“He refers to himself as a hieroglyphic symbol with no discernible pronunciation. We the people tried our best to hang in with the media-created moniker, The Artist Formerly Known As. That, not surprisingly, quickly wore thin and was reduced to the commonly accepted compromise of The Artist. As we enter the year 2000, however, it seems everybody — most likely including The Artist himself — longs for the days when he was simply known as Prince.
Whatever you choose to call him, the man who has made a pretty good living flirting with the boundaries of popular music since the late Seventies, is in a good mood today. Surprising, considering this is the last interview following a full day of Q&As. Most artists would be burned out and ready to bolt. Yet here he is, still perky, and ready to talk about everything and anything, from his career to his newfound spirituality, as day slowly turns to night on the last Friday of summer 1999.
Sitting comfortably in the living room of his sprawling hotel suite 47 floors above the busy streets of mid-Manhattan's posh East Side, The Artist exudes an aura of celebrity cool. Far beyond the point of having to prove himself, there's no obnoxious swagger, no curt language, no nothing really. If not for the fancy threads and the impossible to miss gold chains - one bearing the initials of his New Power Generation group and record label; the other, his trademark symbol — he'd seem like a pretty regular guy.
He is who he is and that's all he needs to command a certain reverence. He knows it, and, perhaps more importantly, he knows that all who enter his domain know it. It is not so much that he demands the respect his legendary pop icon status has earned for him, so much as he's grown to expect it and has learned how to graciously accept it. Dressed in a loose-fitting, purplish glitter top with matching bell-bottom pants and quasi-purple high -heeled boots, The Artist (whose shoulder-length, straightened "do" and pixie face belie his 41 years) is promoting his latest CD, Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, due November 9th. According to his discography, Rave is the 31st release of his illustrious 22-year career. The first fourteen were Prince projects; Rave is the seventeenth belonging to The Artist.
Prince returns, Sort of
Of particular interest to fans, however, is that Rave (according to the sleeve credits) was arranged, composed and performed by The Artist, but produced by Prince. "I figured Prince produced my greatest hits," explains The Artist, "so who better than him to work with me on my first project for the new millennium? Creatively, he knows me better than anyone."
That's one explanation. A cynic might say that bringing Prince back to life after sending him to purgatory on 1994's Come CD may represent the first public admission by The Artist that he needs a bonafide hit to boost a career that has been relegated to the outer fringe of the pop music scene.
The Artist pooh-poohs such talk, and those closely associated with him maintain the party line. "Look, you're never going to pin him down on something like that," is the recent response from Clive Davis, founder and chief executive of Arista Records, which, for the moment at least, adds The Artist's NPG Records to a powerhouse roster that already includes Puffy's Bad Boy Entertainment and Babyface's LaFace Records.
Davis went on to explain that The Artist "said with a twinkle in his eye that Prince has always been his favorite producer, and he was the right person for this project. There certainly have been hits associated with Prince. But whether it's The Artist Formerly Known As or the production of Prince, it works."
If, in fact, Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic does work and returns The Artist to the lofty position held in his glory days, it will be because Prince gave The Artist the quintessential vibe of 1999, the CD that really got the superstar ball rolling. "Prince could make decisions that I wouldn't make," says The Artist. "Prince knows what it took to make those records. Those things were kicking, weren't they?" He doesn't wait for a response because he already knows the answer. "For Rave, I wrote the material and I'm playing the instruments, but Prince made the creative decisions in the studio. I wanted him in there with me on this one." The unspoken hope is that whatever The Artist lost in the Nineties, Prince retained from the Eighties. The Artist does not play the entire CD, but as he jumps from one track to another it is clear that there's a sense of urgency — hunger perhaps — on this disc that one suspects hasn't been there for quite a while.
Rave on
Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic is an excursion through various musical styles, all held together by The Artist's innate ability to effortlessly transcend genres. The first single, "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold," is a ballad with an unusual, Arabic-influenced chord structure in the bridge. "Silly Game" will please old-school soulsters who thrive on harmonies reminiscent of back-in-theday vocal groups like the Delfonics and the Chi-Lites. "The Sun The Moon The Stars" presents The Artist at his sexy smooth best. And his four-on-the-floor disco treatment of Sheryl Crow's tune "Everyday Is A Winding Road" will, undoubtedly, raise a few eyebrows.
Also certain to stir a little controversy, for the very first time The Artist has called in several guest artists: Crow joins him on "Baby Knows," and there are appearances by No Doubt's Gwen Stefani, rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy fame, and the eclectic Ani DeFranco.
Though all the signs point to The Artist conceding it is time to come up with a major hit, (something he hasn't had since 1993's "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World ") he insists nothing could be further from the truth. "Currency is a prison," he explains. "Once you buy into the notion of having to stay current, you have to accept all that comes with it. If I go into the studio thinking I've got to create a hit, I'm locking myself into a box before I even get started. Music is a creative force, a spiritual force, not a money driven force. I do what I do because music is a gift God gave me to share. I'm interested in freedom - musical freedom, personal freedom and spiritual freedom."
The last aspect, spiritual freedom, seems to be of paramount importance to The Artist these days. It is, he says, the force that allows him to feel comfortable with wherever his career goes. He's been studying the Bible with Larry Graham, a devout Jehovah's Witness who, before joining The Artist's New Power Generation, staked his own legendary claim to fame as the innovative bassist of Sly & The Family Stone and Graham Central Station . While The Artist has not embraced the religion, Graham's influence has made him a student of the Scriptures.
"Graham is a deep brother," he says sincerely. "He taught me that God is the ultimate force that guides us — not hit records. If we understand God's plan, we understand that all this earthly stuff is transitory. Do I need a hit record? Let's be real. Hit records translate to income, so they're always nice to have. But do I really need one? Does my existence hinge on me having one? Of course not. That's man's thinking, not God's. Besides, in my mind, everything I write is a hit because it's all directed by Him. If I'm hitting with God, I'm totally cool regardless of what goes on down here."
Sounds good; nevertheless, the man's enthusiasm, his determination, his resurrection of Prince as producer, all suggests that The Artist wants a hit and he wants it badly. If he's not concerned with hit records, why get in bed with Arista, a juggernaut known for reviving careers (as evidenced by the recent resuscitation of Santana). After all, it's not as if The Artist needed a major label deal to keep recording. His independent NPG Records released three of his CDs, last year's Crystal Ball and New Power Soul and this year's 1999 – The New Masters, for sale primarily over the Internet. (NPG also released CDs by Larry Graham and Chaka Khan).
The Internet venture may have been innovative, particularly for an individual of The Artist's enormous stature, but can the fame and accolades that accompany superstardom survive on the Internet alone?
According to The Artist, his NPG CDs sold well enough to keep him financially comfortable; but in all likelihood his ego took a major hit. Relatively few traditional retail sales and virtually no radio airplay for any of that material resulted in The Artist being pushed to the verge of pop obscurity. As he likes to joke, he was getting dangerously close to becoming a VH-1 "Behind The Scenes" story, something he's adamant will never happen.
The Artist, Arista & the Bros.
Hence, the deal with Arista — a move which on the surface has problems written all over it. The Artist is a notorious control freak, but no more so than Clive Davis is. The man who runs the Arista machine has built his own legendary reputation as a no-nonsense executive who has few qualms about putting his personal stamp all over his performers' projects.
"We never butted heads," says The Artist. "He respects what I do, which is make records. I respect what he does, which is sell them . Neither one of us walked into this blind. He knew what he was getting, and I knew what I was walking into . People keep asking if I've had problems with him. For the last time — no I haven't."
Harmonious egos notwithstanding, the move to Arista also seems to make little sense for a performer who spent the bulk of the Nineties raging against the corporate machine in a very public and nasty dispute with his former label, Warner Bros. Records. The relationship was so volatile it drove Prince to become The Artist and then drove him to paint the word "slave" on his face. The Artist was so turned off to contracts after wrangling with Warner Bros. that he and Mayte, his wife of three years, mutually dissolved their legal marriage bonds, although they remain a couple.
"My problems with Warners boiled down to one simple thing: they told me that contractually they owned all my masters. Everything I had ever done, they owned." The Artist tries to remain calm, but it's clear this is a hurt he has yet to get over. "It's like when you send your kids out to play. You don't mind that they hang out all over the neighborhood, play with all the other kids, maybe even pet a few dogs and cats, but at the end of the day you expect them to come home. Purple Rain, 1999, all of them, were my children. And Warners basically told me, 'We're keeping your kids and you'll never get them back.' How can you do that to someone? That's my work. That's my Iife they have stashed in a vault somewhere." His voice trails off. "I busted my ass coming up with that stuff."
Beginnnigs
There's no doubt that, from the outset, Prince Rogers Nelson came up with "stuff" that clearly marked the emergence of a major talent. He was at once flamboyant, controversial, and, over time, one of the most influential pop figures to grace the scene in quite some time.
Hailing from Minneapolis, where his father, John Rogers, led a local jazz band that featured The Artist 's mother as vocalist, Prince started playing piano at age seven, guitar at thirteen, and drums at fourteen. All were self-taught. At eighteen, he made the demo tape that eventually landed him his deal with Warner Bros.
From the beginning, Prince struck an unusual pose. For You, his 1978 debut, featured the song "Soft And Wet," but was better remembered for the photo of him nude strumming an acoustic guitar. It was, to say the least, quite a bold move for a brand new artist.
It wasn't until his 1979 self-titled sophomore effort, however, that Prince's music caught up with his unique image — which this time included a nude Prince riding a winged horse. When the music and the image meshed, the results were nothing short of mesmerizing. " I Wanna Be Your Lover," went to Number One on the R&B charts and Number Eleven pop behind such risque lyrics as, "I wanna be your lover/ I wanna be the only one that makes you come ... running/ I wanna be your lover/ I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long/ Make you shout ... I like your love/ I wanna be the only one you come for."
Turns out this was just the tip of Prince's titillating sexual iceberg. 1980's Dirty Mind featured the rousing " Head," an ode to oral sex, and "Sister," a rock/pop ditty about incest. The album was a bit too bawdy for radio, but Prince rebounded nicely a year later with Controversy, the title-track of which featured the intriguing lyrics, "Am I black or white? / Am I straight or gay? / Controversy!"
It was Prince's fifth release, 1999, that put him squarely on the musical map. Released in 1982, the album went platinum and spawned the Top 10 singles "Delirious" and "Little Red Corvette," an important song because it was among the first wave of videos by black performers to be played regularly on MTV.
Superstardom came in 1984 with Purple Rain, the soundtrack to the pseudo-autobiographical film of the same name. Both were huge hits. The album spent 24 weeks at the top of the pop charts and sold over ten million copies behind a slew of hit singles that included "When Doves Cry," "Let's Go Crazy," "Purple Rain," "I Would Die 4 U" and "Take Me With You." By this time, Prince had also made his mark as a writer, producer, and talent scout, "discovering" and "making" such acts as The Time and Vanity 6, producing both under the name Jamie Starr. At the 1985 Grammy Awards, Prince won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "Purple Rain" and R&B Song of the Year as writer of Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You," a cover of a tune buried on Prince's second album. That same year, under the pseudonym Alexander Nevermind, he also wrote the sexually suggestive "Sugar Walls" for Sheena Easton.
From there the hits kept rolling. A snapshot look at some highlights: Around The World In A Day (1985) featured "Pop Life" and "Raspberry Berry"; Parade (Music From The Motion Picture Under The Cherry Moon) (1986) yielded " Kiss," "Moun-tains" and "Anotherloverholenyo-head"; Sign O' The Times (1987) featured Sheena Easton on the hit duet, "U Got The Look," and Love Symbol Album (1992) boasted "Sexy M.F." "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" (1993) was The Artist's last real hit. Musically, he still had the touch, but times were changing and rap's hardcore surge into the . pop mainstream spelled the demise of al-most all that came before. Prince's career didn't die, but even he couldn't escape the Nineties unscathed.
Looking ahead
The Artist says he doesn't worry about where musical trends are going and approaches the new millennium as he has the past two decades — writing songs. Perhaps the most prolific pop writer of his time (comedian Chris Rock says he's got more records than the census bureau), The Artist says there's no magic formula to coming up with hit material. "Writing, for me, is like downloading," he says vaguely. "Once you have the proper relationship with your instruments, you don't have to worry about it. I just open the channel and let it come. By the time I pick up an instrument — be it the keyboard, the guitar, the bass, whatever — I've already heard the whole song in my head. All I'm doing at that point is committing it to music. If you trust that there's a God and let Him do his thing through you, the songs come."
There's talk of a Rave tour, something The Artist says he's really looking forward to. He is one of those rare artists who can tour and pack folks in without a hit record, but he wants Rave to do well because he looks forward to performing the new material. "There's some stuff on this disc that we can really work with I have," he says as he bounces to one of Rave's funkier numbers.
Asked why fans will likely come to see him perform even if Rave is not a huge success, The Artist pauses. "I guess," he begins confidently, "because they see how much I love the gift. When I'm onstage I'm genuine. The studio is cool, but the stage is where it al I comes together, especially when you've got musicians who keep you going. I mean, you've got to hear this band . All you gotta know is Graham 's on bass. That alone tells you there's gonna be some serious shit going on up there."
The Artist (who shrugs indifferently when asked if fans should buy The Vault ... Old Friends 4 Sale, a recently released collection of previously unheard outtakes on Warner Bros.) is not getting any younger. His first hit was in 1979, two lifetimes ago as far as recording artists are concerned. Is he worried about growing old in an industry that thrives on youth? "No," he states. "I don't count time. Tracking time is what gets man all messed up."
The Artist ends the interview as mysterious a personality as he was before it began. He is, in many ways, a walking contradiction. He seems anxious about the new release, yet insists it doesn't matter because everything is all right. He is anti-legalities, but says his Arista deal is fine because it's an "agreement," not a contract. He's concerned about being misquoted, but doesn't allow interviews to be taped. He calls himself "Prince the producer," but says we should call him The Artist, something even he admits he doesn't know how to pronounce. He seems so sincere, yet you can't help but wonder how much of this is simply him pulling your leg.
In the end, he told me this interview was a good one. This one, he said, was real. And I wanted to believe him, even after he confessed he sometimes tells reporters anything just to mess with their heads.