A onetime legal foe serves up Prince as a long-spent musical force
An agenda gets in the way of a great story

The Rise And Fall Of Prince

by Alex Hahn

Billboard Books, 280 pgs, $39.95
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Move over Michael Jackson — a pop star is back who is even more enigmatic than you.

His name is Prince, and he is funky. While he may not have dangled any babies out of windows, he once changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph to extricate himself from a record contract.

The fact that he is willingly catapulting himself back into major label territory with Tuesday's release of Musicology on Sony is just one of the many curveballs the newly christened Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Famer has thrown his fans since blasting onto the scene in 1978.

There's no disputing that sometime Bridle Path resident Prince Rogers Nelson is a musical genius, and a prolific one at that, releasing 31 albums in the past 25 years and banishing an estimated 10 to 20 more to a private vault in his Paisley Park studio for infinite gestation.

A chameleon who can bend pop, rock, R&B, funk, soul, gospel, jazz and rap to his will with uncommonly splendid results, the artist formerly known as The Artist can play virtually any instrument he touches. As the creator of such milestones as Dirty Mind, Purple Rain, Sign O' The Times and Diamonds And Pearls, Prince revolutionized contemporary music in the '80s with the guilt-free slap of graphic sexuality, bump 'n' grind beats and a hedonistic playfulness that continues to fuel the bling-bling conscience in urban imagery.

Certainly, Prince also brings spiritual and social sensibilities to his melodic parties, but a carnivorous libido that has reportedly notched Carmen Electra, Kim Basinger and Madonna, combined with his impeccable sense of style, have often overshadowed these aspects of his canon.

So have his religious beliefs, which — although they've been symbolic in his music throughout his career — have now reportedly converted him into a Jehovah's Witness.

Then there's his eccentric nature: Prince has been known to need very little sustenance and even less sleep. His legendary stamina has enabled him to work in the studio for days, channelling his muse to mold and perfect his latest creation.

However, author Alex Hahn seems to think that muse has been failing him incessantly since the '90s began. Much of Hahn's unauthorized biography, Possessed: The Rise And Fall Of Prince, dwells on the premise that the Minnesota native has lost his magic.

Yet I'm sure if you polled audiences from his current Musicology tour, a two-hour greatest hits barnburner that visits the Air Canada Centre July 27 (tickets at a cool $102 and $65.75, on sale tomorrow at TicketMaster) — or hell, watched his sizzling set with Beyoncé raise the bar at the February Grammys — most would argue that at 45, Prince has never seemed more vital. Or ageless.

Hahn's premise may have had some commercial perspective, pre-Musicology — and the jury's still out to see how The Purple One will fare on the charts.

But the lengthy and contentious battle with he staged with Warner Bros. in the '90s (changing his name, scrawling "Slave" on his face) certainly hurt him publicly and professionally.

One could also argue, however, that the ever-changing landscape of radio and retail, combined with downloading issues and other consumer distractions, also contributed to diminishing sales. No one is quite sure how successful Prince's NPGmusicclub.com Internet venture has been, but his enthusiasm to shop to Sony and other majors may be telling.

For Hahn to intimate that Prince has lost his creative instinct, however, is as misguided as it is inappropriate. In claiming "The Black Album (1987) and Lovesexy (1988) projects represent the beginnings of his creative decline," Hahn is entitled to his subjective opinion. But some of his charges are simply groundless or silly, such as "the melodies and chord progressions of songs like `I Like It There' and `I Rock, Therefore I Am' are pedestrian and underdeveloped."

Hahn runs into similar problems with his extensive research, which ranges from thorough to problematic. For example, the opening chapter of Possessed details a 1996 episode in which Prince suffers heart palpitations and is rushed to hospital. Did it happen? Hahn provides no evidence, either through press accounts or even third-party corroboration.

His sales figures are also suspect. Relying heavily on gold, platinum and diamond certifications as sales bases, Hahn seems unaware that such Recording Artist Industry Association Of America (RIAA) awards are based on shipments, not sales.

Hahn's refusal to quote more accurate post-1990 SoundScan figures — especially in light of shared ownership by VNU, co-owners of Possessed publisher Watson-Guptill and music trade weekly Billboard — is baffling.

Compounding the matter is a glaring omission of Hahn's other pursuit: litigation. In 1999, Hahn successfully defended the Prince fanzine Uptown against a lawsuit launched by the artist. This non-disclosure is troubling, calling into question Hahn's ethics, integrity and motivation for the book.

To those who know the back story, it is no surprise to see that Hahn doesn't paint a flattering picture of Prince, although he does admittedly strive for some balance through interviews with former girlfriends, engineers, bandmates, record company executives and other inner circle peers.

Prince may be generous, loving and complimentary, but according to Hahn he's also controlling, competitive, petty, manipulative, selfish and obstinate, a liar and a thief — qualities tempered by his whimsical and volatile nature.

I can personally vouch for some of those claims, having visited Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minnesota, seven years ago on a surreal three-day junket. Prince (during his Symbol Guy period) invited journalists from around the world to his Emancipation party celebrating the expiration of his Warner contract.

But extracting information other than what Prince was willing to decree proved difficult. Paisley Park staff would not answer questions.

One night, the normally reclusive Prince and his wife Mayte Garcia mingled with the press — a surprise considering a rumour had been floating that their son, born only a week earlier, had tragically died. Prince reassured everyone during an impromptu press conference the baby was fine.

A few days later, I had my own 45-minute audience with The Artist, who was dressed head to toe in chartreuse. Warm and congenial, he was openly candid about his music and business practices, but again made it clear his private life was off limits, refusing to even answer questions about the baby's sex.

"Mayte and I have decided to let the baby make its own decisions," he explained. "Once it becomes public, its personality will become shaped by all the attention, and that's too much to wish upon it. So we're not going to relinquish its privacy. That means no clues to its skin colour, or its weight or its height.

"I have to think about my family's security," he reasoned. "You know, I have weirdoes who try to follow me home, too!"

It was later revealed that the baby had indeed died.

In consequent years, Prince has reinforced his fortress of privacy. Although he's now divorced from Garcia, rumours that he married Toronto's own Mani Testolini in 2001 remain speculative.

Speculation is the thread here. If Hahn does provide a service to Prince fans, it's in connecting the dots and offering some motivational context behind one of the most controversial figures in pop music history. Most hardcore fans are already familiar with the behind-the-scenes stories of Prince rising from a troubled childhood to the talented teen who became the first artist to be granted complete creative control from a major label.


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Nick Krewen is a Toronto-based freelance writer and editor.