Prince

  Prince’s December 13 performance on the Late Show with David Letterman was strange enough, since his lightweight “Dolphin” had impenetrable lyrics like, “If I came back as a dolphin, would you listen to me then?” But at his desk, the popular host faced a cheering studio audience and introduced him by saying his next guest was one of music’s most talented and influential performers. “The song he will be doing for us tonight is from, uh—” Letterman lifted a gold CD case—“this CD right here, uh, which is entitled The Gold Experience. And I’m told that this particular CD will never be released.” The host shrugged, causing someone in the audience to laugh. “So it makes perfect sense that he’s here promoting it tonight.” The crowd roared as Letterman asked the crowd to “please welcome—” He reached over for a prop on his desk, then raised a huge black to the camera. “The artist formerly known as Prince,” he said.

  Prince walked out in his short Jackson-like hairdo, with the word slave on his right cheek. He had an odd black shirt with gold patches on it and played a -shaped guitar. He ended the performance by pretending to die. People dragged him off the stage as part of what an observer dubbed “a mock suicide.”

  New Year’s Eve arrived, and Mo Ostin’s contract officially expired. But Ostin would stick around, as a senior consultant to Time Warner’s chairman until August 3, 1995.

  During this period, Prince told Warner he would deliver master tapes for The Gold Experience if they released his single “Purple Medley.” This track was a mix of old Prince hits he hoped would remind listeners of how many classics he created during the previous decade. Especially since his antics had fans leaving in droves. Warner agreed to put the song out—along with a B-side filled with more portions of old hits—even though it wasn’t accompanying any album. It was just a random mix with some hits sampled, some replayed, and all flying in the face of his claim to want to leave “Prince” behind. Still, he wanted to perform the new song publicly, and got his chance when Dick Clark, founder and executive producer of the “American Music Awards,” invited him to the televised ceremony.

  During the three-hour show, held in January 1995, Madonna, Little Richard, and Queen Latifah all performed. There was a tribute to Led Zeppelin. But Prince was the big draw. Before every commercial break, the announcer promoted him to ABC viewers, “Still to come, superexcitement from the artist formerly known as Prince and his twenty-five-member dance troupe.” Presenters doled out twenty-two American Music Awards. Prince, however, received the most prestigious, the one for Merit, given during past ceremonies to such industry legends as Irving Berlin, Ella Fitzgerald, and Michael Jackson. Dick Clark also praised his talent, influence, and record of accomplishment (fourteen million albums sold).

  Come time to perform, Prince executed “The Purple Medley.” Twenty-five dancers roamed the stage. Clips from his videos and films filled huge video monitors. An unseen band played parts of his hits “When Doves Cry,” “Kiss,” “Baby I’m a Star,” “Diamonds and Pearls,” among others. An announcer then claimed Prince left the earth on June 7, 1993, that they would now see the artist formerly known as Prince. He revealed himself from his hiding spot in the crowd of black-clad dancers. After lip-synching to his unreleased Gold songs “Billy Jack Bitch,” “I Hate U” and “319,” he slid through dancer (and sometime lover) Mayte’s legs. After the performance, he accepted an award from Nona Gaye. He waved it, and pulled a note from a pocket.

  Removing the gum from his mouth, Prince thanked—individually—every bandmate he ever had as Prince. He thanked his influences Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, James Brown, Santana, Sly, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, and Jimi Hendrix. He added, “I’d like to thank Dick Clark for allowing me to put Prince to bed.” Then he answered media claims of financial disarray. “It’s all cool. Peace and be wild!”

  Prince left the stage but soon returned for the finale, a tenth-anniversary re-creation of the star-studded “We Are the World” session led by producer Quincy Jones and singers Kenny Rogers and Harry Belafonte. Prince was at the center of the singing, swaying celebrities this time, surrounded by Nona Gaye and Jones. But when Jones held a microphone in front of his mouth, inviting him to sing, Prince pulled his Tootsie Roll Pop out of his mouth and held it in front of Jones’s mouth. “Both smiled, neither sang,” Bream noted.

  Warner hadn’t released it, but Prince simply couldn’t wait any longer. He took The Gold Experience on the road with his $250,000 “Endorphin Machine,” a huge stage set with various gold-painted structures including a big phallus-shaped object, a birdcage with elevator, a clitoris, a coiled contraption, and a womb (actually a two-story space with mixing board, dressing room, and red curtains that drew one comparison to covers on cheap sci-fi paperbacks).

  February 20, Prince fired the next round against Warner. At the BRIT Awards, the British Phonographic Industry’s annual equivalent of the Grammys, Prince and a publicist sat in their $350 seats a few feet from Warner’s official table. He had “Slave” on his right cheek and ignored the Warner contingent. This was more than enough, but while accepting his award for Best International Male Artist, Prince told the audience, “Prince best, Gold Experience better. Get Wild. In concert: free. On record: slave. Peace.”

  Chairman Danny Goldberg wanted to meet in Los Angeles to discuss the relationship Prince had publicly called “institutionalized slavery” before scheduling The Gold Experience or NPG’s forthcoming album, Exodus, for release.

  By March 3, Prince had approached five powerful Los Angeles entertainment lawyers to negotiate a release from his contract, the Los Angeles Times reported, and they all turned him down. His image continued to suffer. “I want people to think I’m insane,” he said. “But I’m in control.” He wasn’t before he became , he claimed. “I didn’t know what was happening beyond the next two albums.” Now he knew exactly how they’d sound. “I’m not playing anyone else’s game. I’m in control. I don’t care if people say I’m mad. It don’t matter.” A writer asked, if sane, why change his name? For a new mindset, Prince explained. “I don’t want to destroy the mystique by revealing everything.”

  During one talk, Prince said he had planned this transition for at least eleven years, even including an early version of the on the side of the sleeve to Purple Rain. He kept including it and soon had Paisley Park Studios—where he could actually create his music—open for business. Now, he was exploring other distribution methods. And if he had to, he’d make like Pearl Jam, “just turn up at radio stations, and play the people our music.”

  But Prince was trying to get The Gold Experience online. Fans would hear his music, he vowed, “whether it be through duplicating cassettes, or if we press up ten thousand CDs after the show and charge five dollars each, just to cover costs you know?” The ideas struck many as odd, but Prince felt he had already created an infrastructure that bypassed existing multinationals. “That’s what the live show is about,” Prince admitted. “I’ve done it! And if you look around at the fans, so many of them are waving signs with the new symbol. It’s such a beautiful sight.”

  Despite his complaints about Warner, the label released his “Purple Medley”—and its B-side “Kirk J’s B-Sides Remix”—March 14, 1995, and wasn’t that surprised to see it fare poorly. Nighttime radio ignored it. It didn’t make any airplay charts. It made it to No. 84 on the Hot 100 and No. 74 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Chart, then vanished. It did better in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 33, but was far from a hit over there, either. And though Warner released the song, The Gold Experience tapes he promised to deliver in exchange for this release still had no release date.

  The truth was that, at some point, Prince gave up on waiting. He had started his next album. “For this one, I started with the blueprint of three CDs, one hour each, with peaks and valleys in the right places,” he said. But instead of vault material, this new Emancipation would have all new songs handled by his new publishing company Emancipation Music and ASCAP.

  In 1994, he had recorded “The Plan” and �
�Somebody’s Somebody.” Now he kept adding songs. Every day, he brought a new idea to the studio. He played every instrument but let Kirk A. Johnson help. A dancer during the Purple Rain Tour, Johnson now handled a few beats. With Prince focusing on what he’d actually record, and in what order, Johnson filled a drum machine with patterns that evoked current hip-hop, R&B, or the drum solos on obscure records compiled on the twenty-five volume series of “break-beat” albums from which many rap producers drew their own samples or loops. Prince could easily have handled this part himself but didn’t like setting up equipment. While plugging wires in, or adjusting sound levels, a song idea might leave.

  Prince focused on writing commercial R&B. And he didn’t fill his button-down beats with too many sounds. If anything, these new songs sounded as satiny, and uncontroversial as works by Chicago’s R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton, Mariah Carey, or Whitney Houston. He already had enough for an album, but kept working without a view toward ending. “We’d cut three or four songs in one day,” Johnson recalled.

  Then in mid-May, Prince flew to Los Angeles to play at Glam Slam. While out there, he also planned to meet with Ostin’s replacement Danny Goldberg. Before the meeting, he wondered if Goldberg would understand him and his music. To everyone’s surprise, the meeting resulted in a positive agreement: If Prince stopped disparaging the company publicly, Warner would release NPG’s Exodus and The Gold Experience on September 12. After the meeting, Prince told reporters he wasn’t bitter or angry. If anything, Mo Ostin let him release “The Most Beautiful Girl” as . “And I will love that man forever because of that.” And Warner? “I’m content with them.” He even backpedaled about why he wrote on his face. “I’m not a slave to Warner Brothers. It’s not there to embarrass Warners. Why would I do that? You gotta understand that. I don’t need to. It’s not about that. I’m not angry with them. It’s just there as a reminder.”

  But in June, he ruined things with an interview in South Beach, Miami. He left a car and quickly entered that city’s Glam Slam to film a video. Staring straight ahead, with “Slave” written in marker on his right cheek, he sat with Carolyn Baker, a Warner vice president of artist development, and two NPG members. Juli Knapp, director of operations, introduced him to an Esquire writer as “the artist formerly known as Prince.”

  During the interview, he told the writer his slave side would release The Gold Experience; his semifree side would credit Exodus to NPG; and his new self was already working on a big hidden album called Emancipation. The latter, the writer noted, “would be his first album when he is free—maybe fifty new songs.” Then he’d reemerge and speak to the press. His heart, “and perhaps his best work are in Emancipation,” the writer added. “This album is a big surprise to people at Warner. No one seems to know about it.”

  Some Warner employees were already complaining in the corridors about the Gold number “Pussy Control.” They felt the title was vulgar and suggested changing it before stores decided not to stock it on their shelves. But then, Esquire’s special autumn issue—with Prince on the cover—made the rounds. That he bewailed his contract and mentioned a fifty-cut Emancipation album he’d unveil after his departure had top executives saying he had reneged on a promise they alleged he had made to stop disparaging Warner in public, according to Alex Hahn.

  And so, without warning, Warner decided to take a firm stance: They wouldn’t release NPG’s Exodus.

  Prince was reportedly shocked. The cancellation came at a time when, Mayte’s bodyguard Arlene Mojica said, “We kept getting complaints from local tradesmen about bills not being paid.”

  In September, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls opened in American theaters. Warner let Verhoeven use Prince’s Gold numbers “319” and “Ripop-godazippa” in the MGM/United Artists film, but not on the soundtrack album.

  Four days later, Warner released The Gold Experience, which may have pleased Prince, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. His first album as had sat on a shelf since spring of 1994. It included his usual mix of randy R&B (“Billy Jack Bitch,” “P Control”), upbeat rock (“Dolphin,” “Endorphinmachine”), slow jams (“I Hate U,” “Shhh”), and a guitar-driven power ballad in the “Purple Rain” tradition (“Gold”). But Prince had little interest in promoting it.

  Critics mostly approved, describing his most reasoned, commercial and melodious work since Diamonds, but The Gold Experience sold just 530,000 copies in North America. And its release didn’t end his protests. When he bowed out of a scheduled appearance on Saturday Night Live, people accepted Prince had moved on. In his wake, some claimed he released Gold only to move one album closer to ending his contractual obligation.

  36

  SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL

  THAT WINTER, PRINCE WAS WORKING ALL NIGHT. HE WOKE AT four in the afternoon when the sky was dark, and never saw sunlight. Someone would drive him over to Paisley Park, where he likely worked on his mega-album, Emancipation. He wouldn’t return until seven in the morning. He skipped meals, employee Arlene Mojica recalled, some days consuming only a cup of rice. “Often nothing for three days.” He was also withdrawing into his personal relationship with young dancer Mayte Garcia.

  Prince continued to include her onstage—she danced and simulated fellatio—and on songs like “Pope,” another half-hearted dance-rap seemingly trying to compete with acts like Eric B. and Rakim. They spent their days and evenings together—and she had supported his decision to change his stage name (going so far as to sign a longwinded essay about it sent to fanzine Controversy). Now, trying to distance himself from Warner and his past few works, Prince began to work with Mayte on a solo album. Though people in his camp later said this was more his idea, not hers, Mayte went along with it, heeding his calls for more Prince-like vocals on songs like “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World” (a Spanish answer to his own recent hit).

  In November, he had released her solo album, Child of the Sun. She hoped to promote it, but he had other plans for the young performer. He proposed marriage in mid-December. Mayte accepted, and soon flashed a huge diamond ring to friends. Prince meanwhile looked forward to a big wedding in Paris.

  But even these developments couldn’t drown out the thoughts of Warner.

  Danny Goldberg had left the CEO position at Warner where he had only recently been installed. Prince’s old associate, Warner Bros. Records vice chair Russ Thyret, replaced him. It sounded like a promising development, but Prince was annoyed. And with good reason: “Mr. Ostin began the yearlong run of executive departures and dismissals at Warner Music when he resigned last August,” The New York Times explained. Since Ostin’s departure, Warner had created Warner Music U.S., a unit to administer their three American labels. Then, in June, Warner brought in Michael Fuchs, chairman of HBO, to supervise Warner Music U.S. According to The New York Times’s Lawrence Zuckerman, Fuchs fired Doug Morris, who ran Warner Bros. Records and two other domestic labels, by July. Now, Goldberg was the latest to leave, and the company promoted Thyret. Fuchs himself told The New York Times, “There is no longer a Warner Music unit.” Prince felt these time-wasting label mergers and the “revolving door of executives” were like “musical chairs or something.”

  So Prince leaped into creating a special with VHi to express annoyance with Warner. In this thirty-minute show, he sat in Paisley Park, taking over VHi’s airwaves. Just as a network host introduced a Madonna video, a bandmate shoved two wires together, causing the screen to fizzle. His appeared, followed by a video he created for NPG’s Exodus (which Warner, as a de facto retaliation for his bad-mouthing of the label, had cancelled). If they wouldn’t put out his music, he’d find a way to do it himself, his special seemed to suggest.

  This wasn’t enough. By December 22, he had Paisley Park issue another statement, officially notifying Warner that Prince wanted to leave due to irreconcilable differences. Warner couldn’t successfully promote certain acts due to an unstable business environment and high turnover on the supervisory level, it claimed. A Warner execut
ive publicly called the release one in a line Prince hoped would sway public opinion in his favor. Thyret meanwhile was already dealing with more executives resigning, and other major acts expressing unhappiness (including R.E.M.). “I’m not interested in getting into any side controversies that will distract me from moving this company forward,” he said. This included, he felt, Prince. Thyret decided that if Prince was so unhappy with the relationship, Warner would end it.

  It must have been a surprising turn, but Prince had his mind on other things. He was planning his wedding, and writing a string-heavy collection of pieces called Kamasutra. He also played shows in Japan, and recorded a song for Mayte, and Emancipation, called “Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/ Wife.”

  In February 1996, Prince and Mayte wed in a south Minneapolis church. The twenty-two-year-old walked down the aisle. He looked into her eyes as he slipped the five-carat wedding ring onto her finger. They flew to Hawaii for a honeymoon, and three weekend concerts at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena. He carried her across the threshold of their room. Two months earlier, Mayte had told a reporter she didn’t want to have a kid yet, but in the honeymoon suite, a crib was among the presents Prince offered. They both cried. She knelt near him and they both prayed.

  Then they did a show where Mayte danced for the last time.

  Prince wished he could have more time off. But he had to end things with Warner. He was seeking a lawyer. Meanwhile, Mayte bought a pregnancy test from a pharmacy, employee Arlene Mojica recalled, and learned she was pregnant. Prince was delighted and, in characteristic fashion, began writing about it.