Marrk said:

if he was solely after 'bank' though, would he have taken such a different direction that many of us noticed when Lovesexy came out...he has always had a battle between the flesh and his spiritual side, but i think that the latter has dominance in the type of music he makes now

Of course Prince is not a Bigot against all white people. But he certainly is towards record and radio executives and 'All the Haters on the internet', they are always WHITE people. don't believe me look around at HQ and in here.
[Edited 5/24/09 4:55am]

I don't know when that time could have been Mylawd, because Prince has always sang out about social injustices, listen to 'Ronnie talk to Russia' on Controversy!!

Dayclear said:

What!?

Most of his fans are white, whether you, me or him like it or not. go to his gigs. that's a damn fact.

Black folks who think he should have a baseball cap on backwards and not be himself are haters, not those that respect him for being himself.

His words, not mine.

I don't really listen to the Rainbow Children much, honestly. The deep 'darth vador' narration is just terribly irritating to me. One thing I've always hated in movies is when inner dialogue is spoken out loud by a character, almost patronizing the audience for being to stupid to figure out the emotional impact of a scene---or maybe showing the lack of confidence in an actor to pull of the nuances of a scene in such a way that the audience will not need the actual narration.
I feel the same way about music. It should not need to be narrated if it's a concept album. It should not need endless dialogue in it's interludes and segues (and thankful Prince had to cut out much of that on the symbol album during the early 90s). Trent Reznor's first concept album, The Downward Spiral is a perfect example of a concept album that takes you on a journey through the devolving mind of a person without the need to narrate the way through it. The songs and material speak for themselves.

And this is not the say the Rainbow Children didn't have the material. It certainly did . Yet, many of the songs are way too long and almost put me half to sleep, most of this is due to my lack of interest in the ways he blended the genres chosen together in this album--and not because the material wasn't strong. Indeed, The Rainbow Children was a refreshing break from his plastic years and sounds as organic as his NPG Club releases sounded pre-packaged and bland.

That being said, much of the message in the Rainbow Children got lost in the mix for me. Where Kevin Smith speaks of groups of people at Paisley Park ( during one of those weird cultish 'celebrations') speaking of their distaste in some of the racial and patriarchal themes presented in the albums, I got no sense of this.

To me, all I gathered from the album was that there were banished ones reading shit in 'skagazines' , banished into a digital garden were Akashic records and shit are mentioned when blacks lost their family name before everybody comes together in the name of the father in his last fucking December!!! x 1 billion

And I dread the idea of listening to this thing all the way through again, so can somebody fill me in?

Is this album angry or hateful?
Is it sexist?
And is there bigotry in it?


Please present evidence or examples. Don't just give it a scathing review cause you're pissed at Prince, or a glowing review cause you want to lick his 50 year old ass.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You will be judged by your actions and not your intentions. You may have
a heart of gold, but so does an egg.

3 weeks and counting...


[Edited 5/23/09 22:41pm]

Imago said:

Dunno. Just wanted to say that you spelled 'Darth Vader' wrong.

Dayclear said:

okay, you're right...i guess specifically what i wanted to say...and i hate to say it now, but there was a time when Prince and issues related to the so-called black community were poles apart...he was criticised for not really using dark-skinned women in vids, his accent...whereas now, he appears to have taken greater pride in the 'black' side of his being...

perhaps that's what it is...some folks might miss Prince the humanist where he wished he was nude and there was no black or white...as opposed to blackness which appears to have entered his output

what can we do though, y'all? perhaps Prince will make a full-circle and come back to the 1ness theme of all (not that his consciousness as a descendant of Africa is a negative thang)

*listening to Ur Gonna C Me (I love this song)

i was actually at paisley park when i first heard this album during a listening party. i remember actually feeling shocked as i read along in the lyrics sheet . .

although the music is rocking, the lyrics caused . . a kind of division among the fans from the get-go. imo the lyrics are angry, sexist and bigoted. it's not a work i listen to and for me it marked a departure. it felt like old style prince left us around then and never returned.

TRC was released in 2001, around the time of real-life joy in repetition in the form of"those two songs" and if you were at the parties back then you know what i'm talking about and what that symbolized. so, for a bunch of reasons TRC is really not one of my favorite albums...

MyLawd said:

I'm often conflicted about this issue. I have no problem with someone discovering their roots, or even changing their mind. (ie many 60s era "i have a dream" types have basically given up and prefer a more segregated approach). The real problem is that, since about 1990 when Prince puts is on, it sounds so damn fake. (Reminds me of Tego Calderon saying "...and let me say, your spanglish is so fake, abochórnate o véndete como macy gray").

On a different note, TRC is an example of the zealousness of the recently converted/enlightened. The man never went to college and probably was too busy playing music and chasing girls in HS to pay attention in class. So now at the age of 50, he sits in interview and says the most ridiculous things and in his songs now, often shows arrogance and intolerance. I was at the celebrations and the lyrics literally made people cry and then Prince had the gall to say that the lyrics were a "mirror" and you saw what you wanted to see. Please. Only so many ways you can interpret "the other people's news".....demonification of the "Other" is textbook racism 101.
[Edited 5/24/09 6:45am]

Of course Prince is not a Bigot against all white people. But he certainly is towards record and radio executives and 'All the Haters on the internet', they are always WHITE people. don't believe me look around at HQ and in here.
[Edited 5/24/09 4:55am]

To compare immigrants who came to America of their own will to Africans who came as slaves is a flawed and perpetually dangerous analogy. Immigrants were never sub-human, which means that they never suffered certain legal and psychological damages that are still perpetuated in the African American community, such as self hate as manifest in good and bad hair debates as well as the continued schism between light and dark members of the race. However, it is true that African tribes did work with white slavers to capture other African tribes, but we don't have time to discuss how Africa is the largest continent with more diversity in cultures and languages than any other continent so we should not view African people as a monolith and we don't have time to discuss how the second wave of European conquest set into motion African tribal warfare. (I find it interesting that it is "tribal warfare" when Fox News is discussing turmoil in Africa, but it is never "tribal warfare" when Fox News is discussing war between whites in Europe. This use of language is more psychological warfare.) Also, I always find it interesting that when African people discuss history or seek to get at the truth of history it is called embracing a victim's mentality or trying to divide people. There is no way that humanity can build a better future if we ignore history. As for Lincoln, which has been debated hundreds of times on this site and Housequake, he did not free the slaves because he wanted Africans to be first-class citizens; he freed the slaves as a military strategy because the South was winning the war due to the free "slave" labor. Remember, Lincoln did not free slaves in states that did not secede so in truth Lincoln did not end or abolish slavery. It was the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery, but the Thirteenth Amendment only ended slavery; it did not make African Americans citizens--and so on and so forth with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Thus, the point of "Avalanche" seems to be that one must look critically at history to know from where one has come, what battles one has fought, and to learn what solutions worked and did not work so that one can craft a better strategy for the future rather than allow someone to control you with lies.

Of course the constant refrain of needing an accurate understanding of knowledge throughout TRC has a double meaning for both Jehovah's Witnesses as well as Black Nationalists. For Jehovah's Witnesses, the goal is to witness the truth of God's message to the world so to prepare the world for God's Kingdom, which will destroy all of man's flawed kingdoms. This is their primary and exclusive mission, which is why they don't vote. For Black Nationalists, the goal is to retrain African people from what they see as a people taught to hate themselves, which makes them better slaves or servants. As Carter G. Woodson, who was not a Black Nationalist, asserts in his book, The Miseducation of the Negro, "black people are taught to hate themselves by the eleventh grade" because by then they are taught the accomplishments of all other races but themselves. Now, to some it may seem contradictory for Prince to weave JW and BN beliefs, but liberation theology (using religion to address socio-political issues), which is not exclusive to African people (David does this in "Psalm 23" and it is found throughout the Old Testament) has been a major part of the Civil Rights Movement, dating to the Abolitionist Movement with Frederick Douglass. And since Prince was mixing sex and religion as early as Dirty Mind, I always find it strange that more fans didn't see his embracing of some traditional religion coming for years. We tend to forget that the song, "The Second Coming," was played just before the band began "Uptown" during the Dirty Mind tour.

As for sexism, TRC is only sexist if one thinks that the Christian Bible is sexist, and many do. So, as with everything else, how one sees that point is based on one's background and personal beliefs.

As for the racism, I can see where whites could think that some of the statements are racist. I don't believe in telling anyone what they should feel. However, I often wonder if these same people who are offend by Prince's language understand the perpetuation of a race's inferiority by a language that views everything "black" as bad: blackmail, blackball, even black day of which Prince, himself, is guilty of using in "The Cross." So one could read into Prince's statements of the pale or banished ones as an act of what Mercer Cook called "Linguistic Liberation" where African people attempt to reverse language/words that perpetuate their inferiority. Keep in mind that many white supremacists used the mark of Cain theory to mistreat African people. However, it seems that Prince is probably using more BN rhetoric, or extreme BN rhetoric, that views whiteness as the absence of color as well as the absence of nutrients. Thus, bleach turns everything white because it is killing everything, brown sugar has more nutrients than white sugar, and wheat bread is healthier than white bread because white bread is overly processed bread. Thus, as an artistic act of linguistic liberation, some BN view whiteness as a metaphor for the negativity suffered by civilizations of color when coming into contact with whites. Of course the question is how much of this would Prince know from his own reading or exposure. While one can argue that the language on TRC is incendiary, one can also argue that people of color have not historically fared well after contact with their Caucasian brothers and sisters. And to connect all of this back to religion, Genesis 2:10 provides a geographic location for the Garden of Eden,which would be to the slight west of Egypt or the Nile River. Taking current scientific evidence into consideration, one could conclude that Adam and Eve, based solely on location, had to be people of color. Thus, Prince seems to be alluding to the BN notion that people of color where the first people on the planet and were tricked, allowed themselves to be trick, from their relationship with God. I'm writing all of this not to say that I believe in all of this, but to show that there are historical facts and religious beliefs on which Prince is basing TRC. Now whether someone accepts, likes, or dislikes the message is another discussion all together, but it seems quite unfair to discount or devalue the effort that Prince put into creating the narrative simply because one does not agree with the narrative. It is a great concept record of man's fall from grace and the need to reconnect with or regain grace by learning the Truth, which in this case is the truth according to JWs, BNs, and Prince's own weaving of the two. I'm not saying that anyone should take TRC as their mantra, but it is one hell of a concept record both lyrically and musically. I enjoy the aesthetics of it the same way that I enjoy the aesthetics of Beowulf, the Iliad, or the Odyssey, which, to me, are merely grand myths that are well written. For my personal tastes, TRC is one of my favorites, but I must admit that I am one of those people who like Prince's post-2000 work and am still jamming Lotus/MPLS.

Ultimately, TRC remains in the vein of Prince's solution for the world's problems that mankind must seek a higher solution of love and understanding, which begins as early as "Bambi" on Prince, as the speaker chooses to give the female the benefit of the doubt that she may be happy with her choice of lover rather than degrading her. "Maybe I'm really naive. Who's to say; maybe you're really having fun." And as he reaches his climax of the physical/sexual solution in Purple Rain, sexual salvation surrenders to a more metaphysical solution. By the time he gets to "Darlin' Nikki," Prince's songs seem to assert that where in the past sex could lead to liberation--"Head," "Sexuality," "Do Me, Baby," "1999," and "International Lover,"--if not salvation, now sex is seen as empty and unable to relieve or save his protagonists. Thus, "Darlin' Nikki" ends with the notion that sex ain't saving me so let me seek something higher..."Hello, how are you? I'm fine because I know that the Lord is coming soon." This is echoed by "Computer Blue" which declares that "love and lust both have four letters but entirely different meanings." All of this is elevated or expanded in ATWIAD, and spirituality replaces sex as the catch-all answer that Prince provides for humanity's problems, with "Temptation" being the the exclamation point as he says, "Now, I understand; love is more important than lust." So, if we didn't see the JW or some type of religious conversation coming, then that means that we completely missed the metaphor that culminates in Lovesexy, which is the second attempt or manifestation of TRC, with the New Breed being the first and the New Power Generation being the third. Of course, the major difference between the use of religion in TRC and Dirty Mind and Controversy is that by the time Prince's arrives at TRC, his definitions of right and wrong are more concretely and narrowly defined more on Christian doctrine rather than the more general notion of "let's just love each other and not hurt each other." In this, I can see how some who bought into or invested into this mulatto lookin' dude painting pictures of peace, love, and a multicultural Paisley Park world where sex and individuality are the only tools needed for happiness can feel ideologically betrayed. However, "Annie Christian" is rooted in Christian folklore and is a street that eventually leads to TRC. Prince is still selling a multicultural paradise; it is just that sex has been replaced with faith and the ten commandments.
[Edited 5/24/09 2:16am]

MyLawd said:

I liked Lotusflow3r, and honestly, I don't pay much mind to his 'deep' lyrics cause it's obvious in his interviews he doesn't really think that deep.


chemtrails





- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You will be judged by your actions and not your intentions. You may have
a heart of gold, but so does an egg.

3 weeks and counting...

The Rainbow Children album still gives me the creeps: dogmatic religious nonsense, and very untasty comparisons (slavery - the holocaust), coupled with a stubborn look at the position of women...those lyrics are utterly annoying and irritating.

To compare immigrants who came to America of their own will to Africans who came as slaves is a flawed and perpetually dangerous analogy. Immigrants were never sub-human, which means that they never suffered certain legal and psychological damages that are still perpetuated in the African American community, such as self hate as manifest in good and bad hair debates as well as the continued schism between light and dark members of the race. However, it is true that African tribes did work with white slavers to capture other African tribes, but we don't have time to discuss how Africa is the largest continent with more diversity in cultures and languages than any other continent so we should not view African people as a monolith and we don't have time to discuss how the second wave of European conquest set into motion African tribal warfare. (I find it interesting that it is "tribal warfare" when Fox News is discussing turmoil in Africa, but it is never "tribal warfare" when Fox News is discussing war between whites in Europe. This use of language is more psychological warfare.) Also, I always find it interesting that when African people discuss history or seek to get at the truth of history it is called embracing a victim's mentality or trying to divide people. There is no way that humanity can build a better future if we ignore history. As for Lincoln, which has been debated hundreds of times on this site and Housequake, he did not free the slaves because he wanted Africans to be first-class citizens; he freed the slaves as a military strategy because the South was winning the war due to the free "slave" labor. Remember, Lincoln did not free slaves in states that did not secede so in truth Lincoln did not end or abolish slavery. It was the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery, but the Thirteenth Amendment only ended slavery; it did not make African Americans citizens--and so on and so forth with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Thus, the point of "Avalanche" seems to be that one must look critically at history to know from where one has come, what battles one has fought, and to learn what solutions worked and did not work so that one can craft a better strategy for the future rather than allow someone to control you with lies.

Of course the constant refrain of needing an accurate understanding of knowledge throughout TRC has a double meaning for both Jehovah's Witnesses as well as Black Nationalists. For Jehovah's Witnesses, the goal is to witness the truth of God's message to the world so to prepare the world for God's Kingdom, which will destroy all of man's flawed kingdoms. This is their primary and exclusive mission, which is why they don't vote. For Black Nationalists, the goal is to retrain African people from what they see as a people taught to hate themselves, which makes them better slaves or servants. As Carter G. Woodson, who was not a Black Nationalist, asserts in his book, The Miseducation of the Negro, "black people are taught to hate themselves by the eleventh grade" because by then they are taught the accomplishments of all other races but themselves. Now, to some it may seem contradictory for Prince to weave JW and BN beliefs, but liberation theology (using religion to address socio-political issues), which is not exclusive to African people (David does this in "Psalm 23" and it is found throughout the Old Testament) has been a major part of the Civil Rights Movement, dating to the Abolitionist Movement with Frederick Douglass. And since Prince was mixing sex and religion as early as Dirty Mind, I always find it strange that more fans didn't see his embracing of some traditional religion coming for years. We tend to forget that the song, "The Second Coming," was played just before the band began "Uptown" during the Dirty Mind tour.

As for sexism, TRC is only sexist if one thinks that the Christian Bible is sexist, and many do. So, as with everything else, how one sees that point is based on one's background and personal beliefs.

As for the racism, I can see where whites could think that some of the statements are racist. I don't believe in telling anyone what they should feel. However, I often wonder if these same people who are offend by Prince's language understand the perpetuation of a race's inferiority by a language that views everything "black" as bad: blackmail, blackball, even black day of which Prince, himself, is guilty of using in "The Cross." So one could read into Prince's statements of the pale or banished ones as an act of what Mercer Cook called "Linguistic Liberation" where African people attempt to reverse language/words that perpetuate their inferiority. Keep in mind that many white supremacists used the mark of Cain theory to mistreat African people. However, it seems that Prince is probably using more BN rhetoric, or extreme BN rhetoric, that views whiteness as the absence of color as well as the absence of nutrients. Thus, bleach turns everything white because it is killing everything, brown sugar has more nutrients than white sugar, and wheat bread is healthier than white bread because white bread is overly processed bread. Thus, as an artistic act of linguistic liberation, some BN view whiteness as a metaphor for the negativity suffered by civilizations of color when coming into contact with whites. Of course the question is how much of this would Prince know from his own reading or exposure. While one can argue that the language on TRC is incendiary, one can also argue that people of color have not historically fared well after contact with their Caucasian brothers and sisters. And to connect all of this back to religion, Genesis 2:10 provides a geographic location for the Garden of Eden,which would be to the slight west of Egypt or the Nile River. Taking current scientific evidence into consideration, one could conclude that Adam and Eve, based solely on location, had to be people of color. Thus, Prince seems to be alluding to the BN notion that people of color where the first people on the planet and were tricked, allowed themselves to be trick, from their relationship with God. I'm writing all of this not to say that I believe in all of this, but to show that there are historical facts and religious beliefs on which Prince is basing TRC. Now whether someone accepts, likes, or dislikes the message is another discussion all together, but it seems quite unfair to discount or devalue the effort that Prince put into creating the narrative simply because one does not agree with the narrative. It is a great concept record of man's fall from grace and the need to reconnect with or regain grace by learning the Truth, which in this case is the truth according to JWs, BNs, and Prince's own weaving of the two. I'm not saying that anyone should take TRC as their mantra, but it is one hell of a concept record both lyrically and musically. I enjoy the aesthetics of it the same way that I enjoy the aesthetics of Beowulf, the Iliad, or the Odyssey, which, to me, are merely grand myths that are well written. For my personal tastes, TRC is one of my favorites, but I must admit that I am one of those people who like Prince's post-2000 work and am still jamming Lotus/MPLS.

Ultimately, TRC remains in the vein of Prince's solution for the world's problems that mankind must seek a higher solution of love and understanding, which begins as early as "Bambi" on Prince, as the speaker chooses to give the female the benefit of the doubt that she may be happy with her choice of lover rather than degrading her. "Maybe I'm really naive. Who's to say; maybe you're really having fun." And as he reaches his climax of the physical/sexual solution in Purple Rain, sexual salvation surrenders to a more metaphysical solution. By the time he gets to "Darlin' Nikki," Prince's songs seem to assert that where in the past sex could lead to liberation--"Head," "Sexuality," "Do Me, Baby," "1999," and "International Lover,"--if not salvation, now sex is seen as empty and unable to relieve or save his protagonists. Thus, "Darlin' Nikki" ends with the notion that sex ain't saving me so let me seek something higher..."Hello, how are you? I'm fine because I know that the Lord is coming soon." This is echoed by "Computer Blue" which declares that "love and lust both have four letters but entirely different meanings." All of this is elevated or expanded in ATWIAD, and spirituality replaces sex as the catch-all answer that Prince provides for humanity's problems, with "Temptation" being the the exclamation point as he says, "Now, I understand; love is more important than lust." So, if we didn't see the JW or some type of religious conversation coming, then that means that we completely missed the metaphor that culminates in Lovesexy, which is the second attempt or manifestation of TRC, with the New Breed being the first and the New Power Generation being the third. Of course, the major difference between the use of religion in TRC and Dirty Mind and Controversy is that by the time Prince's arrives at TRC, his definitions of right and wrong are more concretely and narrowly defined more on Christian doctrine rather than the more general notion of "let's just love each other and not hurt each other." In this, I can see how some who bought into or invested into this mulatto lookin' dude painting pictures of peace, love, and a multicultural Paisley Park world where sex and individuality are the only tools needed for happiness can feel ideologically betrayed. However, "Annie Christian" is rooted in Christian folklore and is a street that eventually leads to TRC. Prince is still selling a multicultural paradise; it is just that sex has been replaced with faith and the ten commandments.
[Edited 5/24/09 2:16am]

Riverpoet31 said:

The Rainbow Children album still gives me the creeps: dogmatic religious nonsense, and very untasty comparisons (slavery - the holocaust), coupled with a stubborn look at the position of women...those lyrics are utterly annoying and irritating.



The comparison is really in bad taste... I've never liked it or understood it... What is the purpose?

I just don't understand why he is using that comparison either.

You have two 'bads' there, I dont see any need to compare them and to conclude: slavery is worse, because the jewish people still had their 'family name'.

To me, its an example of a person who has lost touch with common sense, brainwashed by his own dogmatic views... and therefore making absurd comparisons.

Riverpoet31 said:

But doesn't he say "holocaust aside"? As if he excludes the holocaust from the comparison?

Of course Prince is not a Bigot against all white people. But he certainly is towards record and radio executives and 'All the Haters on the internet', they are always WHITE people. don't believe me look around at HQ and in here.
[Edited 5/24/09 4:55am]

1725topp, I enjoyed reading what you said. Very wise and insightful. 2elijah and AtenO, your comments were just as strong and on point.

It's refreshing to read views from those who have a well considered understanding of the subject and are able to articulate in turn. Its a very refreshing contrast to those whom I will only assume speak out of ignorance to the actual facts and perceptions to those whose lives these types of subjects have effected most.


2elijah... I wonder if you are a member of 'the Hair Care Forums'...? If I ever make the mistake of using saying 'good or bad hair'... 'somebody' gives me the 'No More Candy 4 U' look.


As far as TRC went... I wasn't bothered by much if any and I understood the messages Prince touched on. Nor was I bothered by the Vadar voice. I just found the 'music' itself to be rather boring.

Is this album angry or hateful?
Is it sexist?
And is there bigotry in it?


Please present evidence or examples. Don't just give it a scathing review cause you're pissed at Prince, or a glowing review cause you want to lick his 50 year old ass.