Good question.

I think Michael Jackson is accepted more.

I think that many in the black community don't identify with Prince as much as they do with Michael. Even though both have fallen from the limelight, Mike will always be Mike. With Prince, either into him or you're not.

Michael has always been more universal.

Mike is just a wierd brutha... whereas I think Prince is a little more difficult to pin down and fit him in.

I'll go with Michael... but it's close. One more "little boy" incident, or wierd random occurrence, and Mike will go the way of R. Kelly.

MantuaPharoah said:

Funny you mention R. Kelly. At the height of his notoriety connected with allegations he preyed on underage girls, I observed thirtysomething, black mothers raving about how they had to buy his next CD.

Again, it's difficult to pin down what constitutes ethnic excommunication -- particularly when black people carry so many different opinions...

ThreadBare said:

I'm not surprised. It's embarrassing. I'm African American, and it's interesting... and sometimes disheartening... to see some of the blind support that some of our people continue to get after they've obviously done wrong.

Look at Michael Vick. That's a difficult one though, because many don't see dogfighting as a bad thing.

But along the same lines... if you go to You Tube and look for L'il Wayne's song Fuck Every Girl in the World, you'll see an attractive black sister singing that song.

I'm like... what the hell is your problem. He's saying he wants to fuck you, not be there for you. And not just YOU... he's singing about fucking EVERY GIRL in the world, and here you are supporting those lyrics... probably buying that CD... and you'd probably be right there trying to get backstage and be "#1" on his conquest list.

Sometimes I just don't get it... but then again, I'm a Prince fan... so maybe I'm a hypocrite... which is why I wish his early years had been less "smut", and more '84 - '89 art.

But alas... that's a different string. I'd rather not go WAY off base here.

Thanks for the response to my comment.

2elijah said:

J-lo, just for the record. Christina Aguilera is white, right?

But from a Hispanic point of view I would have to say that, molester allegations aside, Michael Jackson is still more accepted. Latinos got that funky bone too and if someone plays "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" at a quincenera or wedding you can bet the dance floor will be packed. Throw on "Kiss", though, and the dance floor clears out immediately.

I think the 'black community' is a bit more complex than you give them credit for.

I give you a 100% on that one


Both Prince & MJ have been guilty of sending out the wrong racial messages to all communities at large concerning race throughout various parts of their career. Prince addressed this in a 90's magazine interview with Spike Lee concerning the fact that Spike once criticized him for only using white women in his music videos.

I noticed this at a very early age, how Prince's use of white women were always as sex symbols or love interests, but black women got relegated to roles that were comedic or stereotypically black (Mavis Staples in Graffiti Bridge playing the ever-knowing God fearing black sage or the Black lady soliciting Christopher Tracey for sex in UTCM).

I don't remember a lot of white women in Prince's videos
From the 1st album to 1999 videos it was only his band

Purple Rain videos as well, the band and the movie scenes
Raspberry Beret was the band and extended musician:orchestra
and a rainbow of ethnic people surrounding them
Parade:Kiss was Prince Wendy and a female dancer that was veiled
Mountains: again the band
Girls & Boys: the band and movie scenes
AnotherLover... the band(concert)
SOTT: the only real video for that one was U Got the Look and was similar to Raspberry Beret: Cat & Sheena Easton being the female coleads
Lovesexy: I Wish U Heaven: the female band members
Glam Slam: the band again

Prince's love interests tend to be biracial/or mixed looking, hispanic and some white, I don't remember many (non mixed looking black women) being a 'visually mixed' man I have no problem with him dating other mixed women.

I don't think you can count Mavis in that because she 1 is an older woman, and Mavis was not going to be in any sexual roles

Prince said that over time he'd evolved. Indeed his newer videos make a point of showing black women in sexy roles.


MJ on the other hand had always used black women in his videos and white women in various ways. His girlfriends in the videos were black. Even when he transformed himself into a white woman, he still was trying to win the favor of black women (Iman in Remember the Time).

I wouldn't say he was trying to win the favor of black women since he already had it:Iman was the perfect model to play that role beside Eddie Murphy

He featured a compination of mixed looking women and darker skinned exotic types:Naomi Iman, he married M Presley and had her in a video, Tatiana(model) His sister Latoya to mixed types

The problem with MJ is that in his personal life, and his appearance, it's pretty darned obvious there's a great deal of racial shame bottled up somewhere in him.




This aside, I think the white community is more fascinated by this than the black community as a whole. Most of my black friends like either musician because of one thing--their songs.

and some of you even questioned

whether or not p was black or white

in the black community, there was never

a question

soul recognizes soul

sunsetdriver1999 said:

And, herein lies the problem with "the black community" continually being cast as a monolith that has one collective opinion about various topics: You run into inaccuracies being passed off as truths.

For example, throughout their careers, both MJ and Prince have enjoyed exhaustive coverage by the black press: Right On, Black Beat, Jet, Ebony, Ebony Man, Essence, etc.

Prince enjoyed major support on 1980s black radio-format stations. In DC, he was constantly being featured on WKYS, WHUR (HBCU Howard University radio, btw) and WKYS (whose Donnie Simpson loved to feature his videos on BET's "Video Soul." To that end, I loved to catch BET's Prince marathons on "Video Vibrations."

Prince has also had numerous appearances and honors at NAACP and Vibe award shows.

Long before his stints on Leno, Prince was a regular guest on Arsenio's show. Prince made contributions, way back in the day, for the production of the MLK holiday tribute single made in the 1980s (even got a shout-out at the close of the video). Prince got a similar shout-out in the closing credit's of Spike Lee's "Malcolm X."

Prince got major props in the black press (Jet, as I recall) for featuring a black educator as one of the women highlighted in his "TMBGITW" video.

That's a whole lot of attention and love from people supposedly not into Prince.
[Edited 6/15/09 8:58am]

Imago said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Diamond & Pearl
and MOST his love interests earlier in his career were white (Appolonia and the chick from UTCM).

KISS had a white female dancer he was with.
Raspberry Berett had a white woman during the illustrated parts.
He also had Latino women in there, but no black women as love interests.

Let's not make this into a race thing.





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[Edited 6/15/09 17:54pm]