I've watched so many amazing video clips and read so many tributes to Prince since his passing on April 21, that I thought I would start archiving them here. These links are focused on the less heard, less known music and thoughts. I invite anyone to add to this mini-archive. And to enjoy. More to come!
April 29 update: Prince has been gone for a week and a day. And we fans and mourners have been treated to a flood of never before seen videos of live performances over the years. Prince never allowed these on the Internet, and my guess is they will slowly be removed from the Internet (I think the process has already begun). But I'd like to believe that allowing them to stay up for this last week is a gift from him, to us. Today Iadded my last link to this tribute post - thanks to all who contributed to this collection. Though our collective sadness will linger for a long time to come, there was so much joy in watching these - for me, and I'm sure for you, too. Rest in peace and power, Purple One.
I was at lunch with a friend yesterday when we heard the news - people started calling, texting, messaging. The first text was from my rideor die - "Prince is dead. Check your Twitter." The first call was from my 30 year old daughter to see if I had heard the news and was okay (she checked on me on and off all day). I'll remember that moment forever. Shock, disbelief, sorrow - and then the beginning of a day of stories - all of our stories, told to each other and over social media - of how Princeshaped our lives, was in our skin, and that we could viscerally feel the doves crying.
Worldwide mourning unfolding, with its epicenter in Prince's hometown and mine, Minneapolis. You can't have lived here over the past decades and not have Prince stories. He was among us and in us. This early morning after, I choose to share my Prince stories as part of our collective story. My stories are mostly on the sidelines, but they are deep and true and lodged inside my broken heart.
Prince was born in 1958 and I was born in 1956. I considered him an age peer and always looked to him as my shining star of how to keep doing you, keep reinventing yourself while never losing your inner core.
I remember the early Prince, who went from Bryant Jr High just blocks from where I then lived to superstar - who was "weird" but making amazing music that only could have been born from here - a mix of rock, pop, R&B and funk. He played very early at the Way, an old North Minneapolis organization that was housed where the 4th Police Precinct now exists. Then he blew up, mostly thanks to Purple Rain.
I remember standing in line at the old Varsity movie theater in Dinkytown to see the world premiere of the movie (is that even right, the world premiere, memory is a hazy thing). That foggy memory says it might have been raining.
During most of the 80s, I was a working, married mom with little kids. I missed all the concerts, the First Ave jams, Paisley Park. But between Raffi and other kid music, I'd play Prince, not shielding my kids' ears from those nasty lyrics and funky, funky dance beats. And we'd all see Prince everywhere - in clubs out to hear local live music, and about town doing his everyday thing. You couldn't live in Mpls and not experience that. We were all so proud of our hometown kid made good. That he launched a sound from Minneapolis that was of us - and it seemed, for us (even if the world loved it too).
Later, in the 90s, Prince became something else for me. I had all his albums and was still listening all the time. His sassy gender fluid self and music that celebrated sex in all its raunchiness stirred something that was just beginning to awaken in me. I was in my 30s and had a good husband and a good life, but something was missing - a thing that shimmered and quaked in songs like Cream, Get Off, and Sexy MF - my queerness. I knew I needed to find a place - the erotic city - where that music and that gender fluidity lived in me and those who surrounded me. And I did, finally, in 1995.
I spent the next decade dancing my heart out in queer clubs two or three nights a week. Prince was part of our soundscape, our love and our sex. Of course straight people had this same experience, but to be inside Mpls's queer erotic city and have those experiences with the people who made me want to "turn your big ass around so I can work on that zipper" was a homecoming. And life giving.
I only saw him live once - his Musicology tour. My new girlfriend - who is now my spouse of almost 13 years - took me to see the man I referred to as "my husband" because, well, he was my husband. It was one of my first moments of cognitive disconnect with aging. The arena - Xcel Energy Center - was full of middle aged people like us. I think in our hearts we all were still somewhere in the 80s, but it was 2004. Yet there he was, on fire, in heels and fabulous, playing the hits and the new stuff, seemingly ageless and timeless, and reminding us you are never too old to get your funk on.
For years I was part of a group of friends who threw an annual "HalloQueen" house party, a gay affair where we dragged the night away in amazing, hilarious routines. One year my dear friend Erin and I did a Prince/Madonna medley to Little Red Corvette and Like a Virgin (she was Prince, I was Madonna). It was hysterical and epic. There is video evidence that I'll keep private. My friend passed away from cancer several years ago and I watch that video on occasion when I'm missing her.
Over these last few yearswe all started seeing more of Prince out and around town again. At concerts here and there - he even had a table at the Dakota. More parties at Paisley Park. I was now free to go, but I still didn't. Most of my friends were wanting to stay in more, stay out late less, and if I'm brutally honest, I was right there, too. But reflecting back, I wish I had found my small crew of Prince peeps who would on occasion be willing to stay up all night for a chance to see his royal purple highness and eat pancakes.
I almost pressed "purchase" for his one of his three surprise gigs at the Dakota a couple years back, and recently,for his Piano and a Microphone Tour. But I didn't. Mostly I don't believe in regrets, yet this morning I regret those choices - or regret not working harder at calling friends who surely would have gone.
And finally, we are back to last night. After work, I was compelled to hop on the light rail, go downtown to First Ave and pay my respects with fellow fans. I wore the Prince jacket I made years ago and even had someone snap a photo of me in it in front of his star. I watched the crew setting up for the street party going down a couple hours later, but ended up going home. Looking at photos and videos this morning from that street party and the all night dance party inside First Ave (that is just winding down as I type this), I have this feeling of missing out, again. I have no one to blame but myself.
I have to catch myself from falling too far into the melancholic nostalgia that has been washing through me on this week of turning 60 - of knowing that what's ahead is uncertain and certainly too short. Most of my decades with Prince were intimate - in my home listening to music, or dancing at clubs or house parties. So my pilgrimage to First Ave alone and heading home before dark was perhaps my perfect goodbye to Prince the person. There is comfort in knowing his legacy and music lives on for all of us. Just last week I made a playlist (once we called them mixtapes) to celebrate my six decades of living, and the first song on it? Sexy MF. Of course. And Erotic City is there too, right in the middle, just as it was in my life. That Prince died just a few days lateris unbelievable to me. And a reminder to us all - say yes more than no, hit purchase if you really want to go, or be okay chilling at home. Do whatever is in your heart. And most of all, do you. Thank you, Prince.
Prince covering Joni Mitchell's A Case of You You're in my blood like holy wine/you taste so bitter and so sweet/I could drink a case of you, darling, and still be on my feet/still be on my feet.
1. Sexy M.F., Prince 2. Free Your Mind, En Vogue 3. Happy,Pharrell Williams 4. Got to Give It Up. Marvin Gaye 5. Family Affair, Sly & The Family Stone 6. Now That We Found Love, Heavy D & The Boyz 7. Q.U.E.E.N. (feat. Erykah Badu), Janelle Monáe 8. Shame (feat. Eve & The A Group), Jill Scott 7. Mas Que Nada (feat. The Black Eyed Peas), Sergio Mendes 8. Funkin' for Jamaica, Tom Browne 9. Boogie on Reggae Woman, Stevie Wonder 10. Boogie Oogie Oogie, A Taste of Honey 11. Blame It On The Boogie, The Jacksons 12. Sexual Healing, Max A Million 13. Erotic City, Prince 14. I Love the Nightlife (Disco 'Round), Alicia Bridges 15. Dancing Machine, Jackson 5 16. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), Michael Jackson 17. Love And Happiness, Al Green 18. Let's Stay Together, Al Green 19. We Trying to Stay Alive, Wyclef Jean 18. If You Want Me to Stay, Sly & The Family Stone 19. Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, The 5th Dimension 20. Supermoon, Zap Mama 21. Safiatou (f/Santana and Angelique Kidjo) 22. Say Hey (I Love You), Michael Franti & Spearhead 23. Golden, Jill Scott 24. Green Garden, Laura Mvula 25. The Rain, Jill Scott & Will Smith 26. As, Stevie Wonder 27. Overjoyed, Stevie Wonder 28. Simply Beautiful, Queen Latifah 29. Everybody Loves the Sunshine, Roy Ayers 30. Up Above My Head (I Hear Music In the Air), Ruthie Foster 31. In The Morning, Nina Simone 32. Three Little Birds, Bob Marley & The Wailers 33. Lovely Day, Bill Withers 34. Seasons of Love, Rent 35. Don't Worry Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin 36. Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder 37. Dance Me to the End of Love, Leonard Cohen
In case you missed it, or have already watched it 100 times, watch (again):
As I posted to Facebook this weekend:
All hail the queen. I can't say anything more than everyone on the
interwebs already has and will, and I feel kind of unqualified to be
saying how pro-Black, pro-Black woman, pro-Black queerness this is, and the politics, the 40
lines to quote, the references, how the ancestors must be fist raising/fist bumping,
Nola, and Blue Ivy, but OMG!!!!!
As a white woman, this song is not about me, or for me. I couldn't find the words to say that until a friend shared this:
"It’s time for us to stop singing along — to Formation, to Kendrick Lamar’s Alright, to any song that has the N-word or celebrates blackness in a way we will never understand."
So in that spirit, I'm cheering from the bleachers while reading some amazing posts. Here's a few.
And the tweets - please take to Twitter to see the best of the best in 140 characters. Try the hashtags #Formation and #QueenBey for starters. And the GIFS:
Octogenarian re-imagining yourself again and again fiercely relevant
Still here
I dreamed you were flowing in a river of revolutionary artists who came before you came with you who were born of you
This poem should be a haiku in your honor
Instead I offer this Recently visiting Harlem with my child of my child we shared space with one of your revolutionary artist offspring
Grateful to be invited in
We walked those hallowed streets my child of my child and me
Did she feel the vibrations did she know as we ate at Popeyes on 125th street sat high in the balcony of the Apollo and took the train at155th that she is one of the ones we've been waiting for
That she can love the razors forming between her teeth to create beauty to change the world to breathe
