Prince wanted to make his political voice heard

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Thread started 03/20/18 9:47am

laytonian

Prince wanted to make his political voice heard

Per Donatella.
I think he would have in this age of Trump's aggressive racism.
http://www.thefader.com/2...ves-matter

Welcome to "the org", laytonian… come bathe with me.

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Reply #1 posted 03/20/18 10:14am

NorthC	He did mention BLM in one of his award speeches, but him being "the face" of it... I'm not so sure. Movements like this shouldn't be taken over by celebrities. Most of the time, when Prince supported a cause or a charity, he did so behind the screens.
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Reply #2 posted 03/20/18 11:24am

laytonian

NorthC said:

He did mention BLM in one of his award speeches, but him being "the face" of it... I'm not so sure. Movements like this shouldn't be taken over by celebrities. Most of the time, when Prince supported a cause or a charity, he did so behind the screens.

Celebrities are only supposed to give money and stay silent?
They are citizens with the same rights as others.
P funded BLM.
I'm happy to hear he was planning to speak up. I think he would have been loud.

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Reply #3 posted 03/20/18 11:43am

NorthC

Speaking up is one thing. Being "the face" of a movement is another. Sure, celebrities can get things going, like Bob Geldof or Bono... But at the same time, Bono was involved with tax evasion... So yeah, I think it's better if celebrities donate and keep a low profile. Of course they can say whatever they want in interviews or wherever else, organize a benefit concert, join a protest march... But a celebrity being "the face" of a movement makes it seem as if this celebrity is taking over the movement for his/her own good. I'm not saying this was the case with Prince here. He is gone, we'll never know and I'm sure his intentions were good. I'm just saying we should be a little careful with celebrities getting involved with social/political causes.

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Reply #4 posted 03/20/18 11:56am

cbarnes3121

prince would of been perfect 2 speak up and out about black lives matter i think we all forget dr martin luther king wasnt a president or a politican he was just a preacher who wanted change in the non white communties.prince had more financial resources and pull than dr king he would of been perfect. with that being said we need the beyonce. jayz, bruno mars, and etcs to stand up and out for black lives in which they are

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Reply #5 posted 03/20/18 12:11pm

steakfinger	Prince wanted to make his political voice heard... but he was really bad at expessing such thoughts on a level any deeper than a bumper sticker.
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Reply #6 posted 03/20/18 7:14pm

rogifan	Why would he tell that to Donatella Versace? Paisley Park is in your heart #PrinceForever 💜
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Reply #7 posted 03/21/18 12:44am

Strive

I don't know how political it would have been.

"After the Trayvon Martin verdict I was talking to Prince and he said, 'You know, every time people see a young black man wearing a hoodie, they think, he's a thug. But if they see a young white guy wearing a hoodie they think, oh that might be Mark Zuckerberg. That might be a dot-com billionaire.'"

"I said, 'Well, yeah, Prince that's true but that's because of racism.' And he said, 'No, it's because we have not produced enough black Mark Zuckerbergs. That's on us. That's on us. To deal with what we're not doing to get our young people prepared to be a part of this new information economy.'"

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-prince-dies-live-up-how-prince-helped-launch-the-yeswecode-initiative-1461292892-htmlstory.html

That sounds much more like Prince wanting to help raise up his people than a partisan political move.

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Reply #8 posted 03/21/18 4:06am

GrayDorian

steakfinger said:

Prince wanted to make his political voice heard... but he was really bad at expessing such thoughts on a level any deeper than a bumper sticker.

Hmmm, your bolded remark seems unduly harsh to me. From the get go it was pretty clear how provocative and playful Prince could be lyrically, but he also seemed to me plenty capable of expressing his thoughts politically, perhaps with a focus more on social inequalities and injustices.

To my mind at least I think he came up with some deeper, thought provoking lyrics with songs like Avalanche, Dear Mr. Man, Planet Earth, Colonized Mind and Sign O’ The Times coming to mind.

At the time SOTT seemed to me a pretty bold and stimulating lyric for a mainstream pop star way back in 1987 to come up with, especially as Prince released it as his lead title single for that album, and moreover the video only further emphasized the lyrical impact, well at least to me anyway. (I think the follow up single, If I Was Ur Girlfriend, was pretty bold too, addressing relationships and intimacy in a pretty novel and stimulating way).

Even latterly the song Baltimore highlights repeatedly the need for justice to be done (and imho needs to be seen to be done) as a prerequisite to peace. Prince’s perceptive lyric ‘peace is more than the absence of war’ is way more insightful ‘than a bumper sticker’ imho. It’s a heckuva lot more profound than anything a dullard like me could come up with, that’s for sure.

It’s interesting to me how differently many of us seem to see Prince. Not too long ago I read folks on one of the forums vigorously debating Prince’s political sympathies (democrat or republican), whereas I tend to see him as misaligned and discontented with either option (albeit admittedly perhaps completely mistakenly).

I can readily relate to the feeling that political parties don’t really represent me or my values, which leaves me left looking for Hobson’s choice, and voting with resigned acceptance. Though the lyrics seem quite cynical, Prince summed up my feelings pretty well, when he wrote the bolded in Colonized Mind, ‘Upload: a 2-party system, The lesser of 2 dangers, Illusion of choice, Download: a veiled form of fascism, Nothing really ever changes, U never had a voice.

Considering this topic, I think the strong impression that I am left with, whether or not you and I are disagreed on Prince’s capabilities to express himself eloquently about socio-political issues, is that it seems to me that he really deeply cared about social injustices and inequalities and on a more basic level about people. He 'talked the talk' over the decades by emphasizing to us the need to love one another, and, more significantly to me, he 'walked the walk' too, as we learned from Van Jones’ testimony regarding Prince’s generous philanthropy. ‘Certainly he was a good fellow’.

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Reply #9 posted 03/21/18 5:55pm

Mumio

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