outrageous as his verbal image is outspoken. It has often crossed my mind whether his actual raw and basic talent " afforded the correct credit because of his wild and rebellious image. Or it, in fact, this image detracts from the considerable talent that is so obviously there in abundance.
"I think so — yes" Prince almost hesitantly responds. "But it really doesn't bother me any longer. It were to come out in a three-piece suit, it wouldn't have the kind of effect on people that I want to have. You see, I hate to see people standing still. Things start to get boring and so movement is a necessity for me. With ticket prices being up at $8 or $9 each, I want everything to be just perfect. The sound, the lights — everything!"
The band are really excellent musicians — and they are all open-minded people. — like me. That's one of the reasons why we all still live in Minneapolis - it keeps our minds free. Everything there is five or six months behind the rest of the country so it encourages us to think for ourselves. When I was about twelve years old, my sister went to live in New York and she started sending me records and things back home. That was when I realised that if I was seriously going to do anything in life. I'd have to come out of the box and do it for myself.Because in Minneapolis, there is no real competition and so nobody else can really have an effect on us.
"That also accounts for why we could never be termed an R&B group, for example, too. Like I said, categories are stupid anyway. But we tend to attract all kind of people — white, black; gay, straight; male, female. But all young — that's important! For me, music is music and you can miss a great deal by categorising things."
PRINCE has been acclaimed on many occasions as being precocious. Though the dictionary states that precocious is"remarkable for early development", it is a term that is usually reserved for childhood film stars who come across as being spoilt brats!"
At times, I can be." Prince confesses. "In the beginning, it was more so and I still can be if I feel in that mood. It all depends on the vibe I get from the people I'm with — and if anybody starts attacking me verbally, that's when I'm at my most precocious. You see, it is important to me that I am taken seriously. Young people today are not taken seriously enough.
"I ran away from home when I was twelve years old because I knew what I wanted to do in life and because nobody would take me seriously. Yes, I was misunderstood. At school, I was always ridiculed because of my name.Prince. Now, today, it's the thing that people remember about me first. It's my real name and though I could have changed it at school, I never wanted to. Now, today, I just do what I want to do, what feels right to me.
"I don't accept the morals and standards that have been laid down before me. I have my own morals and my own standards to live up to.Right now, my strongest feeling is my fear of war breaking out. I find it repulsive that we have to live with that fear. Other than that, I try to take every day as it comes. I try not to look ahead and prefer to wait until something happens before I react. It can vary at times — depending on how I feel at any given moment.
"Business? No. I'm not really into that. I have a good manager who is an even better friend to me so I trust her. Right now, the uppermost thing in my mind is this album. It is the most important event of my life and I'm going to keep playing these songs across America until everybody has heard what I want them to hear. It's important that I get this combination of messages over to the young people out there.
"Basically, I don't claim to speak for everybody — but I do believe that in speaking for myself, I am also speaking for a lot of the young people of America. And since I have always found it difficult to relate to people on a one-to-one basis, I relate to the masses through my songs. And that's why I am outspoken in what I sing about."
FOR THOSE of you interested in facts and figures, Prince's father was a prominent jazz band leader in the Minneapolis area and it was on his dad's piano that he made his first musical steps. His mother also sang with a band in her younger years. At the tender age of 12, Prince and Andre Samone (who plays bass with Prince's band today) formed their own band, called Champagne, and spent the next five years playing local hotels and high school dances. When seventeen, he started his recording career — by trading with an engineer friend for time! Prince provided music to his friend's lyrics. However, since he had no producer, arranger or musicians, he simple decided to do it all himself.
Armed with these tapes, he then headed East to New York and returned to Minneapolis with two definite offers from record companies. However, since neither allowed him to produce himself, he turned them both down. "They had a lot of strange ideas — tubas. cellos and such — and I knew I'd have to do it myself if it was to come out right."
So, it was back to the studio for Prince and this time he came up with three songs that earned him a contract with Warner Brothers Records and that yielded the excellent "Soft & Wet" success that paved the way for the "For You" album.
As successful as that first album was, it was the second one — or more specifically the "I Wanna Be Your Lover" track — that really carried Prince into the big league. However,with "Dirty Mind"this provocative young Gemini (born June 7) has really given the world something to think about. And, judging by the response to his music that I witnessed, Young America (and therefore, presumably, the world) is giving serious consideration to this deep young man.