I have been seeing a bunch of stuff about this... what is it?

god dammit i thought you KNEW..!

Some lyrics that were posted over on the NPGMC site, in the VS room. In the lyrics, Prince gives a somewhat blinkered view of history and of non-African civilisations, which made some people pretty angry.

It generated some heated discussion on the Org, as do most racism-related discussions.

No doubt you'll find the lyrics somewhere in the Prince forum...

DORA said:

No... that's what is funny... it appears that some people are somehow connecting me to something that has to do with people being pissed off about these lyrics and I have no fucking idea what it even is!

ian said:

Ahhh... I will have to look over there and find out what the deal is.

Thanks.

I said the Morrocans weren't moors, then someone said they were berbers...the rest is history !! It's sad and totaly unimportant !!

Here are the lyrics:



THE MOORS IN SPAIN
by Prince (incomplete)

If this great African culture were alive 2day
We’d b 400 years more advanced
From Arabia they came 2 blossom in Spain
And 2 the beat of the drum they danced

Masters of the Arts and all industry
While France, England and all Germany
Wallowed in the mire of their own bigotry
The Moors were the ones who were truly free

Civilization came 2 Europe thru the Greek
Who were simply Africans who came from the Nile
The Greeks gave it 2 Rome who lost their way home
And it stayed that way 4 quite a while

Under their own misconception of Christianity
The barbaric (?) Europeans suffered greatly
While the Catholic Church was staking it’s claim
The Moors were making great gains
Introducing strawberries, lemons and sugarcane
Algebra, chemistry from the Moors this all came
Their contributions 2 knowledge, 2 numerous 2 name
While in Europe there were no public libraries, the Moors in Spain
Had 70, 600 thousand manuscripts and 17 universities

Not hardly a prisoner in the mind of society
In the Spain the Moors were once truly free

The one who is most gifted cannot lead the way in a world that never respected authority…
The sword of the Moor would have never left its sheath if the longhaired barbarian who opposed them would have only seen
That 2 win a war against the so-called “black infidels”
Brings about a peace that cannot last
But I guess all’s well that ends well… well it ain’t over

lovemachine said:

Well... his lyrics seem to be meant to be divisive.

IceNine said:

They are very poor any way you look at them, but yeah he just wanted to piss some people off.

This is why Prince doesn't really interest me very much anymore.

lovemachine said:

I agree... I don't support him at all anymore. He can do what he wants and I certainly support that, but I don't give him money anymore.

lovemachine said:

The odd thing is that these days there is a select group of people who listen to his music...why would he want to piss them off?
It doesn't make any sense.
(Btw, I think this song is a bunch of hooey, for the record.)
[This message was edited Wed May 28 6:23:52 PDT 2003 by applekisses]

Is this gonna be round 20?
Forget it, already.
He did what he did.
It's done.
I personally feel that the lyrics did not divide...they are mere words.
The reactions to the lyrics divided folks into camps.


Oh...and I am sure he will do it again.

Prince/Controversy...definitely not antonyms


Do you still want to hear the next album?

applekisses said:

For most of his career, Prince sent the mainstream running for cover.
Wouldn't it be funny if he now sent the "daring" seeking greater thrills
and he looks around and finds his audience full of "plain folks"?
METAMORPHO!!! MUWAAAHAHAHA

He seems to be riding the waves over at the club.

Ah well. Prince uses his art to express his opinions, nothing more and nothing less. I am free to take offence to his work (or not) but it's his music, he can say what he likes and we can choose whether or not to buy it.

For me... I'm really looking forward to NEWS - that sample over on NPGMC sounds great

Oh yeah if this turns into a proper debate I better move it to the Prince forum...

U all need 2 calm down n listen 2 how u each sound. This is the first I've heard of this. Thankx 4 sharing the lyrics:) I think it's beautiful. All it is is the TRUTH. Maybe it was brought up @ the wrong time or something,look @ it as a lesson n learn something from it. Don't b hatin' Hey Ian how r u?

IceNine said:

Wekkum to the club...I was deemed your "cronie", yer "lap dog", yer "pet", and Robbin Quivers to your Howard Stern...all apparently (from what I can tell) because I answered a question about 1984 correctly...

wellbeyond said:

Classic stuff, really!

Some people are really, really not that bright. :LOL:

WB, glad it wasn't just me being tarred with that brush.

Swear to god, this really reminded me of "4 legs good, 2 legs bad" shit...

ian said:

:LOL:

It was funny as hell... that's all I know!

IceNine said:

When did this happen? I'm outta the loop.

applekisses said:

It was all part of the big stupidity festival...

This is interesting...

THE MOORS


Who were they?
The Moors are not a specific race of people. The word has never been clearly defined and remains ambiguous and confusing. This term has been broadly used to denote various people in North Africa, people who came from Morocco or simply to describe Muslims in general. Christians in the 13th century also referred to the Moors as "Moriscos" and "Mudejares".

The word MOORS may have evolved from the Greek 'Mauros' which means 'dark'. The Greeks were in Spain around 500 BC, 300 years before the Romans. The Romans probably pinched it from the Greeks, complete with its original connotation of 'dark'. This might explain why the Latin 'Maurus' translates literally into 'Moors', with no further definition. Borrowing directly from the Greek meaning, this would have been good enough for the Romans to describe the 'dark' skinned people of North Africa. This is all conjecture of course, but its close enough for me.

The Webster's New World Dictionary identifies Moors as "a member of Moslem people of mixed Arab and Berber descent." This deletion of "black" or "Negro" from the term Moor is generally recent. Though the word "Moor" originally seems to have been meant to indicate Blacks, it in time came to be applied to Muslims in general, especially the Berbers.
Africans In Early Europe

In any case, the word was first applied officially to the indigenous people of a Roman province in North Africa called Mauretania (Latin = 'land of the Moors'). This roughly corresponds to present day North Morocco and Algeria. The name Morocco is another reminder of the region's "Moorish" past.

When the Arabs swept westward and captured North Africa in the 7th century, the term was revived by Europeans to denote not only the indigenous Negroes and fairer skinned Berbers of North Africa, but the Arabs as well. (Note: It's not me saying that the Negroes were Moors. I'm simply reporting what those stupid European Christians of the time thought. Please send your protest emails back 14 centuries to these people.) Following the Arab conquest of the Berbers, inter-marriages were common and the two races (Berber and Arab) gradually merged together. Did the Berbers and Arabs do the inter-marriage thing with the dark skinned Negroes also? Probably. Who knows what went on behind closed doors. I wasn't there. History references I've seen up to now only mention Berber and Arab and make no mention of Negro and Arab marriages.

Berber identity these days is linked to the language: many of the North Africans calling themselves Arabs are more of Berber origin than Arab. In many areas, Berber identity is considered negatively, principally because many Berber societies are less developed than what is seen in the cities, where almost all inhabitants see themselves as Arabs.
Encyclopaedia of the Orient.

The term 'Moors' later became a convenient blanket term, to describe the collective Muslim conquerors and rulers in Andalucia between 711 and 1492. This is far too general for my liking. To gain a more accurate perspective into the origins of flamenco, we should try to isolate the main racial elements during the 800 years of Muslim occupation in Spain.

(I hope all this isn't putting you to sleep. There are some juicy bits coming up real soon, so stay with me if you like heroic tales of intrigue, betrayal and bloodshed.)



Events leading up to the Muslim conquest of Spain.
After the sudden death of the Visigothic King Witiza (701-711), a rebellious baron and powerful chieftain called Roderic (also known as Rodrigo), with support from within the palace, seized the throne and proclaimed himself king. The church leaders reluctantly gave their blessing to the coronation, realizing that to do otherwise was to incite further fragmentation of a country already in great turmoil.

Roderic's first task was to travel north to suppress the rebel Basques. He knew that if they broke away from his control, other regions would follow their example and his kingdom would soon collapse. In the meantime, the sons of the late King Wittiza appealed to the Muslims of North Africa for assistance against Roderic. The Arab commander Musa however, had other plans.



(The plot thickens.)

The invasion.
In the year 710, a scouting party of 700 Muslim Berbers led by the Berber leader Tariq ibn Ziyad, entered southern Spain and met with little resistance as they established control over the coastline. 20,000 or so non-Muslims within Spain, who welcomed the newcomers as allies rather than conquerors, aided them willingly. Apart from Roderic's enemies, this number included many persecuted Jews and peasants, who hated all Visigoths.

The Visigoths were so busy fighting amongst themselves, they were slow to realize what was really going on. When word of the invasion was finally sent to Roderic, he quickly returned to the south with a small band of men. They were easily overwhelmed and defeated in an ambush and Roderic was killed by Tariq's men on 19th July 711 (around lunchtime).

800 years of Muslim rule
This initial incursion was followed in 712 by a mainly Arab force of 18,000. The non-Arab portion of this number included more Berbers, Egyptians, Yemenis, Syrians and Persians. After many bloody revolts and power struggles, the Arabs took control in 788. The Berbers, despite their assistance in the successful reconnaissance mission, were soon reminded of their subordinate status in the Arab Empire and were virtually treated as second class citizens.

For the next 300 years or so, despite periods of instability, Andalucia flourished as a center of learning, culture and trade under Arab rule.



In the year 1090, a dynasty of Berbers called the Almoravids seized power from the Arabs. In 1147 an opposing dynasty of Berbers called the Almohads muscled their way into power. In 1237, the Arab controlled Nasrid Sultanate overthrew the decaying Almohad Empire and began building the Alhambra in Granada. By this time, all that was left of 'Moorish' held Spain was the southwest corner of the Peninsular. The Christians in the meantime continued their push southward until they finally moved in on Granada in 1492.

To the Christians, Moor simply meant Muslim barbarian. They didn't care where these 'Moors' came from. Their only interest was to evict every last one of them from Spain. The term 'Moorish' can really only be applied with any accuracy to the unique architecture in the region. Because of the dazzling variety of races unfairly lumped together under the blanket term 'Moors', it is far safer to use the word Islamic when talking about influences, and Muslim when talking about the people.

http://herso.hypermart.net/moors.html

I think the problem people have with these lyrics (or whatever they are) is that Prince seems to be saying one culture/society/group of people is better than another...or even better than the others...what he wrote drips with that unfortunate vibe...His words may be factually accurate...but there's no "factual" basis for making a value judgement. That, my friends, is solely the result of personal biases and agendas...discresion is not Prince's forte in this one...(not that it's ever been, no matter what the subject or topic...).

I think that the org has been heading towards this for a while. A lot of shit was piling up and the Moors was the catalyst to it all.

You have to admit, a lot of the issues that were brought in during this shit-flinging fight didn't really have a lot to do with the lyrics at all... just bad feelings and beef between people...

I dunno, I just know I LOVE ME SOME DRAMA!

IceNine said:

This is an ODD question coming from U. U R the org's most "noted" intellectual? U tell us. at least me...I have no clue what this "stuff" entails.

grandebelle said:

ehem... sarcasm... ehem...

Natsume said:

You love pierced uvulas, too...

And actually, I have NO idea what "issues" got brought up during the shit-flinging...none...I had some time to waste, popped in here, saw a thread by Muse about some drama or incident which I had no clue about, and said it must have something to do with donuts...next thing I knew, I was basically being called IceNine's Black Bitch...

Who thought donuts could cause so much animosity??... :O

wellbeyond said:

ehehe

I don't know if anyone has ALL of the details... and if any of you do, please step forward and share with the rest of the class, won't you



I'm sure they could make a fortune writing a book about it! I'd buy it...

:pierceduvula:

Seriously, I'm sorry you got yanked into it. I managed to stay away and only wander through the aftermath...

And actually, I have NO idea what "issues" got brought up during the shit-flinging...none...I had some time to waste, popped in here, saw a thread by Muse about some drama or incident which I had no clue about, and said it must have something to do with donuts...next thing I knew, I was basically being called IceNine's Black Bitch...


WB I didn't know that about you!