OldFriends4Sale said:

18 & Over is the fifth track on the third and final disc of Prince's 20th album Crystal Ball

Specific recording dates are not known, but initial tracking took place in Summer, 1994 at Paisley Park Studios, Chanhassen, MN, USA. The track began life as a remix of Come and contains looped samples from that song, but it should be regarded as a track in its own right. It was initially intended for a planned Come EP, but this release was abandoned. A video for the track, using a slightly shorter version of the track, was shown regularly before The Ultimate Live Experience shows in March, 1995.

-PrinceVault

18 & over

(Come) {repeat in song}

CHORUS:
18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya (Yeah, baby)
18 & over (Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)
18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya (Yeah, baby)
18 & over (Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)

Now wait a minute
This ain't nothin' but a little funky mack song
All I'm sayin' is that I wanna smack it all night long
On and on until the early morn'
Givin' up all U need so U can get your groove on
And as long as I got your attention (Yeah)
There's a couple of new positions that I'd like 2 mention
Did U ever hear the one about the pinwheel? (No)
That's the one where I put your legs behind your head
And real dirty like, I'ma spin U around
And grab U by the waist and pump U till I hear my baby say "Oww!"
That's what I know U like
I'm your nigga now and I'm about 2 read your rights
And as sure as I'm a nasty boy (What?)
My girl, U know U got the right 2 make plenty noise (Oh!)
'cause this is your night and I'ma do U real good
Just like a Kemo Sabe, Bone Ranger should
Come

18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya
18 & over (Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)
Come
18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya
18 & over (Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)

And er ah...
That's what we layin' 4 in the 9 5
As long we know it's safe, we ain't riskin' no lives (Yeah)
My doctor's name is Feelgood, makin' it so I do
And if your name is "Healthy" then it's cool if me and U
Just come - yeah baby, U should do all that
Come - yeah baby

(Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)
18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya
18 & over

Hi-yo Silver, it's the Bone Ranger, I'll freak U 2 the marrow
With a little somethin' that I call the wheelbarrow
Walkin' up on your hands while I straddle your thighs
In goes the truth and out goes the lie
And before the beach gets 2 sandy (Uh oh)
We'll call a wet towel, W.C. - it's Handy
And it's all nice, comin' one, comin' twice
And if the Johnny's slippery, we'll have 2 take the trip 2 Electricity
And check out the sights (Check out the sights)
And check out the sights

When I blow that mind, baby (All night, alright)
I'm gonna drive U crazy (All night, alright)

(Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)
18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya
18 & over

Electricity (Electricity)
Plug it in if U dare, plug it in if U dare
This motherfucker's so fast, it eats underwear
So there, my little sweet sugar bear
If that ain't enough 2 make U throw your hands in the air
Then I'm all gone like the horns in this song (Oh oh oh oh!)
'cause I gots 2 keep U comin' till the early morn'
And if U like that, then U can come back
And if U don't - smack! And I'm out

18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya

When I blow that mind, baby (All night, alright)
I'm gonna drive U crazy (All night, alright)

18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya
18 & over (Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)
18 & over, I wants 2 bone ya
18 & over (Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)

CHORUS

(Oh yeah, this is gonna be good)
18 & over

Shhh is the twelfth track (ninth song) on Tevin Campbell's second album I'm Ready, and around the same time as the album's release, Shhh was available as a promotional single in the USA (with no commercial release). The song was written and produced by Prince under the pseudonym Paisley Park. Tevin Campbell's version was also included as the third track on the 2001 compilation The Best Of Tevin Campbell and as the third track on the 2005 Rhino Hi-Five: Tevin Campbell EP. played the song live in 1994 in a very different arrangement, and reclaimed the song by including it as the fourth track (third song) on his 17th album The Gold Experience, the first album to be credited to .

Initial tracking took place as a live recording in mid-late June, 1992 at Olympic Studios, London, England, while in London for the Diamonds And Pearls Tour. -PrinceVault

• - all vocals and instruments, except where noted
• Michael B. - drums
• Sonny T. - bass guitar
• Tommy Barbarella - keyboards
• Mayte - background vocals

Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element is, in a word, weird. It’s visually stunning, often hilarious, ambitious as all hell…but deeply, profoundly, cartoonishly weird. This is a movie where Milla Jovovich is running around wearing oversized band-aids and speaking in broken english, where Gary Oldman’s performance as Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg is just this side of Looney Tunes territory. And then there’s Ruby Rhod. The frenetic, squeaky-voiced, androgynous talk-show host made Chris Tucker a household name, but it turns out there was another well-known personality originally slated to fill Ruby Rhod’s outlandish shoes: the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

http://www.giantfreakinro...-rhod.html

The Brooklyn Museum has a new exhibit featuring the work of artist/costume designer Jean Paul Gaultier, who, in addition to working on The Fifth Element, also includes films such as The City of Lost Children and The Skin I Live In. The folks at io9 hit up the event and capture some very cool relics from a Fifth Element that might have been, concept designs for the Ruby Rhod costume Gaultier created for Prince when the musician was still attached to the project back in the early ‘90s.

The exhibit also included Gaultier’s first-hand account of showing the art to Prince…and Prince’s unexpected reaction to it.

One of the thousand costumes in The Fifth Element, I took my inspiration for many of them from my own collections. Filming was originally planned for 1992, with Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson and Prince in the leading roles but due to a lack of financing the project was put on hold. At that time, the role of Ruby Rhod, the outrageous media personality finally played by Chris Tucker, had been given to Prince.

When the singer was giving a series of concerts in Paris, Luc Besson wanted us both to meet with him to show him my sketches. Prince had already attended my runway shows, but he came and went very quickly every time, so we had never been formally introduced. While I was waiting for Luc in his office, I saw this huge bodyguard appear, with Prince trailing behind him. As Luc hasn’t yet arrived, I thought he must have wanted me to meet with Prince alone, so we could get to know each other a little bit. In broken English, and with my strong French accent, I tried my best to make conversation, something like ‘Hell-O Prin-ze, welcome to Par-isse! So for ze role I sink…’

I showed him my drawings, but he didn’t say a word. I had had an idea for a really funny costume with netting which quite long body hair would pass through, and I had done front and back versions of it. So then I explained to Prince: ‘Eet eel fake ‘air, you know, and eet eel beaucoup, beaucoup, airy, vraiment fun, and ze back is made of sat, and on ze back were eez ze faux cul, you know, a very big faux cul.’ and I slapped my buttocks to show him how the back of the costume would be designed.

Still not saying anything, Prince gave me this Charlie Chaplin kind of look. I could see that something had just happened, but I didn’t know what, only that he had indicated to his body guard that he wanted to leave right then and there. I thought he was going to go and see Luc. Later, Luc told me that Prince had been very surprised and amused — by my presentation, but that he found the costumes a bit too effeminate. And, most importantly, he had thought he head ‘Fuck you, fuck you!’ when I was saying in my terrible English accent ‘faux cul, faux cul’ [fake ass]! —Jean Paul Gaultier

Yes, you read that right: the Ruby Rhod outfit was “too effeminate” for freakin’ Prince. If designing an outfit that Prince dismisses as too effeminate isn’t one of the most impressive accomplishments you could have on your resume, I don’t know what is. Here are a few shots of Tucker as Ruby Rhod, to refresh your memory. (Assuming a thing like that could ever fade in your memory.)

Prince at the Heathrow Airport 1994 London

OldFriends4Sale said:

5.2.1994
Stars & Bars in Monaco
1. Come
2. Endorphinemachine
3. Space
4. Days of Wild

5. Now

6. Acknowledge Me

7. Race
8. the Jam
9. I Believe in You
10. Glam Slam Boogie

11. Peach -Dark -Solo

Late Show With David Letterman 1994

Soul Train 5.7.1994

Artist Formerly Known As Prince -
1. Mustangmix
2. Now
3. Acknowledge Me
4. Love Sign (w/Nona Gaye)


Guest host: Holly Robinson Peete (of ABC-TV's "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper").
http://www.tv.com/shows/s...ly-115951/

Q Magazine photo shoot - Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo (May 1994)

© Andy Earl

Prince - Q Magazine [United Kingdom] (July 1994)

'I am normal!'
Talks To Q
By Adrian Deevoy

Pleased to meet you... Hope you've guessed my name. For the first time since God alone knows when, the artist formerly known as Prince talks exclusively and extensively about identity, insecurity, George Michael, Nelson Mandela, ballet, boogie, opera, orgasm, freedom and the future. "I follow the advice of my spirit," he tells Adrian Deevoy.

His name is not Prince. And he is not funky. His name is Albert. And he is lurching across the dancefloor in search of accommodating company. Slightly balding and chunkier than he looks in photographs, he moors behind a gyrating female and clumsily interfaces.

Up on the stage another man whose name is not Prince says, "This is dedicated to Prince Albert, the funkiest man in Monaco." It's a wonder he can get the words out with his tongue buried so deep in his cheek. Prince Albert beams and grinds arhythmically on. Prince laughs, throws a swift shape and stops the funk on the one. It's his party and he'll lie if he wants to.

One hundred and twenty people have been invited to the Stars &alt; Bars club in Monte Carlo for this most exclusive of celebrations. The champagne is free, the spirits are freer and the house band is possibly the best live act on the planet. You probably remember them as Prince And The New Power Generation. They're still the NPG but he's not Prince any more. He is 0{+> (to give him his full title). Sir Hieroglyphicford for short.

Ursula Andress is at the bar, sipping sensually at a flute of champagne. A few generations and a couple of yards along, Claudia Shiffer is doing likewise. It's that sort of a do. Everyone is wearing impossibly shiny shoes and gold epaulettes. If God weren't resting his suave old soul, you'd expect David Niven to walk in with Peter Wyngarde on his arm. Without trying too hard, you can imagine Fellini standing in the corner saying, "Christ, this is weird!" Quit what the gnarled jet-setters are making of the music programme is anyone's guess. At 1.15am the Barry Manilow tape was exchanged for a stripped down five-piece (and non- stop disco dancer Mayte - pronounced My Tie - Garcia) who have just embarked upon the most daunting funk experience of a lifetime. A knot of maybe 15 perfumed debs cluster around the lip of the stage. Naturally you join them and find yourself standing so close to the Artist Formerly Known As Prince (AFKAP to use the diminutive) that you can hear him singing unamplified behind his microphone.

As the franc-trillionaires dance like your dad or simply stand looking bemused, a set of entirely new material is unleashed: a slamming funk madhouse named "Now"; a total headshag of a thing called "Interactive"; "Glam Slam Boogie", a swinging R & B shuffle; this scorching rap, Days Of Wild; "Space", a superb mid-paced chug; a Prince-of-yore smutathon which boasts the chorus "Pop goes the zipper"; "Race", another blistering rap and a freshly minted song which may not have been called "Jogging Machine". Amazingly, despite performing for over two hours and dancing like an amphetamined primate, he doesn't break sweat. It's only during the very last song (during which he takes to calling out "Bass - hallowed be thy name" and "You know you're funky!") that minute moist tresses begin to glisten at the back of his neck. Shirtless now, you can't help but notice as he cavorts on the floor with Mayte that here is a man who has no truck with underwear. The trained medical eye can also detect, through sheer yellow matador trousers, that he is circumcised. And she isn't. It is indecently, maybe even illegally, sexy. "Doesn't anyone have to go to work tomorrow." he asks rhetorically as the monied merry-makers bay for another encore. "Guess not."

The Prince camp are an odd crew: all are deeply aware of the idiosyncrasies of their bonsai boss - and they call him "Boss" - but they hold him in unutterably high esteem. One lunchtime, his American PR, face poker-straight, tells me that her charge is "an instrument of God." Over drinks, his European PR is a little more terrestrial: "He doesn't talk a lot," he says, reflecting on Prince's visit, a few days ago, to his newly opened London shop. "He just came in and sat on the stairs sucking a lollipop. Then he wandered around for a while, looking at things. Of course, the next day I get long lists of changes he wants made."

The band plainly find his celebrity both a convenient distraction and a bit of a laugh. They are more than used to fencing questions about their commander, invariably dismissing enquiries with "He's just a regular cat like you and me", but in their hearts they know he isn't. I ask them one Fleet Street-type question about their shrift: "Is he Mayte's boyfriend?" "No," they say firmly. "She don't have a boyfriend."

Amusingly, among the entourage, the P word is rarely mentioned for fear it might result in the P45 word. There is a mild panic when a poster advertising his appearance at Monte Carlo's World Music Awards is spotted with the dread legend on it. In the blink of an eye the name is erased and the now familiar gold unisex symbol drawn in its place. "If he'd seen that," says a relieved minder, "he might have just have turned around and gone home."

A telling scene occurs one night as the band are sitting around talking nonsense and drinking beer in the lobby of the oppressively posh Hotel De Paris. A huge horde of fans have gathered outside having heard that their hero is dining with Prince Albert tonight and will soon be emerging from the hotel. At 8.30, Prince ghosts up by your side (you soon learn that he has this unnerving habit of just appearing) and in an unimaginably deep voice asks, "Shall I go out the front?" He is resplendent in full battle dress: a jacket made from what once must have been fold doily, lace strides, heels, walking cane and lollipop. "Yeah," cry the band, "go out the front! Freak 'em out!" With the cheekiest of smirks, he pops the lolly decisively into his mouth and steps boldly out through the revolving door. The crowd screech his old name as, surrounded by three minders, he steps - head down, mouth corners curling knowingly - into a waiting car.

Only once during our five-day stay do we see Prince out of his stage gear. He is in a lift heading down to have his hair re-teased and is wearing a black jumper, leather jeans and impenetrable dark glasses, presumably because he hasn't bothered to put on any make-up on. He looks remarkably pale but then he has just got up. It's 5pm.

Similarly, the only time you truly find him off-duty is when you wander early into the empty Stars & Bars club and he is standing on the dancefloor on his own picking out a riff on a bass guitar. After thrumbing absently for a while he mutters "Sounds like shit" to himself. Then the enigmatic song and dance man looks over to the technicians and says, "Can we get separate EQ for the bass in the monitors?"

Such was the success of the gig at Prince Albert's party, a decision is made to play the same club the following evening. Sadly, the show isn't nearly half as good. It is merely transcendent.

"Do you feel ready to meet him?" It's been four days now. It's a little after midnight. You're not going to feel much readier. I'm escorted up to a small room that features a large white bed an not much else. The doors are open and, below, the guano-festooned roof of the Monte Carlo Casino looks monumentally unimpressive. The junior suite is the temporary home of Prince's brother and head of security, Duane Nelson. In keeping with the name change game, he has been re-christened The Former Duane. Prince's pe rsonal minder, a mightily be-blazered individual called Tracy, who looks and sounds alarmingly like Mike Tyson, informs is that "he" will be arriving soon.

Within a minute, there is a tiny commotion in the doorway and Prince is suddenly standing before you like a virgin bride on her wedding night. Dressed completely in white silk and wearing full make-up, he only breaks a long floor-bound stare to flash one coquettish glance upwards by way of a greeting. I'm introduced by name. He isn't. We are left alone.

An agreement made prior to this meeting stipulated, in no uncertain terms, that three rules were to by obeyed if intercourse of any description were to occur: firstly, that no tape recorder be used; secondly, that no notepad or pen be brought into the room; and thirdly, and most strangely, that no questions be asked. He wanted to enjoy a half-hour conversation unencumbered by the paraphernalia of nosy journalism.

He paces around the cramped boudoir in deliberate, even steps, as if he needed to fit the place with a new carpet and had forgotten his tape measure. He wanders out on to the balcony, still having not uttered a word and then comes back in, shutting the doors behind him. He is small but in perfect proportion, like a scale model of an adult. A doll, an Action Mannequin. He sits down next to me on the bed in a semi-lotus position and fixes his gaze on the middle distance, smiling secretly. No-one has said anything for a full minute. Then he turns with this curious expression. It's somewhere between the shamed but surly look of someone that has been wrongly reprimanded and the suggestive yet intense glare of someone who is about to shag you. Oh no! He leans forward and you can smell him. It is just like the band said: he smells of flowers, music and innocence. I smell of lager. Eventually, he says this:

"I don't say much."

Oh dear. Silence.

Why not?

He shrugs in slow-motion and looks sideways and downwards. It's a sad, apologetic gesture, like he just killed your dog. This will serve as an answer for many of the questions he's initially asked. Once again. Why is that? Why don't you say much?

"You don't need to."

That doesn't bode well for this conversation really, does it?

"Guess not."

A different tack: "Speak to me only with thine eyes." Have you heard that phrase?

"Mm".

He turns on the bed and laughs, rolling his eyes to heaven. He is wearing an extraordinary amount of slap - foundation, eyeliner, black mascara (on lashes of which Bambi is alleged to be fiercely jealous), brown eye shadow on the outermost corners of his lids. He has the most slender line of facial hair that runs from one temple, down his cheek across his upper lip and up the other side. There are black, phallic rockets on the sleeves of his shirt.

We look at each other for a while. It isn't quite uncomfortable, more exhilarating, like a first date. In keeping with this, I say: "You look lovely, by the way."

He exhales almost sexually, bites his lower lip and whispers, "Why, thank you."

This is becoming ludicrous. We've got 30 minutes and 10 of those have just been swallowed up with nothing more than a handful of sighs, some peculiar body language and one dodgy chat-up line to show for it. I decide to forget the rules and fire a volley of questions at him.

How did you feel when you heard Jimi Hendrix for the first time? He stops and thinks and arranges his hands in a steeple in front of his mouth.

"That was before Puerto Rico," he says quietly and, to be honest, mystifyingly. "I can't remember much before then. That was before I changed my name."

Why have you changed your name?

"I acted on the advice of my spirit."

Do you normally do that. Is it reliable, your spirit's advice?

"Of course."

Is it significant that you've changed your name?

"It's very significant."

Did you dream last night?

He frowns. "No, can't remember. Although I had a dream recently and I was telling Mo Ostin (Chairman of Warner Brothers Records) to be all a man and not half a man."

Last night I dreamt I saw this article in print. Believe it or not, the headline was Funny Little Fucker.

Seriously.

He laughs. "Oh."

Do you fall in love easily?

"No."

You're a slow burner then?

"Uh-huh."

It isn't going tremendously well. Knocking it on the head and suggesting we just go out for a curry begins to seem like an excellent idea. Then something highly bizarre and Prince-like happens: a sound starts to crackle through a previously unnoticed and inert TV. Without missing a beat, he nods towards the set and says, "It's a sign. It's a sign that we should go to my room." He makes for the door, leading with his shoulders. Duane appears in the hall and asks what the problem is. "A sound came through the TV," explains Prince. "It's a sign." "Nah, says Duane, "you probably just sat on the remote control." And with that, he ushers us back into the bedroom to continue our "conversation".

Q: Do you think you're underrated as a lyricist?

"Well, underrated by who? Against what? You know? Some people get them. That's what counts."

Q: Do people not get the humour in your work?

"Maybe, but there's a lot of things that I don't get the humour in."

Q: What's the most moving piece of music you've heard recently?

(Long, sigh-strewn pause) "Sonny's bass solo last night."

Q: What is your preoccupation with sex all about? It features in nearly all your songs. Does sex really loom that large in your life?

"My songs aren't all about sex. People read that into them."

Q: But sex is such a dominant theme. Your new song called "Come" is unarguably about orgasm.

"Is it? That's your interpretation? Come where? Come to whom? Come for what?"

Q: Oh, come on!

(Laughs) "That's just the way you see it. It's in your mind."

This is the first subject he warms to: different perceptions. How one man's meat is another man's muesli. This, he explains, is why we can't label music, feelings, people. He says something convoluted like: everything is something else to everyone. When I begin to ask him about how he thinks other people perceive him, it obviously touches a nerve. He adopts the voice of an especially demented mynah bird and asks, "Are you normal? Are you normal? Is that what you're asking me? Do I think I'm normal? Yes, I do. I think I'm normal. I am normal."

Q: What happens in your life when you're not doing music?

(Hikes, eyebrows, looks incredulous) "When I'm not doing music?"

Q: Do you have a life outside of your work?

"Yes."

Q: And what does that involve?

(Pinteresque pause) "Have you never read about me? I'm a very private person."

Q: I'm not prying, I'm just interested.

"I know. I understand."

The subject of his recording contract with Warner Brothers comes up, as does the topic of Prince's work - he speaks about Prince in the third person. Whether or not Prince the recording artist is finished, consigned to the bunker of history, is unclear. He says several times that the body of work is complete but later admits that he hasn't ruled out the possibility of adding to it, under the name Prince or otherwise, in the future.

Q: Is it possible to shed a entire personality?

It's not like it's a real personality."

Q: It's a person then?

"Yeah, I think it is."

Q: Have you turned your back on pop music?

"What's pop music? It's different things to different people."

Q: Beatles-derived four-chord tunes that everyone can sing along to.

"Still don't help. Is The Most Beautiful Girl pop music? I can't say? You can't say."

He mentions George Michael's court case for the first time. It's a subject he'll return to with astonishing regularity and persistence. At one point, he almost shouts, "Why can't George Michael do what he wants? Why can't he write a ballet if he wants to?" What he is talking about is artistic freedom and its place in the future. By the end of the rant, and it is a rant, I suggest that he should get in touch with George Michael as he might find such supportive words encouraging. "Oh," he says breezily. "We speak."

Q: What do you think about when you're playing a guitar solo?

"I'm normally just listening."

Q: You look like you're about to cry sometimes.

"Really? Mm. Maybe."

Q: You seem at your most relaxed on stage.

If it's all going well, I'm pretty happy up there. It's a very natural thing for me."

Q: Offstage you seem to be having a good old laugh at us sometimes.

He laughs.

Prince during 9.7.1994 @ the VH1 Honors in Los Angeles, California, United States

1. Interactive
2. Endorphinmachine

LA Glam Slam After party

1. the Jam
2. I Believe In You
3. Interactive
4. Days of Wild

5. Now
6. Superstition
7. May Don't You Weep
8. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
9. Maybe Your Baby w/Stevie Wonder

10. I'll Take You There w/Stevie Wonder

11. Dark
12. Instrumental

13. Get Wild

14. Peach

iZsaZsa said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element

I loved that movie. Chris Tucker said no to the pubic hair covered bodysuit as well, or else I don't remember it. It's just too nasty looking.

That would have been a perfect movie 4 the Artist Formerly Known As Prince
He should have just talked to Jean about what look would work for him
take something from his current style and take it 2 the 5th Element

Help??

I have this image listed under a 'Beautiful' video shoot...

Is there such a song?

Prince
Mayte Garcia ( dancer)
Sonny Thompson (bass)
Morris Hayes ( key)boards
Tommy Barbarella ( keyboards)
Michael Bland (drrums)

Prince shot a bunch of non-Gold videos during this period

These are from RACE

OldFriends4Sale said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Even though Prince weighed like 80 pounds in this era and was looking OVERLY androgynous with the white makeup and lesbian haircut, he was super cool. The music (The Dawn, TGE, Come, Exodus, Child of the Sun, Emancipation, Chaos) was still slammin', he was fearless and doing whatever he wanted, his bitchfits were kind of funny, and I loved the NPG.

Peace. And be wild

OldFriends4Sale said:

Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element is, in a word, weird. It’s visually stunning, often hilarious, ambitious as all hell…but deeply, profoundly, cartoonishly weird. This is a movie where Milla Jovovich is running around wearing oversized band-aids and speaking in broken english, where Gary Oldman’s performance as Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg is just this side of Looney Tunes territory. And then there’s Ruby Rhod. The frenetic, squeaky-voiced, androgynous talk-show host made Chris Tucker a household name, but it turns out there was another well-known personality originally slated to fill Ruby Rhod’s outlandish shoes: the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

http://www.giantfreakinro...-rhod.html

The Brooklyn Museum has a new exhibit featuring the work of artist/costume designer Jean Paul Gaultier, who, in addition to working on The Fifth Element, also includes films such as The City of Lost Children and The Skin I Live In. The folks at io9 hit up the event and capture some very cool relics from a Fifth Element that might have been, concept designs for the Ruby Rhod costume Gaultier created for Prince when the musician was still attached to the project back in the early ‘90s.

The exhibit also included Gaultier’s first-hand account of showing the art to Prince…and Prince’s unexpected reaction to it.

One of the thousand costumes in The Fifth Element, I took my inspiration for many of them from my own collections. Filming was originally planned for 1992, with Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson and Prince in the leading roles but due to a lack of financing the project was put on hold. At that time, the role of Ruby Rhod, the outrageous media personality finally played by Chris Tucker, had been given to Prince.

When the singer was giving a series of concerts in Paris, Luc Besson wanted us both to meet with him to show him my sketches. Prince had already attended my runway shows, but he came and went very quickly every time, so we had never been formally introduced. While I was waiting for Luc in his office, I saw this huge bodyguard appear, with Prince trailing behind him. As Luc hasn’t yet arrived, I thought he must have wanted me to meet with Prince alone, so we could get to know each other a little bit. In broken English, and with my strong French accent, I tried my best to make conversation, something like ‘Hell-O Prin-ze, welcome to Par-isse! So for ze role I sink…’

I showed him my drawings, but he didn’t say a word. I had had an idea for a really funny costume with netting which quite long body hair would pass through, and I had done front and back versions of it. So then I explained to Prince: ‘Eet eel fake ‘air, you know, and eet eel beaucoup, beaucoup, airy, vraiment fun, and ze back is made of sat, and on ze back were eez ze faux cul, you know, a very big faux cul.’ and I slapped my buttocks to show him how the back of the costume would be designed.

Still not saying anything, Prince gave me this Charlie Chaplin kind of look. I could see that something had just happened, but I didn’t know what, only that he had indicated to his body guard that he wanted to leave right then and there. I thought he was going to go and see Luc. Later, Luc told me that Prince had been very surprised and amused — by my presentation, but that he found the costumes a bit too effeminate. And, most importantly, he had thought he head ‘Fuck you, fuck you!’ when I was saying in my terrible English accent ‘faux cul, faux cul’ [fake ass]! —Jean Paul Gaultier

Yes, you read that right: the Ruby Rhod outfit was “too effeminate” for freakin’ Prince. If designing an outfit that Prince dismisses as too effeminate isn’t one of the most impressive accomplishments you could have on your resume, I don’t know what is. Here are a few shots of Tucker as Ruby Rhod, to refresh your memory. (Assuming a thing like that could ever fade in your memory.)

This is the first time I've ever heard of this film!! Thank God Prince turned it down... that's too androgynous, even for him.. ew.

OldFriends4Sale said:

Soul Train 5.7.1994

Artist Formerly Known As Prince -
1. Mustangmix
2. Now
3. Acknowledge Me
4. Love Sign (w/Nona Gaye)


Guest host: Holly Robinson Peete (of ABC-TV's "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper").
http://www.tv.com/shows/s...ly-115951/

I love Mayte and Prince. So much chemistry and story.

CharismaDove said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element is, in a word, weird. It’s visually stunning, often hilarious, ambitious as all hell…but deeply, profoundly, cartoonishly weird. This is a movie where Milla Jovovich is running around wearing oversized band-aids and speaking in broken english, where Gary Oldman’s performance as Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg is just this side of Looney Tunes territory. And then there’s Ruby Rhod. The frenetic, squeaky-voiced, androgynous talk-show host made Chris Tucker a household name, but it turns out there was another well-known personality originally slated to fill Ruby Rhod’s outlandish shoes: the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

http://www.giantfreakinro...-rhod.html

The Brooklyn Museum has a new exhibit featuring the work of artist/costume designer Jean Paul Gaultier, who, in addition to working on The Fifth Element, also includes films such as The City of Lost Children and The Skin I Live In. The folks at io9 hit up the event and capture some very cool relics from a Fifth Element that might have been, concept designs for the Ruby Rhod costume Gaultier created for Prince when the musician was still attached to the project back in the early ‘90s.

The exhibit also included Gaultier’s first-hand account of showing the art to Prince…and Prince’s unexpected reaction to it.

Yes, you read that right: the Ruby Rhod outfit was “too effeminate” for freakin’ Prince. If designing an outfit that Prince dismisses as too effeminate isn’t one of the most impressive accomplishments you could have on your resume, I don’t know what is. Here are a few shots of Tucker as Ruby Rhod, to refresh your memory. (Assuming a thing like that could ever fade in your memory.)

This is the first time I've ever heard of this film!! Thank God Prince turned it down... that's too androgynous, even for him.. ew.

the movie is a visual piece of art

Prince could have called the shots.
the comedian that played the roll, that is his characterization.
Prince could have been / and I expect they would expect him to be the way he wanted to express it.
Prince could easily have called the shots in the look he would be comfortable with.
I think seeing Prince in a film that wasn't his own, like this would have been a nice stamp of his image in time.

OldFriends4Sale said: