Great post, databank. I think the mistake many people make regarding celebrities is that they aren't considered "human beings". They seem to forget Prince is, at the end of the day, a person. He also shits and has headaches. And he feels.

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Frankly, I am grateful to Prince mainly because of his music, but there are things in his personality that I deeply admire, for instance his individualism and his work ethic.

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Although I agree with the criticisms on Toure's book based on the emphasis on personal issues, my previous comment points at another weakness in his work, that is, trying to write a new, brilliant interpretation of Prince without being serious about the theoretical and methodological aspects of his work.

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Having said that, and to be fair with the book, I think Toure makes a very good point when he underlines the relevance of religion in Prince's work, which may be even more important than the "sex-craze" image that people often sell. That's an interesting thesis, and I wholy agree with it.

[Edited 12/11/13 4:50am]

[Edited 12/11/13 4:51am]

databank said:

Eye'm waiting 4 the book Prince christened ?U3STLOVE 2 write about him. It will b a page turner.

errant said:

databank said:

I so agree with this. Ragarding the reactions here, people obviously don't realize how disgusting and inhuman (to quote someone above) it is to be THAT judgemental about someone they've never even met. I've "enjoyed" a certain amount of local celebrity in my home city (it's the second biggest city in France, not a town) back in the late 90's and early 00's and many people I had never met started to speak nonsense about me and draw conclusions from stories they'd heard about how bad, selfish, naughty an individual I was. I was 20-25 years-old, I was not ready for this. I thought all my efforts would get me praise (and it did) but I had no idea it would get me so much undeserved shit as well! Some people that I'd never even spoke with HATED me for chrissakes! Some details from my private life also started to become public, to such a level that I feared to sleep with girls out of fear total strangers would comment about it after a few weeks. There were also lies, too. Not interpretation but sheer, pure factual lies about things I was supposed to have done or said or felt that weren't true. It even happened that some friends came to me asking "is it really true that you did/say such a bad thing?" and I was like " ! I have no idea where this comes from but this sure ain't about me!". These rumors were so mean, so unfair and so undeserved that it fucked me up to such a level that I basically sabotaged my own artistic career to escape that back then. I was hurt, deeply. I regret that now, because I could have kept rising, but that taught me how celebrity can be destructive and if it was so hard to deal with at such a little level I can't imagine the pressure major celebrities have to face. I probably couldn't have done it, I'd have ended in a mental hospital, or a drug addict.

As for writing a book about someone's private, sexual and love life I guess that's your job if u're a journalist but I can't help but wondering how destructive it can be for the concerned person to read this, knowing that some things are real but you don't want the world to know and some are just lies or hasty conclusions but u can't go public and deny it without looking like a fool. Just imagine, all of you moralists who are so happy to say how bad a person Prince is, how you'd feel if the bad things you've done (and who hasn't fucked up and done things they ain't proud of once in a while? certainly not me!) were made public, to the knowledge of thousands of strangers. Just imagine how you'd feel if people would take these things and make a full portait of you, ignoring your good sides, on public forums. Just imagine how you'd feel if the details of your sexual life were told in books and on the internet? Your little secrets, your little obsessions... Just imagine how you'd feel if the things that have been written above about Prince had been written about YOU, by people you've never met. Can you picture this?

I haven't read that one book about Prince but I will eventually, but I've read most of the others, plus dozens if not hundreds of ex collaborators interview, and I certainly don't think Prince is the monstruous, insane, bastard you guys think he is. He's had issues? Damn right! Who wouldn't being one of the most famous person in the Western hemisphere at 25 years old? He certainly has been selfish, emotionally insensitive on many occasions. Many people have also testified about him being kind, polite, generous but this you chose to ignore. You just see what you want to see! Is he insane? Define insanity. He's been living in his own bubble since he's been 20. He's never had a real job, a normal life. He's always been famous, rich, harrassed by the press, secured by bodyguards, surrounded by servants to give him whatever he needed any time of night or day. So yeah as Kevin Smith once stated, he's been living in "Prince world" for far too long to behave like normal folks would in many circumstances. Normal behavior is not a natural talent, it's the result of years of informal training about what's acceptable and what's not in your social circles. Prince's social circles have never been very normal as far as I can tell. Does it make a madman of him? I don't know. Most celebrities are weird in many aspects but in the end Prince never ended-up in jail for woman-beating or in a mental institution for drugs abuse, I think by many standards he's pretty sane compared to many others, both famous and not famous.

Prince is just a man. He's certainly not perfect. He's certainly not the monster some of you describe either. I fully respect that man for what he's accomplished and all the joy and wisdom he's given me over the years through his music, lyrics and even sometimes actions. I think just because he's rich and famous doesn't mean he doesn't deserve the same level of reserve and compassion as any other folk. I think he's just as good or bad as most of us here. And I think if there are monsters on this earth, it's the people who spoke so much crap on this thread! You are the monsters, for such a lack of compassion and humility, for such a haste to condemn others without a trial, for such an incapacity to examine your own behaviours and the bad things you have done and still do because you're so busy examining other people's. This total lack of compassion and self analysis is the main cause of ignorance, selfishness, unhappiness, war, fanatisme and racism among other things in this world. I'd be tempted to say "shame on you" but I won't, because that compassion you're not giving Prince, I will give you. I don't know you and I'm sure that despite the odious, arrogant, inhuman behavior you display on this thread, you certainly are very kind and caring individuals in other circumstances.

[Edited 12/11/13 4:52am]

So what were you famous for any way?

For a mix of organizing huge cultural events and festivals and publishing magazines on one side, and for my work as a writer, musician and art performer on the other. It was only a local thing as I said, and I guess maybe one or a few thousands people knew my name at most, which wasn't much but enough to make a mess of my life. After that I massively retracted, I kept doing shit but either I kept it small or ruined any prospects on purpose, or I hid behind collaborators when it was bigger projects, or when it came to writing I only aimed at national publishers, which didn't bring me much good since I was a nobody for them. Had I been strong enough to ignore all these side-effects of my small "celebrity", I thing I'd have become a really important actor of the local cultural scene on the long run. Now I live in India instead lol! No big regrets, I dig my life as it is now, but I'll always wonder what it could have been if I'd been stronger...

The internet gives me some visibility as a writer nowadays, possibly even a bigger one than back then actually, but that's quite anonymous and mostly unrelated to my "real" life so I feel protected behind my computer screen.

But all that's really not the issue anyway

databank said:

Adorecream said:

That book is the biggest load of crap I have ever read. Its all this mumbling about generations and then some anonymous chick going on about Prince banging her and how he likes to watch 2 girls go at it. I mean who cares!!!!! That is private stuff that should remain private. I can just see Prince reading it and thinking WTF!!! .

I mean how would you like it, if someone graphically described your lovemaking and sex preferences in a tell all book about you instead of your achievements (Musical or otherwise). A good friend loaned me a copy and I feel sorry for her as she had to fork out full price for it. It was unreadable after a while but I persevered, it has hardly anything to do with Prince and all I got out of it, was Generation X's fascination with this late Baby Boomer artist and the fact he likes all girl action and menage a trois with two girls.

It was just unreadable and I think its the worst book about Prince ever. It adds nothing new and barely even touches his music. Its probably why Toure is totally unknown in my neck of the woods and when I heard the name I though instantly of Sekou Toure, the barmy Communist president of Guinea in the 1960s.

[Edited 12/11/13 0:50am]

I so agree with this. Ragarding the reactions here, people obviously don't realize how disgusting and inhuman (to quote someone above) it is to be THAT judgemental about someone they've never even met. I've "enjoyed" a certain amount of local celebrity in my home city (it's the second biggest city in France, not a town) back in the late 90's and early 00's and many people I had never met started to speak nonsense about me and draw conclusions from stories they'd heard about how bad, selfish, naughty an individual I was. I was 20-25 years-old, I was not ready for this. I thought all my efforts would get me praise (and it did) but I had no idea it would get me so much undeserved shit as well! Some people that I'd never even spoke with HATED me for chrissakes! Some details from my private life also started to become public, to such a level that I feared to sleep with girls out of fear total strangers would comment about it after a few weeks. There were also lies, too. Not interpretation but sheer, pure factual lies about things I was supposed to have done or said or felt that weren't true. It even happened that some friends came to me asking "is it really true that you did/say such a bad thing?" and I was like " ! I have no idea where this comes from but this sure ain't about me!". These rumors were so mean, so unfair and so undeserved that it fucked me up to such a level that I basically sabotaged my own artistic career to escape that back then. I was hurt, deeply. I regret that now, because I could have kept rising, but that taught me how celebrity can be destructive and if it was so hard to deal with at such a little level I can't imagine the pressure major celebrities have to face. I probably couldn't have done it, I'd have ended in a mental hospital, or a drug addict.

As for writing a book about someone's private, sexual and love life I guess that's your job if u're a journalist but I can't help but wondering how destructive it can be for the concerned person to read this, knowing that some things are real but you don't want the world to know and some are just lies or hasty conclusions but u can't go public and deny it without looking like a fool. Just imagine, all of you moralists who are so happy to say how bad a person Prince is, how you'd feel if the bad things you've done (and who hasn't fucked up and done things they ain't proud of once in a while? certainly not me!) were made public, to the knowledge of thousands of strangers. Just imagine how you'd feel if people would take these things and make a full portait of you, ignoring your good sides, on public forums. Just imagine how you'd feel if the details of your sexual life were told in books and on the internet? Your little secrets, your little obsessions... Just imagine how you'd feel if the things that have been written above about Prince had been written about YOU, by people you've never met. Can you picture this?

I haven't read that one book about Prince but I will eventually, but I've read most of the others, plus dozens if not hundreds of ex collaborators interview, and I certainly don't think Prince is the monstruous, insane, bastard you guys think he is. He's had issues? Damn right! Who wouldn't being one of the most famous person in the Western hemisphere at 25 years old? He certainly has been selfish, emotionally insensitive on many occasions. Many people have also testified about him being kind, polite, generous but this you chose to ignore. You just see what you want to see! Is he insane? Define insanity. He's been living in his own bubble since he's been 20. He's never had a real job, a normal life. He's always been famous, rich, harrassed by the press, secured by bodyguards, surrounded by servants to give him whatever he needed any time of night or day. So yeah as Kevin Smith once stated, he's been living in "Prince world" for far too long to behave like normal folks would in many circumstances. Normal behavior is not a natural talent, it's the result of years of informal training about what's acceptable and what's not in your social circles. Prince's social circles have never been very normal as far as I can tell. Does it make a madman of him? I don't know. Most celebrities are weird in many aspects but in the end Prince never ended-up in jail for woman-beating or in a mental institution for drugs abuse, I think by many standards he's pretty sane compared to many others, both famous and not famous.

Prince is just a man. He's certainly not perfect. He's certainly not the monster some of you describe either. I fully respect that man for what he's accomplished and all the joy and wisdom he's given me over the years through his music, lyrics and even sometimes actions. I think just because he's rich and famous doesn't mean he doesn't deserve the same level of reserve and compassion as any other folk. I think he's just as good or bad as most of us here. And I think if there are monsters on this earth, it's the people who spoke so much crap on this thread! You are the monsters, for such a lack of compassion and humility, for such a haste to condemn others without a trial, for such an incapacity to examine your own behaviours and the bad things you have done and still do because you're so busy examining other people's. This total lack of compassion and self analysis is the main cause of ignorance, selfishness, unhappiness, war, fanatisme and racism among other things in this world. I'd be tempted to say "shame on you" but I won't, because that compassion you're not giving Prince, I will give you. I don't know you and I'm sure that despite the odious, arrogant, inhuman behavior you display on this thread, you certainly are very kind and caring individuals in other circumstances.

[Edited 12/11/13 4:52am]

Exactly! It's absurd for anyone to take Prince's mistakes in the past that personally. Fans buy the music and not the artist making the music. The sense of entitlement from fans on this board has been laughable. Petitioning for Prince to stop wearing his afro for example is the most baffling to me. Journalists and fans have blurred the lines of the audience to artist relationship to a point, it's no wonder Prince wants as much distance from people he doesn't trust as much as possible.

WELL WELL ,,, with tht lm not all tht surprise to read this....

alot of other people have said the same thing what they said about him reguarding his behaviour around people or women ...if u only been around him or hang with him to know the truth or even let alone had friendships with him ... then the truth would be told the book cant lie abt anything to sell something like that by law. tht person must know alot about him to write a book about him like tht.

that others may not know about him behind curtains...

Thank you databank for sharing your story.

Thank you guys for discussing what this book is about. It reminds me of a book about Prince titled Possessed which focused mostly on what the author thought was wrong with Prince's personality, lyrics, etc. I wont be buying this book by Toure.

I agree, gossip can be so distructive. It can cause a great deal of emotional distress, anxiety, depression, etc. If Prince ever reads this book, I hope that he has the fortitude to persevere in his musical journey. I don't expect Prince to have a flawless personality. I am a Prince fan for the joy, peace and inspiration that his music brings to my life.