2elijah said:

Excellent response!!! I also agree with the original post that African American artists seem to be held to different standards than their white counterparts. However, I also think that a lot of people who dislike Prince's post-2000 music do so because they see him as a great artist (regardless of race) who should always make great music. I, on the other hand, see him as a great artist, but I can enjoy when he makes solid or just good music. Hence, I like "Cause and Effect," much like I like Lotusflow3r/MPLS. I don't need another Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, SOTT, or Lovesexy. I enjoyed them when they were originally released. I'm 40. I'm not looking for Prince or any other pop musician to change my world. And I think that most music being produced after 1995 is crap, so what Prince has given us since 1995 is far superior, imo, to what the rest of the industry has given us. If it's a choice of Prince versus the field, I'm taking Prince because his music has continued to move me for the past thirty years. I like the stable and consistent life that I've worked diligently to construct for myself, so I'm not looking for a "new dawn" experience of music. And from 1980 to "Cause and Effect" I like that Prince has consistently given me music that makes me dance, laugh, think, and even be sad while I'm driving to work or to the store, or just relaxing from reading.

So, yes, I agree that many people who say that Prince has lost it suffer from the "Super Negro Theory" complex. However, some who think he has lost it do not suffer from this complex. Yet, there are some who suffer from "The Super Negro Theory" complex and don't know that they do. And that is the real point of the original post. It's like a person being married to a black person saying, "I can't possibly be racist." That statement says that they don't understand the definition of racism or that they are in denial. Issues of race are always prevalent with Prince because from day one he made race prevalent. He understood the sexist and racist landscape of America, and played if for all it's worth. In some cases he helped listeners think more critically about race and racism. In other cases, he simply profited from people's sexist and racist desires of the black boy humping the white girl or America's fascination with the exotic black. Even he couldn't keep the biracial lie straight, changing the racial mixture of his parents from magazine to magazine in January, February, and March 1980 interviews. But, he seemed to know that America's and then the world's fascination with race would cause people to ignore that the particulars of this tale were inconsistent. As James Baldwin said, "Its color is its size."

So, I'm not going to sweep every Prince fam or critic under the "Super Negro Theory" complex, but it is a theory that has its merits. I can never forget a white nurse standing in line with me to purchase tickets to a 1996 concert, and she tells me that her "black co-workers were not interested in seeing Prince." Then she added, "Why don't black people recognize his genius?" I'm glad that it was hot, and I was tired from waiting in line so long. So, instead of choking her, I tired to have a conversation that contextualized the sentiments of her co-works (whom I did not know but she thought I would know why they felt how they felt because I was, of course, black) into a historical conversation about race and art. After her eyes began to gloss over with my mention of James Brown, Sly Stone, and others, I just simply said, "I hope he plays "Purple Rain,"' and she forgot all about the mean and uninformed black people at her office.

1725topp said:

Thank you and I find your post very, well-stated. I understand where you are coming from about the the comment the nurse made to you. I've read comments like that here, and I find those type of comments, like the nurse made, is one who want to believe that African-Americans don't support Prince's music;which is a lie.

On the issue of Prince having a black fan base, I believe when Purple Rain came out, and he did a tour after that, is when you saw a major, white audience at his concerts, which also included Black fans present at those shows, but because the number of white fans at many concerts of his outnumbered the Black fans, gives absolutely no indication that Prince did not have a large, black fan base or was not loved by them, and I believe often times, this is where many white fans get this impression. Who knows, it could have been due to financial reasons. Remember in the early days of his career, most of the tickets were purchased through credit cards by phone, and if you didn't have a credit card, then you had to wait on line for hours waiting for the box office to open up, and most of the time, all the best seats were already gone by the time they got to you.

Remember there was no internet service at that time, so if you didn't have a credit card, then you know what you had to do to get a ticket. Lawd knows I spent quite a few hours doing that back in the day, waiting on line outside MSG in NYC to get tickets for a Prince concert, and by the time we got to the ticket window, we ended up with the seats way up high. Which was not a good view at all at any concert venue, and they didn't even have the jumbo screens back then.. Many credit card companies back then made it difficult to obtain a credit card, not saying many Black fans couldn't afford one, but it was not that "easy" for many of them to get one back then. Things have of course changed since then.

In the past 3 years he's done shows, and not that many black radio stations advertised when he was in town and doing a show, and it was often short notice, when the news was advertised, like on the same day of the concert. These days, not too many people listen to radio, so the information will not reach those interested, like if it was advertised on tv. I noticed that when he was touring with Tamar, a lot of Black fans, found out too late that he was in town, for the promotion of Tamar's Nokia theatre performance. They had heard it on the radio the same day. Now when he showed up at Bryant Park in NYC for the GMA show, it was advertised on tv and the crowd there was spilling out of the park. People (including myself) were camping out the night before, and before 4am, the line reached all the way around the park, and by the time the performance happened, the park was packed in every corner, spilling onto the paths leading inside the park. In my opinion, how an artist's concert is advertised/promoted and which demographics the promotion reaches out to, has a lot to do with the demographic turnout of the audience. Just my two cents.
[Edited 3/4/10 17:09pm]

errant said:

They were getting trounced because the music lackluster/bad....I think I made that point several times....

Being from the South, specifically Mississippi, where Ma and Pa Record Shops were able to compete against Ticket Master until 2000, getting tickets was a bit easier. Also, my travels tend to indicate to me that the Black Adult Contemporary/Oldie but Goodie Stations have a larger fan base in the South than in the North. Even today, younger kids who are mostly into hip hop also listen to the oldie station that plays blues, funk, and soul. So, the Oldie but Goodie Stations of the South tend to promote Prince’s concerts a bit better, at least in Mississippi. And I want to say in New Orleans, Alabama, and Georgia also, but I can't say for certain. What I can say is that Prince has never left the airwaves of the Adult Contemporary/Oldie but Goodie stations, which includes the playing of his current slow jam. So while I agree that "The Super Negro Theory" exists, all of Prince's fans, fans of all races, have a very complex relationship with Prince, which makes almost any theory about him, his music, and his relationships with history and his fans a theory that must contain caveats and exceptions. And that's what I like most about him. He is an example of dichotomy or contradiction: black and white, male and female, sacred and profane, mainstream and alternative. Any artist this complex is going to piss some people off. He'll piss some African Americans off for not being black enough. He'll piss some whites off for not being enough of a rocker or for lamenting too much over being an oppressed African American. He'll piss his worldly fans off for being too religious. He'll piss his homophobic fans off for being too gay acting. He'll piss some of his gay fans off for not coming completely out of the closet. And, he'll piss off a great deal of his fans for being too self-indulgent. And all of this is why I think that it's a waste of time to be pissed at Prince. He is who he is--a self-indulgent Funky ass R&B Rocker who doesn't give a shit about anyone else's vision or version of the world but his. And he has proven this since 2000 by plowing ahead, doing what he wants to do, regardless of the fall-out, loss of fame, and loss of money. And, this why I like him.

When people say that Prince ain't bad-ass anymore, what they mean is that he's not bad-ass in the way that they want him to be. He's still bad-ass. It's just that he's got the nerve to shake is tiny ass in the very faces of the people who use to support him. I realized the first time I played ATWIAD in '85 that, "This dude does not go where we want him to go; he goes where he wants to go." I realized that one day he was going to create or do something that would completely offend me, but I was going to enjoy the ride while it lasted.

1725topp said:

copy, print, and save

murph said:

bad. and. bad. compared. to. the. expectations. of. what. they. can. do.

and the point I made several times is that Prince's case is no different than any of theirs.


he puts out shit that's beneath him, screws people over, and he gets called on it. so does everyone else. what's the difference? Prince is not a special case when it comes to getting bad reviews when he puts out crap or proclamations that he's over or washed up. it's happened to them all.

1725topp said:

Love your post, and thanks for reminding me that concert tickets were also sold at Mom and Pop record stores back in the day as well. I forgot all about that. My have we come far in this day and age of selling concert tickets. Great post, and your description of Prince seems to be down to the tee from a a fan's point of view. He was always very challenging and bold wasn't he? He also never seemed to be afraid of "going against the grain" of the music industry's expectations or norm. That's why he continues to own his persona/image which can never be duplicated. I guess he was right when he sang these lyrics: "There will never be another like me," and "My only competition is? Well, me in the past", because he knows it's true.
[Edited 3/5/10 7:38am]

I have to admit, I have only read the first few pages of this thread and found it to be interesting.

The main thing that occurred to me was "Talent Scouts," especially for High School Football.
People are being watched regardless of color or race. If an athlete has something going for him in High School, they are followed to College and scouted for the Professional league.

I look at Prince and other talented people the same way....When Prince was as multi-talented as he was at 16 years old, and then "For You," came out in 1978...it's only the World's Natural way of Investigating Human Potential. So overall, I disagree with the theory, but I agree with several different points made in these opinions. ~T