What was the reaction of your parents when they first heard the likes of "Darling Nikki" and "Erotic City" etc blasting through your bedroom door when you were young. Did they go ape shit or were they cool with it?

My mom was a lover of all kinds of music and she passed that on to me. She liked Prince from the beginning because she respected his musicianship. What she did not appreciate was all his over the top antics over the years. We used to have long conversations about him because she wanted to understand why I was so nuts about him. She loved anything to do with music and musicians, so it wasn't that hard to convince her. One day while we were watching him perform Purple Rain on the Syracuse video, all of a sudden, she "got it". Just like that, she finally understood what I saw in him. She said, I always knew that boy was special."

Her favorite albums were The Vault and TRC and the RRHOF performance blew her away. She was so proud of him that night.

She passed away 7 months ago. We were best friends and used to share everything including Prince. Anything he did, no matter how small I would always tell her about it before anyone else and sometimes when we talked she'd ask, "so how's Prince?", like he was family or something.

She was so special and so understanding. Just the fact that I loved him was enough for her to take an interest and she ended up becoming a bigger fan herself. I only regret that we never went to a show together before she died.

I had the best Mom in the world...she was one of a kind.

It’s a long story when it concerns my parents because I was partially raised by my grandmother on my mother’s side. She kept me every weekend, all summer long, and every holiday. In other words, the only reason I lived at home with my parents was to go to school. My grandmother lived on one side of town and my parents lived on another (in another school district). If school was out for any reason, I was at my grandmother’s house.

Anyway, my grandmother bought me all my records growing up to keep me entertained while I was staying with her. My stereo and all my records remained at her house and at home I had a boom box and homemade tapes that I had made off my stereo. The reason is, my father, who I have not spoken to since I graduated high school in 1985, is the most racist bastard I have ever seen in my entire life. If my records (which are 99 percent R&B) had been at home, he would have destroyed them. He was so racist that me and my siblings could be watching reruns of “Three’s Company” after school (a show that does not have one black person on it) and he would have a problem with that. Why? Because there would be commercials for black gospel albums during the show. He would come in and say “What are those niggers doing on that TV?” I would say “That is a commercial, we are watching Three’s Company”. He would make us turn off the TV until the commercial went off and turn it back on again when the show came back on.

Now that you know the background, now to the Prince part. When I first saw Prince on “American Bandstand”, I didn’t know what color he was and didn’t care. My grandmother bought me my first Prince album “Dirty Mind” and when she saw the album cover and the name “Prince”, she thought he was Freddie Prinze. I’m just telling you this so you can see how people can easily be fooled by race if it’s not a big issue to them. You’ll understand later when I get to my father’s reaction.

As far as my mother is concerned, she listened to radio period. Whether it was pop, R&B, or country, she listened to it all. However, that’s all she did was listen. She wasn’t into music enough to go out and buy the songs that she liked and she really didn’t know who sang which songs. All she knew was she liked the songs. She liked a few Prince songs such as “Controversy”, “1999”, and “When Doves Cry”. She really didn’t have a problem with Prince except for one time. She wanted me to make her a tape and she was looking through my records and came across the “Controversy” album because she liked the song. She threw an absolute fit when she read the song titles such as “Sexuality”, “Do Me, Baby” and especially “Jack U Off”. Other than the nastiness, she had no problem with Prince whatsoever and I never heard a bad word come out of her mouth about him once I became an adult.

Now for my father’s reaction. The only music he listened to was country and classical. He hated rock music because he considered it “white people’s nigger music”. As far as R&B music was concerned, his term was “nigger noise”. Anyway, one Saturday I was at home because I was going skating that evening which let out at 1 a.m. (too late for my grandmother to take me) and my mother was going to drive me and pick me up afterwards. That Saturday, Prince was scheduled to appear on “Solid Gold” and I was not going to miss that. I was telling my sister about it and she said “You know he will raise hell if he sees it”. I said “Fuck him, he won’t know what color Prince is. He’ll think he’s white”. Anyway, when the show came on, my father walked into the room right in the middle of Prince’s performance. He immediately said “What’s that nigger doing on that TV”. I said “He’s white”. He said “You dumb ass, you don’t know a nigger when you see one. Not only is he a nigger but he’s a queer also”. I thought to myself “Well, you can’t fool a racist bastard”.

Anyway, that’s my story if you bothered to read all of it. Hey, you asked.
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[Edited 7/20/06 8:51am]

goosebumps said:

I was singing the lyrics to Darling Nikki way before I even knew what Masturbating meant - and I just so happened to be walking past my dad in the kitchen at that Crucial point in the song - he nearly fell over with shock - 3 years later I nearly died of shame realising what Id done all those years ago

cringetime..

I was looking through my mother's scrapbook and saw her marriage certificate. I noticed I was born 8 months later. I excitedly asked my mother "Mama, were you pregnant by another man before you were married!?" She said "No, you were born a month early". I said "Damn!".

The bastard's my real father though. I have his stubborness.....just in a totally opposite direction.

Se7enkisses said:

Hey that was quite a touching story, u see i'm a 22 year old white female from the uk, and i don't even know my real dad, but when i was five my mum remarried to a black guy (best dad in the world), it was my dad that got me into prince, hell he took me to my first concert when i was 11, i remember to this day how excited i was, he kept pretending he hadn't got the tickets and i was crying, then laughed, picked me up and told me we were going, i made this huge prince banner saying how much i loved him, but no way was my dad holding that with me so i couldn't take it!! hell i wasn't bothered i was going seeing prince. just letting you know, isn't it mad how some people are!
And I think it was nice for you to share that.

much love

My mom was a lover of all kinds of music and she passed that on to me. She liked Prince from the beginning because she respected his musicianship. What she did not appreciate was all his over the top antics over the years. We used to have long conversations about him because she wanted to understand why I was so nuts about him. She loved anything to do with music and musicians, so it wasn't that hard to convince her. One day while we were watching him perform Purple Rain on the Syracuse video, all of a sudden, she "got it". Just like that, she finally understood what I saw in him. She said, I always knew that boy was special."

Her favorite albums were The Vault and TRC and the RRHOF performance blew her away. She was so proud of him that night.

She passed away 7 months ago. We were best friends and used to share everything including Prince. Anything he did, no matter how small I would always tell her about it before anyone else and sometimes when we talked she'd ask, "so how's Prince?", like he was family or something.

She was so special and so understanding. Just the fact that I loved him was enough for her to take an interest and she ended up becoming a bigger fan herself. I only regret that we never went to a show together before she died.

I had the best Mom in the world...she was one of a kind.

If I weren't for my parents I probably wouldn't even have discovered Prince until much later in the game...I used to dig thru my dad's crates as a kid and play Prince records and he laugh and say, "You like that stuff, huh?" Recently I was watchin' music videos and the Mountains video came on and he was like, "Man, I like Prince, but summa the stuff he wears makes me think he's a little..." and then he makes a face and shakes his hand like Fred does on Sanford & Son.

My mom was the one who was absolutely GUNG-HO about seeing P in concert on the Musicology tour, she was like, "There's no way we can't go to this." Otherwise, she's not a huge fan like me, lol

And I might as well share this lil story...
I was driving home from work yesterday with my mom and "Let's Work" starts playin' on the radio...nothing really special, we usually listen to the R&B station's rush hour "Traffic Jam" and they usually play one Prince joint or another. So I'm kinda hummin' along and tapping my fingers and whatnot and all of a sudden my mom says to me,

"You know...always be true to yourself. Always be yourself."
And I'm like, "Huh?"
She says, "Just be who you are inside no matter what... like how you love Prince. Don't stop liking Prince just because you meet someone who doesn't like Prince or doesn't think he's cool. You're a cool kid, don't ever change."



So yeah. They're down with Prince.
[Edited 7/20/06 14:59pm]

Thank you.

My mother had black men on the side since the late 1970s. When she divorced my father in the mid 1980s, she continued dating black men. The funny thing is, as prejudiced as my father was/is, both my sisters married black men and have interracial children. Hell, I've had enough black sexual partners myself to start an episode of "Soul Train". Of course, my father doesn't know any of that because no one speaks to him anymore.

babynoz said:

LOL, great stories Andy. I guess it's better that he don't know or he might shoot the lot of you!

How comes all of you went the opposite of him anyway??

I don't worry about his ass any more. Hell, I never did worry about his ass. I did as I pleased and was friends with whoever I pleased and flaunted it in his face. That's why we used to fight so much.

They used to worry about his ass. When my first nephew was born, I wanted to send him a picture in the mail just to piss him off. My mother told me if I did, she would never speak to me again. They were worried he might do something crazy. I never had thought about that but they might have been right. He's in his 70s now and too damn old to do anything.




I was in private school (all white) until the sixth grade. All of a sudden, one day, I heard my father say "These damn niggers are moving in closer, we're getting out of this city". We moved to the suburbs where I was put in a public school which was about 75% white and 25% black. It was 1978 and the disco era was going on strong. I found myself having a ball with the black kids at the skating rink that year and became friends with them in school. I thought to myself "What is so bad about these people. Hell, they treat me better than these white kids do and they really know how to have a good time". Disco died and funk was the closest thing to it so the black music thing continued on with me. Being friends with the black kids pissed the white kids off (this was The South). They hated me for it and I was every "nigger lover" name in the book from the seventh grade until graduating the twelth grade.

As for the rest of them, I guess my sisters were just doing as they saw their mother doing. They also kept their dates a secret. I'm sure they had seen what I had gone through strictly from only being friends with black people. Them being secretive did used to piss me off though because they wanted to have the fun but not face the discrimination which I did head on and with a severe attitude (I'm a Prince fan you know ). Speaking of Prince, he was the biggest influence in my life during these years and the one that gave me strength. He was a real bitch that didn't give a damn what anyone thought and I loved him for it. I was also battling my sexuality at that time too (something I never admitted or came out to myself until 1990 but I always carried myself like a real strong bitch before and after then and had Prince to thank for that).

They are all open with the world now. Of course, they're adults now. We don't argue anymore but if we ever did, I would be quick to tell them "I was the pioneer....I'm Teena Marie bitch!"
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[Edited 7/21/06 12:47pm]

I remember my dad was like in LOVE with Kim Basinger so when he read in the paper that she was living in Minneapolis with Prince he was shocked.

I don't worry about his ass any more. Hell, I never did worry about his ass. I did as I pleased and was friends with whoever I pleased and flaunted it in his face. That's why we used to fight so much.

They used to worry about his ass. When my first nephew was born, I wanted to send him a picture in the mail just to piss him off. My mother told me if I did, she would never speak to me again. They were worried he might do something crazy. I never had thought about that but they might have been right. He's in his 70s now and too damn old to do anything.




I was in private school (all white) until the sixth grade. All of a sudden, one day, I heard my father say "These damn niggers are moving in closer, we're getting out of this city". We moved to the suburbs where I was put in a public school which was about 75% white and 25% black. It was 1978 and the disco era was going on strong. I found myself having a ball with the black kids at the skating rink that year and became friends with them in school. I thought to myself "What is so bad about these people. Hell, they treat me better than these white kids do and they really know how to have a good time". Disco died and funk was the closest thing to it so the black music thing continued on with me. Being friends with the black kids pissed the white kids off (this was The South). They hated me for it and I was every "nigger lover" name in the book from the seventh grade until graduating the twelth grade.

As for the rest of them, I guess my sisters were just doing as they saw their mother doing. They also kept their dates a secret. I'm sure they had seen what I had gone through strictly from only being friends with black people. Them being secretive did used to piss me off though because they wanted to have the fun but not face the discrimination which I did head on and with a severe attitude (I'm a Prince fan you know ). Speaking of Prince, he was the biggest influence in my life during these years and the one that gave me strength. He was a real bitch that didn't give a damn what anyone thought and I loved him for it. I was also battling my sexuality at that time too (something I never admitted or came out to myself until 1990 but I always carried myself like a real strong bitch before and after then and had Prince to thank for that).

They are all open with the world now. Of course, they're adults now. We don't argue anymore but if we ever did, I would be quick to tell them "I was the pioneer....I'm Teena Marie bitch!"
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[Edited 7/21/06 12:47pm]