MoodyBlumes said:

PJMcGee said:

MoodyBlumes said:

MC Hammer's 'Pray' went to #2 -- heavily samples When Doves Cry.

I remember Pray, but it didn't have nearly the impact of U Can't Touch This.

I prefer Prince and Rick James, but whatever floats your boat.

jdcxc said:

MoodyBlumes said:

Sure, fact are facts -- what is your point? Prince didn't learn music from Eric, he hired him to lay down some sax on the Family Album. One doesn't need to be from Minnesota to know that Prince had a successful career prior to 1985. What does Eric going to music school have to do with anything -- would he have schooled Duke Ellington too?

There are folks in every town who are are unsophisticated musically -- Prince wasn't one of them, neither was Morris -- no doubt a few others had heard of Miles Davis, including John Nelson.

.

From Morris' book 'On Time':

.

"Prince was crazy for Miles Davis. I dug Miles from 'Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew'. I also followed Miles when he later hooked up with producer Tommy LiPuma and master bassist Marcus Miller and turned out Tutu. But Prince knew Miles' stuff from the 50s. Maybe because Prince's dad was a jazz musician or maybe because Prince could wrap his mind around bebop, he talked about Miles' records on the Prestige and Blue labels. He talked about how Miles recruited the greatest virtuosos of his time - John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett -- but it was more than music that drew Prince to Miles. It was Miles' attitude. Miles' swagger. Miles' chameleonlike ability to adapt to musical fashions while inventing fashions of his own.

.

Prince would talk about how Miles and Miles alone could get away with turning his back to the audience. He did it as a way of saying, 'You don't matter as much as the music'. Prince also dug that Miles broke the mold when it came to dress. Jazz musicians, like Prince's dad, were hardly into clothes. They were mostly conservative dressers. But as time went on, Miles strutted onto the stage like a rock star, wearing far out metallic designs by avant-garde designers like Issey Miyake....

.

We both saw Bob Dylan as a towering songwriter. Prince was especially impressed with the depth of his catalog. A wildly prolific writer himself, Prince looked to Dylan as a model of productivity. He also dug the great range of Dylan's subject matter, not to mention his blues roots.

.

There were nights when Prince and I did nothing but sit around and listen to the Beatles. He talked about Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band as a revolutionary record. He loved how the Beatles, like Miles, were able to reinvent themselves. He knew that in pop culture, where tastes shift like the wind, reinvention is key to sustaining success."

[Edited 6/5/21 16:04pm]

Ur bringing great receipts to this topic! For anyone to argue that Prince wasnt musically curious, with an encyclopedic musical taste from DAY 1, is ludicrous.

I never said Prince wasn't musically curious. What is annoying about this conversation is that people aren't actually responding to what was said in the article, and they are flipping about imaginings and projections, and the stupid click-bait original title of this post.

Minnesota isn't Brooklyn or LA. Especially in the 70s and 80s. I know that because I lived there at the time. Obviously Prince brought plenty of shit to the table, but so did his bandmembers. No one creates at the scale Prince did alone. No one. An artist does not create in a vacuum. As a musician myself I have a number of friends that I refer to that have different musical backgrounds than I do, and we share stuff. It's actually NOT a contentious issue.

PJMcGee said:

I remember Pray, but it didn't have nearly the impact of U Can't Touch This.

I remember MC Hammer & Vanilla Ice had dolls. There was the Hammerman cartoon show too.

jdcxc said:

MoodyBlumes said:

Sure, fact are facts -- what is your point? Prince didn't learn music from Eric, he hired him to lay down some sax on the Family Album. One doesn't need to be from Minnesota to know that Prince had a successful career prior to 1985. What does Eric going to music school have to do with anything -- would he have schooled Duke Ellington too?

There are folks in every town who are are unsophisticated musically -- Prince wasn't one of them, neither was Morris -- no doubt a few others had heard of Miles Davis, including John Nelson.

.

From Morris' book 'On Time':

.

"Prince was crazy for Miles Davis. I dug Miles from 'Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew'. I also followed Miles when he later hooked up with producer Tommy LiPuma and master bassist Marcus Miller and turned out Tutu. But Prince knew Miles' stuff from the 50s. Maybe because Prince's dad was a jazz musician or maybe because Prince could wrap his mind around bebop, he talked about Miles' records on the Prestige and Blue labels. He talked about how Miles recruited the greatest virtuosos of his time - John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett -- but it was more than music that drew Prince to Miles. It was Miles' attitude. Miles' swagger. Miles' chameleonlike ability to adapt to musical fashions while inventing fashions of his own.

.

Prince would talk about how Miles and Miles alone could get away with turning his back to the audience. He did it as a way of saying, 'You don't matter as much as the music'. Prince also dug that Miles broke the mold when it came to dress. Jazz musicians, like Prince's dad, were hardly into clothes. They were mostly conservative dressers. But as time went on, Miles strutted onto the stage like a rock star, wearing far out metallic designs by avant-garde designers like Issey Miyake....

.

We both saw Bob Dylan as a towering songwriter. Prince was especially impressed with the depth of his catalog. A wildly prolific writer himself, Prince looked to Dylan as a model of productivity. He also dug the great range of Dylan's subject matter, not to mention his blues roots.

.

There were nights when Prince and I did nothing but sit around and listen to the Beatles. He talked about Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band as a revolutionary record. He loved how the Beatles, like Miles, were able to reinvent themselves. He knew that in pop culture, where tastes shift like the wind, reinvention is key to sustaining success."

[Edited 6/5/21 16:04pm]

Ur bringing great receipts to this topic! For anyone to argue that Prince wasnt musically curious, with an encyclopedic musical taste from DAY 1, is ludicrous.

Really no receipts that Wendy and Lisa were into rap music more than Prince -- he put out the Black album in 1987, Fight the Power was released in 1989. He had put out songs like Irresistible Bitch long before that. W&L were putting out 'Lolly Lolly' in 1989.

[Edited 6/6/21 14:57pm]

Ya'll ain't know? Wendy and Lisa taught Prince everything he knew about Black music. He knew NOTHING before he met those two.

MoodyBlumes said:

Hamad said:

Prince actually sang Fight the power in his shows, also at the welcome to Australia shows with Flava Flava.

JudasLChrist said:

jdcxc said:

Ur bringing great receipts to this topic! For anyone to argue that Prince wasnt musically curious, with an encyclopedic musical taste from DAY 1, is ludicrous.

I never said Prince wasn't musically curious. What is annoying about this conversation is that people aren't actually responding to what was said in the article, and they are flipping about imaginings and projections, and the stupid click-bait original title of this post.

Minnesota isn't Brooklyn or LA. Especially in the 70s and 80s. I know that because I lived there at the time. Obviously Prince brought plenty of shit to the table, but so did his bandmembers. No one creates at the scale Prince did alone. No one. An artist does not create in a vacuum. As a musician myself I have a number of friends that I refer to that have different musical backgrounds than I do, and we share stuff. It's actually NOT a contentious issue.

The article and Wendy's quotes were ridiculous. Minnesota was not immune from HipHop and Prince was not some sheltered midwestern son. He was signed to a major label in 1978 and toured extensively for years. Of course he was influenced by the world around him, but that is not what ppl are critiquing about this article. Its the whole absurd (and racist) concept that W&L were teaching the contemporary (or jazz or Joni or Beatles or Led Zep) musical world to Prince. Fight the Power came out in 1989...4 years after Krush Groove. 😂

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

I believe w and l as hipsters introduced p to public enemy in 86 But not fight the power Maybe they got the songs mixed up

Well that’s interesting considering Public Enemy didn’t have an album out in 1986 – Parade was released that year though – is this the ‘granny music’ W&L are referring to? We don’t like this article, so we’ll make up our own?

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Hamad said:

Prince is the son of a Jazz combo leader. What do you mean Eric introduced him to jazz/Miles Davis? I’m sick & tired of this “Prince was living under a rock when I found him” narrative these people are trying to push. [Edited 6/4/21 16:41pm]

Eric was into electric miles Sure p knew miles But how well ? The music he made shows there was little jazz in.his music until 86 or so Which is when Eric joined the band Make of that what you will

Do you hear electric miles in Prince's music? Prince was into Miles' '50s period, according to Morris, Eric himself said he was not. I can hear Miles' emotive 50s trumpet lines influencing Prince's bended and emotive guitar solo lines like in Purple Rain. And according to Eric, Prince told him to play what he didn't know in any case. The Madhouse side project isn't jazz really... and Prince did play more than half the 1st album -- his jazzy piano was there on Sexy Dancer too.

.

Prince: Piano & a Mic...e Guardian

“Gospel, classical, funk and jazz ooze from his fingertips at will, so audaciously in the previously bootleg Cold Coffee and Cocaine you suspect the guy could have played Chopin on a watering can. Nine tracks form an unedited single take. He peels off a formative minute of Purple Rain, gets deep and bluesy on American civil war spiritual Mary Don’t You Weep, and draws a compelling skeletal embryo of Strange Relationship from Sign O’ the Times. International Lover, from 1982’s 1999, turns into a vocal masterclass. Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You offers a peek into another of his musical passions. The more hauntingly jazzy Why the Butterflies is glorious, by most standards, but obviously not glorious enough for Prince, so it stayed on the shelf.”

[Edited 6/6/21 21:04pm]

sambluedolphin said:

Prince actually sang Fight the power in his shows, also at the welcome to Australia shows with Flava Flava.

Yes and he brought Bob George on tour with him during Lovesexy.

.

.

[Edited 6/6/21 20:28pm]

jdcxc said:

JudasLChrist said:

I never said Prince wasn't musically curious. What is annoying about this conversation is that people aren't actually responding to what was said in the article, and they are flipping about imaginings and projections, and the stupid click-bait original title of this post.

Minnesota isn't Brooklyn or LA. Especially in the 70s and 80s. I know that because I lived there at the time. Obviously Prince brought plenty of shit to the table, but so did his bandmembers. No one creates at the scale Prince did alone. No one. An artist does not create in a vacuum. As a musician myself I have a number of friends that I refer to that have different musical backgrounds than I do, and we share stuff. It's actually NOT a contentious issue.

The article and Wendy's quotes were ridiculous. Minnesota was not immune from HipHop and Prince was not some sheltered midwestern son. He was signed to a major label in 1978 and toured extensively for years. Of course he was influenced by the world around him, but that is not what ppl are critiquing about this article. Its the whole absurd (and racist) concept that W&L were teaching the contemporary (or jazz or Joni or Beatles or Led Zep) musical world to Prince. Fight the Power came out in 1989...4 years after Krush Groove. 😂

Literally all that is said in the article is that they played Fight the Power for Prince. It didn't say that Minnesota was immune to hip hop (shit, I had a copy of Rappers Delight at 9 years old, and I went to Krush Groove at the Skyway Theater on Hennipen when it came out), or that Prince was sheltered, or that he wasn't infliuenced by the world. Practially the entire band has said that Prince hadn't heard Sgt. Pepper until one day they were playing it on the bus (he hated it, reportedly). I mean... fuck The Beatles, who cares? These things aren't weighted with all this other shit unless you want them to be.

MoodyBlumes said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Early rap in the 80s was not so quickly embraced by older generations. ie 30s up.
It was being called a fad and not really accepted as music as older generations usually do.
I know of 'Black' radio stations that did not play rap music until after a certain time in the 80s.

It was a younger generations thing. And Prince wasn't some average 'urban' man especially in 1987 or 1989. He was still in his bubble and doing his own thing. Yes he listened to stuff that was happening current, but I think not listening to so much of it, as regular folk would made his music in the 80s so unique. In 1988 Prince was still hanging with people with the same off color energy from his 1978-1986 period. The AA musicians were heavily into rock and still emersed in Prince's sound.
.
I remember first hearing 45s of UTFO and Roxanne etc

at the time, it was interesting, but I was so emersed in various types of music and being a huge Prince fan, I was used to a lot of melody, and all types of instruments. Rap didn't have that right away. And I still remember the period where it was basically a rapper and a drum machine. I just didn't care for it. Being a huge Prince fan and getting a copy of a copy of the Black album late 87 I was sorta in agreement with Prince. I mean he was my prince so I had to right?
.
Being 'black' or of African ancestry doesn't mean all liked rap. It just doesn't go that way lol. Being a huge jazz fan from way back I always knew black/mixed dudes that just didn't care for it.

.

Riding in my Thunderbird on the freeway
I turned on my radio to hear some music play
I got a silly rapper talking silly shit instead
And the only good rapper is one that's dead on it

Uh, dead on it

Shall we go back? (Yeah)
Let's go

Negros from Brooklyn play the bass pretty good
But the ones from Minneapolis play it like it oughta should
A magnum fro is better when you got a poof on it
And the to and fro is funky when the grease is dead on it

Uh, dead (on it) on it

Shall we go back? Let's go
They dead on it, wow

Ah
See the rapper's problem usually stem from being tone deaf
Pack the house then try to sing
There won't be no one left, on it

Parking lot's on fire, brothers peelin' out of the town
They say in disgust, they singin' their guts
Rappin' done let us down (down, down)
You got to be dead, on it (ohh)

Dead on it (ohh)
(Dead)

All the sisters like it when you lick 'em on the knees
Don't believe me? (No)
Do it once then stop, they'll be begging
"Please, please, please" (please, please, please)
Shoo be doo wa, dead on it
What does that have to do with the funk?
Nothing, but who's paying the bills?
If you don't want to lick my knees, I'm sho' your mama will

Uh, 'cause we, 'cause we, 'cause we dead on it
D-d-d-d-d-d-dead on it, on it
La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la

My bed's a coffin, Dracula ain't got shit on me
My nickname's Hell's-a-Poppin', I'm badder than the Wicked Witch
I got a gold tooth, costs more than your house
I got a diamond ring on four fingers (four fingers)
Each one the size of a mouse

They dead, they dead (on it) on it

Ha
Yeah-hoo
She-la, la, la, ah, ooh, oh
Uh

La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la
La, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la

Wait now, hang up, dial tone on the three
You know, you know, I'm busy, to scizzy
Can't nobody fuck with me

'Cause I'm dead (on it, on it, on it)
On it

Shoo be doo wa wa, dead on it
Dead on it, on it, on it

Dang, dang, dang, dang
(Dead on it) shoo be dang, dang, dang (dead on it)
Dead on it (dead on it)

And yet Cat was rapping on Alphabet Street - Lovesexy. Prince was a player... or do you also think he also wasn't influenced by Hendrix, as he claimed? But true, the artist who recorded 'Dirty Mind' was not your average urban Joe.

[Edited 6/6/21 12:41pm]

I'm talking about the genre as a whole, that was emerging by that time.

I don't have to question the Hendrix comparison with this

.

Cat loved Salt n Pepa, he kept saying to her if she didn't do her part right that he would let them know and then left the studio

OldFriends4Sale said:

MoodyBlumes said:

And yet Cat was rapping on Alphabet Street - Lovesexy. Prince was a player... or do you also think he also wasn't influenced by Hendrix, as he claimed? But true, the artist who recorded 'Dirty Mind' was not your average urban Joe.

[Edited 6/6/21 12:41pm]

I'm talking about the genre as a whole, that was emerging by that time.

I don't have to question the Hendrix comparison with this

.

Cat loved Salt n Pepa, he kept saying to her if she didn't do her part right that he would let them know and then left the studio

Wendy and Lisa have no relationship to the genre as a whole. Timbaland and Dr. Dre aren't listening to 'Fruit at the Bottom'.

I'd appreciate an article about Lisa's love for Bill Evans -- at least there would be some connection to her music. Interestingly, nobody has noted what granny music Prince was playing that compelled W&L to fly to Minnesota to come to his rescue -- we know the children were listening to Batman, so they must be speaking on their own material. I have no issue with W&L's music, but if they're going to claim that Prince was catering to grannys -- whatever the heck that means, then it is only fitting to respond in kind. Prince was not an infant who needed to be spoonfed the Beatles and Miles Davis... Morris did actually know Prince too. My guess is that Prince spent quite a few times rolling his eyes in private. I'm not sure some of these folks even asked Prince about what he knew.

MoodyBlumes said:

I'd appreciate an article about Lisa's love for Bill Evans -- at least there would be some connection to her music. Interestingly, nobody has noted what granny music Prince was playing that compelled W&L to fly to Minnesota to come to his rescue -- we know the children were listening to Batman, so they must be speaking on their own material. I have no issue with W&L's music, but if they're going to claim that Prince was catering to grannys -- whatever the heck that means, then it is only fitting to respond in kind. Prince was not an infant who needed to be spoonfed the Beatles and Miles Davis... Morris did actually know Prince too. My guess is that Prince spent quite a few times rolling his eyes in private. I'm not sure some of these folks even asked Prince about what he knew.

The fictional story you are building here is getting more and more absurd. The article says none of that.

JudasLChrist said:

MoodyBlumes said:

I'd appreciate an article about Lisa's love for Bill Evans -- at least there would be some connection to her music. Interestingly, nobody has noted what granny music Prince was playing that compelled W&L to fly to Minnesota to come to his rescue -- we know the children were listening to Batman, so they must be speaking on their own material. I have no issue with W&L's music, but if they're going to claim that Prince was catering to grannys -- whatever the heck that means, then it is only fitting to respond in kind. Prince was not an infant who needed to be spoonfed the Beatles and Miles Davis... Morris did actually know Prince too. My guess is that Prince spent quite a few times rolling his eyes in private. I'm not sure some of these folks even asked Prince about what he knew.

The fictional story you are building here is getting more and more absurd. The article says none of that.

Which article are you reading? Do you think they walked to Minneapolis?

.

“I remember, after we had broken the band up, and Do The Right Thing had just come out, and Lisa and I went to Minneapolis and I was a fanatic for the main title song,” Melvoin said. “I put it on there at Paisley, and [Prince] seemed visibly angry at the track. "

.

“It was almost the antithesis of what Prince was trying to do,” Coleman added. “He was aiming at your grandmother now, not at your kids. Chuck D was aiming at the kids.”

.

In 1989 W&L were singing 'Lolly Lolly' -- someone should tell them the kids weren't listening.

Wendy and Lisa went back in time and introduced Prince (a then struggling art student working at McDonald's) to their past selves. After struggling to teach the then mediocre musician how to play multiple instruments they left him with 40 albums worth of material and said simply "take your pick, kid".

They then went further back in time and attempted (for the first time) to kill Hitler as a baby. Girl Power.

MoodyBlumes said:

JudasLChrist said:

MoodyBlumes said:

Which article are you reading? Do you think they walked to Minneapolis?

.

“I remember, after we had broken the band up, and Do The Right Thing had just come out, and Lisa and I went to Minneapolis and I was a fanatic for the main title song,” Melvoin said. “I put it on there at Paisley, and [Prince] seemed visibly angry at the track. "

.

“It was almost the antithesis of what Prince was trying to do,” Coleman added. “He was aiming at your grandmother now, not at your kids. Chuck D was aiming at the kids.”

.

In 1989 W&L were singing 'Lolly Lolly' -- someone should tell them the kids weren't listening.

It literally says that they played the track for him and how he reacted. It does not say much beyond that. Pretty simple. Incidentally, I was a kid in 1989, and I had Fruit at the Bottom. And I had Hip Hop records way before that.

It says exactly what I have quoted -- you have taken the time to bold what I have pulled from the article and accuse me of making things up. I was not even responding to you. And for someone who claims no big deal, you sure have a lot to say. Prince did the Black Album in 1987 and brought Bob George on the Lovesexy Tour. Fruit is not hip hop, and many more kids preferred Batman -- it was a #1 record.

.

Interesting about your record collection considering you also wrote:

.

"Minnesota was a sheltered place compared to much of the country at the time. Wendy and L were the children of very reknown studio musicians, and Eric went to music school and was the younger brother to James Brown's manager, and he had a music career before Prince. I'm sure there's much they showed young Prince that he hadn't necessarily been familiar with before."

[Edited 6/7/21 18:29pm]

MoodyBlumes said:

It says exactly what I have quoted -- you have taken the time to bold what I have pulled from the article and accuse me of making things up. I was not even responding to you. And for someone who claims no big deal, you sure have a lot to say. Prince did the Black Album in 1987 and brought Bob George on the Lovesexy Tour. Fruit is not hip hop, and many more kids preferred Batman -- it was a #1 record.

None of it supports the false premise and the faux outrage conclusions from it.

There are originators of Hip Hop who also describe Fight the Power having a profound effect on them.

BalladofPeterParker said:

I don't agree with people who lable "Irresistable Bitch" rap. Yes, it's spoken-word rather than conventionally song, but that only relates it to rap in the broadest sense possible. I don't believe Prince intended to be rap or would have considered it rap (in fact, at the time he likely would have been offended by the comparison).

This strikes me as Prince fans wanting more ammunition to show Prince was ahead of the curb of other pop starts: "Heck, Prince was doing rap back in '82!" There are enough examples of legit ways Prince was head of the curb, we don't need to twist this song to fit that narrative.

The song is experimental (and great). But it's not rap. At best it's a second cousin three times removed.

lurker316 said:

I don't agree with people who lable "Irresistable Bitch" rap. Yes, it's spoken-word rather than conventionally song, but that only relates it to rap in the broadest sense possible. I don't believe Prince intended to be rap or would have considered it rap (in fact, at the time he likely would have been offended by the comparison).

This strikes me as Prince fans wanting more ammunition to show Prince was ahead of the curb of other pop starts: "Heck, Prince was doing rap back in '82!" There are enough examples of legit ways Prince was head of the curb, we don't need to twist this song to fit that narrative.

The song is experimental (and great). But it's not rap. At best it's a second cousin three times removed.

The vocal on the released version is "rapped", but the music is disco/funk.

But you could take that vocal and put it on a straight up sampled james Brown loop, add some deep echo and delay, and it might sound like 80's era "rap".

Butt the idea of "rapping" vocal goes way back. like 30's or 40's right?

Hamad said:

I love Lisa & Wendy, but man they’re so relentless with the bullshit factory. They also claimed they introduced him to Joni Mitchell which really blows my mind This has always been the conversation whenever they interview them and I don’t know why they the feel need for it, “we introduced Prince to [fill in the blank]”,,,,,um, ok. [Edited 6/4/21 17:21pm]

Joni Mitchell in an interview said that Prince wrote fan mail to her regularly and unfortunately they were lost or destroyed before he was famous. She said she eventually recognised this young man in the audience regularly front and centre, due to his large eyes that never left her during the concert. This was long before he met W&L.