It's my first post!

Honestly and sincerely I find this to be a well versed assessment of black artists in general, but only in this respect--in our society there is a tendency to look at all things through a lense of racial societal stigmas. Within those limits, individuals choose to accept or expect certain behaviors from certain races i.e. music and entertainment expectations. However, it is not all people or a certain group of people that does this. Their are many who are open-minded or close minded from a plurality of backgrounds--rich,poor, black,white,etc.

We often want others to fit into neat little boxes of what we choose the world to be, but the world is not black and white (sorry for the pun)--the world is a huge spectrum of unlimited hues. By labeling all others as always putting black artists up to a certain standard that only blacks experience only feeds the close-mindedness of the few that do choose to view the world that way.

To treat race as the source that will necessarily elicit a certain type of music or a certain type of societal response is absurd. Prince proves this: he is not judged by some "black standard" as a "super negro." No, he is judged by the "Prince" standard because he continually transcends genre while still keeping an essential "Prince" essence to his music. It's in his lyrics, the way he scratches the guitar, slaps the bass, and graces the piano. It all screams of vivid individualism and a unique individualism at that.

This is why he confounds so many critics: he does not meet their limited standards whether it be racial or far gone Prince paradigms of the past...

Now, other black artists such as James Brown decided to take these standards head on i.e. "Say it loud, I'm black, I'm proud." It was a rallying call against the racism of the sixties and the centuries before, but in the end it is James Brown's voice and choice to identify himself that way; it was not inherently a black voice. We only choose to label it a black voice and it is hard not to do in the context of the 60's.

From my own experience as a southern born (Montgomery,AL) white upper middle class 21 year old, James Brown's speaks to me. Funkadelic speaks to me. Jimi Hendrix speaks to me. Miles Davis, Duane Allman (Miles was one of his favorite artists), Led Zeppelin, Muse, Queen, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles--they all speak to me about the world. Prince speaks to me. And anyone who limits them into some artificial perspective is sadly mistaken.

In that sense, I agree we should not limit our musicians to any one idiom.

Just let the music speak for itself.

Welcome. Generally responses to a thread belong on the original thread, not in a duplicate. Here's a link to the thread, you'll find a "reply to thread" link there. Thanks!

http://prince.org/msg/7/330678