It's after midnight so technically Prince's birthday was yesterday but I wanted to take a moment to say Happy Birthday to His Royal Badness. Last night at Zia Records thanks to our manager Manny (who is the biggest Prince fan in the world) we had an all night Prince-athon. For me it was terrific. For some of the younger kids working in the store I think we annoyed the hell out of them (but hey with age we earn the right to do that).
Prince had such an important role in my development. First of all there was his music. God - no man could turn out albums (yes, I said albums) like the man from Minneapolis. I swear it seemed like Prince dropped a new album every month. This fact is only significant because all of the music he released was great. If he were turning out horrible music we wouldn't care but the music that Prince created was creative, it was innovative and oftentimes it was controvesial. I can remember sitting in my room singing along to Paisley Park nonstop for like two hours. And we didn't have MP3 players or CDs, I was listening to it on casette so to relisten to a song I had to hit stop, press rewind and continuously check to find the start of the song. My how the world has changed.
I also loved Prince for his androgyny. For a young black man growing up in rural Alabama, Prince was an interesting person to idolize from afar. He was beautiful and talented and mysterious and he seemed to have this sexuality that was too fluid for many understand. I loved that he enjoyed pushing peoples buttons when it came to race, sexuality and I'd even go so far as to say gender identity. When I saw Prince I saw a young black man that seemed very comfortable playing with and enjoying all aspects of his sexuality (inspite of the fact that it seemed to make some uncomfortable). I've been hooked on this man since I heard the first line of Controversy . . .
"I just can't believe all the things people say.
Am I black or white, am I straight or gay."
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