Breaking through the ceiling

Independence brings forth the Artist with little to hide

To his right, five Crayola-bright shirt/pant combinations hang perfectly spaced. With matching heels directly underneath. In front of the mirror, hair styling accessories are as meticulously laid out over a towel. 

So far, this is what we expect. 

Then he smiles. He becomes animated. He speaks in more than one sentence. And he doesn’t speak in a whisper.

He is the new Artist, formerly known as Prince. And he’s surprisingly forthcoming. The 39-year-old Minneapolis native who has changed his name from the one Mattie and John Nelson gave him — Prince Rogers — to Prince, then to an indecipherable symbol, then to the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and finally to the, mote sufferable the Artist, doesn’t make things a fraction as difficult as pronouncing the glyph he adopted as his name four years ago. In fact, just two hours before he embarks on an evening that will begin with a concert at 8 and end around 4 a.m., the Artist is anything but the slight, half-naked, young man who responded to Dick Clark with hand signals so many American Bandstands ago.

In the dressing room at the CoreStates Center —past the bald bodyguard with the Secret Service cord around his ear — the still-slight but older man in black pants and a black lace shirt opened four buttons deep awaits.

In his first one-on-one print interview since his “Jam of the Year” tour began July 21, it the Artist deals succinctly , with the loss of his and wife Mayte’s first child (“There’s really nothing else I need to say about it. This was God’s plan”) and the June folding of EMI, which distributed his last triple-CD, “Emancipation” (“That’s business”).”

Then, he spends the next hour revealing where his head is, now that the Prince ruled by Warner Bros, is clearly part of the Artist’s past.

“I feel like I’m starting all over again,” he announces to a dressing room devoid of an entourage. There’s more going on on his ear — dotted with gold studs and a decoration across the top — than in the lair of the long-elusive star.

“It all began with my ‘Emancipation,’ “ he continues, referring to his album and his release from the Warner Bros. contract that reportedly could have earned him $100 million. “And the only time the artist I used to be shows himself is onstage. And even he is a little different now.”

Dig if you will this picture: With 15 minutes left in a fairly mild-mannered, two-hour-plus show, the Artist invites a woman onstage.

“You’ve got to dance for me,” he insists. Probably thinking this was still the guy who combined sex and spirituality in many a tune and brought a bed onstage to simulate intercourse during his “Dirty Mind” tour, the young woman decides’ to lift the back of her denim dress and shake her uncovered and substantial endowment at the audience’’.

The Artist backs away from her. And later on, when someone tells him that they thought the woman was part of the show, disbelief stretches across his face.

“Well, what does that say about me?” he asks innocently, but with the same grin that lured Apollonia into the waters of Lake Minnetonka to “purify herself in his 1984 film “Purple Rain.”

Perhaps it’s a rhetorical question. Or perhaps it’s true that the unabashed member of the top pop triumvirate (Michael Jackson, Madonna and him) who wore butt-less pants on the MTV Awards can now be taken aback by a woman who leaves her bra onstage.

“I already know that when people read this, “ they’re going to say, ‘Man, I expected him to do this’ or ‘I didn’t expect him to talk about that,’ “ the Artist says. “I know what a lot of people think of me. I know how I’m portrayed in the media. And it’s not always wrong. I’ll admit I play a part in it. I have always been a private person. But also know that reporters come to me with their agendas, already knowing the story that they want to write. And if it doesn’t square with me and my agenda, I’ll be polite, but I probably won’t say much. And that ‘Oh, he’s so mysterious’ reputation lingers.”

Yet it is more important now than at any time in his career that he be an accessible Artist. Without the machine of a major record label behind him, it is up to the Artist and his small staff to promote his upcoming release, “Crystal Ball,” and sell it (solely) on the Internet.

The three-CD collection actually packaged in a crystal ball is made up of mostly bootlegged songs. It will follow “Emancipation,” a barely , impressive effort on the Billboard charts. The Artist says, because of the royalty structure, it has earned him the most money he’s made since the 10 million-seller “Purple Rain.”

“There was a time when I was happy with that 14 percent artists get,” he says. “But I can’t take that now. Not with my bills. And with the way things are structured now, I don’t have to. With ‘Crystal Bait’ I own the record. I ship it to the people that join us on the Internet. I get a lot more than 14 percent back.” The Artist is getting more than just financial payback by being in control of his music. “Emancipation” was also his first critically heralded CD of the decade. “Click, click, the chains were released and I could go about my craft with a different mind . state,” he explains.

“You can hear the difference in the first thump of ‘Emancipation,’ “ adds fellow funk pioneer George Clinton.

“I don’t really know what to say to those who had a problem with those previous records,’ “ continues the Artist. “But it is what I felt at the time. When I made ‘Chaos & Disorder,’ that’s what I felt.

“An example is ‘CP Colored People Time.’ You know how that came about? Ever since we’ve been here we’ve been forced to do things we didn’t want to do. That ceiling was over us to keep us, and our minds, restricted. So, of course if you’re going somewhere you don’t want to be, doing something you don’t like, you’re not going to show up on time. : ; “The same applied, kind of, to my contract with Warner Bros. They put a ceiling on me. Wanted me to only put out one record a year. In effect, they , wanted to put a ceiling on my creativity.”

Now the Artist says his “new” career is fueled by the “ever-pressing fact that most musicians, especially of the darker persuasion, usually leave this business with nothing. That’s why I’ll be on the road until 1999, shifting the level of consciousness.”

And drawing from those he feels do the same. So in that vein, alleged Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is “a genius” to the Artist. “Have you read that manifesto? What he’s saying in that thing, that you have got to stop restricting people and minorities or it could come back to hurt you, is brilliant.”

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, he says, “may get the message twisted some times, but I like what he says about empowerment.”

Same goes for Essence editor Susan Taylor and her monthly “In the Spirit” column. Muhammad Ali, whom the Artist will join for an October benefit, is a hero to him because “he has always stuck to his principles.” “Teen Summit,” a Saturday talk show on BET, is his favorite on the tube. “It just inspires me to see young people talking it out and trying to work through it all. Elevating their level of consciousness.”

Consciousness elevating even comes down to diet. The Artist “won’t eat anything with parents” meat, and his wife has him growing his own food in his effort to make himself “more clear and more receptive of God’s gift — the present.”

So, of course, he passes on the bite-size ham sandwiches the hostess offers him at his after-party/30-minute concert at Egypt, a club close to : CoreStates Center. The grapes? He’ll take those. . And now anyone who has paid the $19.99 (wink, wink) to get in, get access to the V.I.P. section, and ‘ then to the enclosed very V.I.P., is a target.

He lifts. He aims. He throws.

Misses.

He waves the hostess with the platter back to him. Picks up the crackers. Ping! He’s hit the back of someone’s head.

“I guess I better load up on peanuts,” says saxophonist Pierre Andre” Baptiste as he heads to the bar.

Next, the cheese...

“I’m approaching 40 but I feel like I’m 4,” the ; Artist smirks. “Because I’m free. And it is amazing the sounds your soul makes when you’re not writing for radio. When you’re not writing to please a record company or have the No. 1 song on the Billboard charts. Your soul doesn’t have a roof over it any longer.”

And hey, before you know it, you may find yourself doing news conferences, online chats and the occasional backstage interview. Baring that soul, or at least as much as he feels like, to the media.

• The Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), 10 August,1997
• The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, MO), 11 August 1997
• The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, FL), 11 August 1997