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Commentary: Prince, Michael Jackson and James Brown on stage together was a moment we didn’t deserve
Prince performs on Dec. 25, 1984, at the St. Paul Civic Center in Minnesota.
(Genna Souffle / Minneapolis Star Tribune)
By DEXTER THOMAS
APRIL 21, 2016
3:40 PM
I’m getting real sick of these phone calls.
When James Brown died, I went back to my apartment, took a deep breath, and called my father. I called him again when Michael Jackson died. And when Maurice White died. I did it again today when I heard about Prince. I left work to make the call.
Somehow, those phone calls have become a tradition. Maybe it’s morbid. But I feel like if my father is going to hear about a family member passing, it should be from me. We leaned on these great black artists, our extended family members, to fill in the gaps in education that I wasn’t getting in school. The history, the art, the soul that I wasn’t getting in the classroom, they gave me.
That’s not to say that I was the biggest Prince fan. In fact, the only Prince record I actually owned was the "Batman" soundtrack, even though I’d never seen the movie. But I knew he was a genius.
My favorite Prince memory actually came in college, when I found a grainy video of a 1983 James Brown concert where the Godfather of Soul invited Michael Jackson on stage, who then invited Prince. What results is a brief flash of black divinity, even if the people in the room didn’t realize it at the time.
James Brown clearly respected Michael Jackson as a musician and took no small amount of pride in being his musical mentor. So when Jackson goes up and whispers in James Brown’s ear, Brown trusts him. He addresses the crowd: “Give him a big round of applause, because he just insisted that I introduce Prince!”
James Brown doesn’t seem to know anything about Prince, but he takes Jackson’s word for it. Eventually, this “Prince” fellow makes his way through the crowd and gets on stage.
Brown offers him the center stage, after offering his blessing:
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
Prince does something. He takes a guitar from one of the band members, talks to the bass player. The horns drop out, the bass player gives him some room. Prince plays a few licks. He’s restrained. No melody, just rhythm.
Then, the music starts.
Prince gets down on the floor. Closes his eyes. Holds the guitar between his legs. The phallic intent is obvious. He only touches the strings one time after this, but that is because he didn’t get up there to play the guitar. He got up there to play the room.
This is why Jackson brought him on stage. He’s in a lane that Jackson doesn’t need to enter. They are both sons of James Brown, but Prince inherited the attitude. And a lot of the funk. They’ll be rivals later, but right now, I imagine that Michael is watching Prince like Serena watches Venus. Appreciating poetry at work, as only a fellow poet can.
Prince takes his shirt off. Women (and men) scream. He approaches the mic, like looking like he’s either going to punch it or make love to it. Maybe both. He flips the mic around. He’s obviously cribbing from James Brown, but there’s some Bruce Lee in there, too. He’s showboating. He shouldn’t be. He’s a young punk, acting like a rock star (he is one), crashing the Godfather’s concert. It’s disrespectful. It’s Prince.
Prince shrieks, wordlessly.
Everything that’s happening in those silent moments is music. Everything is rhythm. He tries to get the crowd to clap with him. You are the instrument, he’s telling them. Play with me. Make music. They don’t seem to understand. Prince looks frustrated, maybe embarrassed. Prince wants to leave.
And then, infamously, he does. Prince swings off the light post, knocking it over, toward the audience. Disappears back into the crowd. Not a word of thanks or appreciation to James Brown or Michael Jackson.
I’ve read a few accounts of this night. Among the best are a hilarious play-by-play by Rembert Browne, and a breakdown by someone on Reddit who apparently took a class on Prince, and says Brown didn’t like Prince’s performance, which I understand. His appearance is even edited out of a recording of the concert. Because by most standards, and maybe Prince’s own, it’s an absolute failure of a performance. But it’s still absolutely magical.
Make no mistake – James Brown was a weird dude. So was Michael Jackson. But Prince, especially on that stage, was positively otherworldly. And having those three on stage together, even for just a moment, was greatness that I’m not sure we deserved.
Watching it again, there’s something about James Brown’s words that stick with me.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
Prince was one of the first to pick up the Linn drum machines. Those sounds on "1999"? That’s something nobody was doing yet, at least not like Prince. He looked at new technology as another instrument, not a threat.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
Prince got annoyed with production duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for getting caught in a snowstorm, and fired them from a tour. That story, along with those producers, then became legendary. Who can afford, artistically, to fire a pair of geniuses? Answer: a genius.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
If anyone was going to control things, it was going to be him. Warner Brothers tried to control him, so he changed his name to a symbol. Then back again. Then, years later, he got annoyed with the music industry as a whole, and gave his album away with the newspaper.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
He got on stage at the Grammys, and slyly put in a reference to Black Lives Matter.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
He understood gender as a construct. For him it was fluid. An expression. Which too many of us still don’t get.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
He turned the “this could be us but you playing” meme into an actual song. When he wanted to, Prince had jokes. That basketball story that Charlie Murphy told on "Chappelle’s Show"? He loved it, and confirmed that it was true.
Prince did a lot of things.
You can say a lot about Prince – about his music, his personality, his strained relationship with the media and the outside world. Maybe you didn’t like his recent music. I didn’t. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to say what a fellow musician says when they’ve just witnessed greatness on the stage, even if they don’t quite get it:
That man did something up there.
Prince performs on Dec. 25, 1984, at the St. Paul Civic Center in Minnesota.
(Genna Souffle / Minneapolis Star Tribune)
By DEXTER THOMAS
APRIL 21, 2016
3:40 PM
I’m getting real sick of these phone calls.
When James Brown died, I went back to my apartment, took a deep breath, and called my father. I called him again when Michael Jackson died. And when Maurice White died. I did it again today when I heard about Prince. I left work to make the call.
Somehow, those phone calls have become a tradition. Maybe it’s morbid. But I feel like if my father is going to hear about a family member passing, it should be from me. We leaned on these great black artists, our extended family members, to fill in the gaps in education that I wasn’t getting in school. The history, the art, the soul that I wasn’t getting in the classroom, they gave me.
That’s not to say that I was the biggest Prince fan. In fact, the only Prince record I actually owned was the "Batman" soundtrack, even though I’d never seen the movie. But I knew he was a genius.
My favorite Prince memory actually came in college, when I found a grainy video of a 1983 James Brown concert where the Godfather of Soul invited Michael Jackson on stage, who then invited Prince. What results is a brief flash of black divinity, even if the people in the room didn’t realize it at the time.
James Brown clearly respected Michael Jackson as a musician and took no small amount of pride in being his musical mentor. So when Jackson goes up and whispers in James Brown’s ear, Brown trusts him. He addresses the crowd: “Give him a big round of applause, because he just insisted that I introduce Prince!”
James Brown doesn’t seem to know anything about Prince, but he takes Jackson’s word for it. Eventually, this “Prince” fellow makes his way through the crowd and gets on stage.
Brown offers him the center stage, after offering his blessing:
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
Prince does something. He takes a guitar from one of the band members, talks to the bass player. The horns drop out, the bass player gives him some room. Prince plays a few licks. He’s restrained. No melody, just rhythm.
Then, the music starts.
Prince gets down on the floor. Closes his eyes. Holds the guitar between his legs. The phallic intent is obvious. He only touches the strings one time after this, but that is because he didn’t get up there to play the guitar. He got up there to play the room.
This is why Jackson brought him on stage. He’s in a lane that Jackson doesn’t need to enter. They are both sons of James Brown, but Prince inherited the attitude. And a lot of the funk. They’ll be rivals later, but right now, I imagine that Michael is watching Prince like Serena watches Venus. Appreciating poetry at work, as only a fellow poet can.
Prince takes his shirt off. Women (and men) scream. He approaches the mic, like looking like he’s either going to punch it or make love to it. Maybe both. He flips the mic around. He’s obviously cribbing from James Brown, but there’s some Bruce Lee in there, too. He’s showboating. He shouldn’t be. He’s a young punk, acting like a rock star (he is one), crashing the Godfather’s concert. It’s disrespectful. It’s Prince.
Prince shrieks, wordlessly.
Everything that’s happening in those silent moments is music. Everything is rhythm. He tries to get the crowd to clap with him. You are the instrument, he’s telling them. Play with me. Make music. They don’t seem to understand. Prince looks frustrated, maybe embarrassed. Prince wants to leave.
And then, infamously, he does. Prince swings off the light post, knocking it over, toward the audience. Disappears back into the crowd. Not a word of thanks or appreciation to James Brown or Michael Jackson.
I’ve read a few accounts of this night. Among the best are a hilarious play-by-play by Rembert Browne, and a breakdown by someone on Reddit who apparently took a class on Prince, and says Brown didn’t like Prince’s performance, which I understand. His appearance is even edited out of a recording of the concert. Because by most standards, and maybe Prince’s own, it’s an absolute failure of a performance. But it’s still absolutely magical.
Make no mistake – James Brown was a weird dude. So was Michael Jackson. But Prince, especially on that stage, was positively otherworldly. And having those three on stage together, even for just a moment, was greatness that I’m not sure we deserved.
Watching it again, there’s something about James Brown’s words that stick with me.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
Prince was one of the first to pick up the Linn drum machines. Those sounds on "1999"? That’s something nobody was doing yet, at least not like Prince. He looked at new technology as another instrument, not a threat.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
Prince got annoyed with production duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for getting caught in a snowstorm, and fired them from a tour. That story, along with those producers, then became legendary. Who can afford, artistically, to fire a pair of geniuses? Answer: a genius.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
If anyone was going to control things, it was going to be him. Warner Brothers tried to control him, so he changed his name to a symbol. Then back again. Then, years later, he got annoyed with the music industry as a whole, and gave his album away with the newspaper.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
He got on stage at the Grammys, and slyly put in a reference to Black Lives Matter.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
He understood gender as a construct. For him it was fluid. An expression. Which too many of us still don’t get.
“Prince, you gotta do something.”
He turned the “this could be us but you playing” meme into an actual song. When he wanted to, Prince had jokes. That basketball story that Charlie Murphy told on "Chappelle’s Show"? He loved it, and confirmed that it was true.
Prince did a lot of things.
You can say a lot about Prince – about his music, his personality, his strained relationship with the media and the outside world. Maybe you didn’t like his recent music. I didn’t. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to say what a fellow musician says when they’ve just witnessed greatness on the stage, even if they don’t quite get it:
That man did something up there.
That Time Prince Menaced Michael Jackson By Playing "Aggressive Slap Bass" In His Face - Maxim
"Why do you think Prince was playing bass in my face?" an angry MJ later asked.
www.maxim.com
THAT TIME PRINCE MENACED MICHAEL JACKSON BY PLAYING "AGGRESSIVE SLAP BASS" IN HIS FACE
"Why do you think Prince was playing bass in my face?" an angry MJ later asked.
CHRIS WILSONUPDATED
EC 14, 2015ORIGINAL:OCT 7, 2015Michael Jackson and Prince had one of the most epic rivalries in pop music history. When MJ moonwalked his way to instant legend status with the mega-sellingThriller, Prince answered back with 1984's multi-platinum Purple Rain soundtrack and the Oscar-winning movie. And that was just the beginning.
Beyond just who was the more historically important hitmaker, we've also reckoned with such enduring questions as, "zipper-accented red leather jacket or ruffled purple blouse?" Do we prefer our chosen musical icon skewered via Eddie Murphy stand-up set, or Charlie Murphy Chappelle Show skit? It all depended on whether you backed Team Michael or Team Prince.
But despite rich documentation of their beef, including this detailed Vibeoral history, there are still some delightful surprises to be found. The new book, MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson , includes one particularly amazing example of the rivalry coming to a head in 2006, when Prince menaced the King of Pop by playing "aggressive slap bass" in his face at a Las Vegas concert.
This winning anecdote is brought to us courtesy of an Esquire interview with the author, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper, who recalls how Black Eyed Peas ringleader and Jackson collaborator will.i.am got caught in the middle of a bizarre showdown between the two arch-rivals.
"Nobody really quite knows the full extent of their rivalry, and I think both of those guys had an interest in keeping it somewhat mysterious because they are both mysterious dudes," Knopper tells writer Dan Hyman.
"But when Prince was doing his Vegas residency around late 2006, Michael was living in Vegas. Will was a guest artist at the Prince residency, but he was also friends with Michael. So Will arranged it for Michael to be a guest in the audience at Prince's show. No one knew it really, but Prince knew it.
"There was a point during the show where Prince was playing bass and he came out into the audience with this giant bass—he knew where Michael was sitting—and he walked right up to Michael and started playing bass in Michael's face. Like aggressive slap bass."
"The next morning, Will went over to Michael's house for breakfast, and they're talking about Prince and the show. And then Michael goes, 'Will, why do you think Prince was playing bass in my face?'
"Michael was outraged. And then started going on. 'Prince has always been a meanie. He's just a big meanie. He's always been not nice to me. Everybody says Prince is this great legendary Renaissance man and I'm just a song-and-dance man, but I wrote "Billie Jean" and I wrote "We Are the World" and I'm a songwriter too.'"
"All this disrespect for Prince came out from Michael that morning. One day, I hope Prince sits down and tells the truth about everything between him and Michael. Before I die, I want to know what the full deal was between the two of them."
Nurse Lori Marie Key Sings ‘Amazing Grace’ at COVID-19 Memorial
By Charu Sinha@charulatasinha
Prior to tomorrow’s inauguration day festivities, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris attended a much more somber ceremony on Tuesday night at the Lincoln Memorial. A national memorial ceremony was held to honor the 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19, represented by 400 lights illuminated around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. “It’s hard sometimes to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation,” Biden said at the start of the ceremony. The archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, delivered the invocation, and gospel singer Yolanda Adams performed “Hallelujah.” Harris also delivered brief remarks, calling the ceremony a chance to “begin healing together.” She then introduced Michigan nurse Lori Marie Key, who performed “Amazing Grace.” “Working as a COVID nurse was heartbreaking,” Key said. “But when I’m at work, I sing. It gives me strength during difficult times and I believe it helps heal.”
Forgotten Sports History: When the Black Super Bowl MVP was NOT invited to Disneyland but the White QB was
https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-xpm-20030205-2003-02-05-0302050060-story.html MVP DOESN'T ALWAYS GO TO DISNEYLAND PERNELL WATSON Daily PressDaily Press Privacy Policy Q:Why didn't Super Bowl MVP Dexter Jackson get the Disneyland commercial? I thought the MVP always says, "I'm going to...
www.bgol.us
10 Breakthrough Women Artists As Polled By Black-Owned Art Galleries
Black women artists, in recent years, have been receiving more acclaim than they have in the past. But they are still largely unrecognized for their contributions to visual art
Rest In Peace Hank Aaron; passed away this morning at age 86
2021 is not to be outdone by 2020. 86 is a good run but still.... :sad: Rest In Peace to the GOAT.
www.bgol.us
While Bernie’s memes and Amy Klobuchar’s emceeing did make waves on the internet, everyone knows there was only one true star of Wednesday’s inauguration: Amanda Gorman. The 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate, who read her inspiring poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration, appeared on The Late Late Show on Thursday, leaving Americans across the country with one question: Now how in the hell did James Corden book this? While Corden is affable and funny and as charismatic as Klobuchar is wooden, he is not our most politically inclined late-night host, so it was somewhat surprising that he ended up booking the breakout star of the inauguration and not, say, Stephen Colbert or Seth Meyers. Within the first few seconds of the interview, Gorman, who continued her streak of serving up incredible lewks on The Late Show, answered our question. “I am amazing,” she told Corden, “I am ten times better because I am talking to you. You’re like my favorite human being ever created.” And there we have it. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given Gorman’s well-documented admiration of Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Venn diagram of people who love Hamilton and people who love “Carpool Karaoke” is a perfect circle.
Elsewhere in the interview, Gorman revealed that her phone has been “on fire” since the big event, and that her poem was bigger than herself. “It was a personal honor for me to be an inaugural poet, to be the youngest, but I think it was something beyond that, beyond myself,” she said. “A moment for the country, for the world to really move forward.” Gorman also was funny and down-to-earth, talking about how she asked her mom for a new phone after her big moment (“You have to capitalize on these days with your mother”) and how she didn’t want her mom to cry while they stood next to J.Lo. She also did a pretty solid Barack Obama impression at the end of the interview, confirming that she is, in fact, the real deal. To end, Corden asked Gorman if she’d one day like to be president, to which she responded “planning on it.” This gives me pause, only because I genuinely think Gorman is too cool and funny and smart for the job, but hey, if she wants the gig, then she should go for it.
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