White music is country and folk and polka..Classical.

Black music is funk, soul, blues, rock, pop, jazz, afrobeat,

2freaky4church1 said:

Im not trying to start nothing but I think it would be so good to get out of the white music/black music thing. My #1 dream is to have a radio station where I can hear Prince, Stevie Nicks, Dorinda Clark Cole(Gospel music), Cassandra Wilson(jazz), Meschell Ndegeocello, Outkast all on the same playlist on the same station

DigitalGardin said:

Oh, you mean a station that plays black and white music lol

SENSHY said:

I want a station that plays REAL music..not noise LOL

A WHITE guy once told me the reason why WHITE people dug Prince was because he sung about LOVE and HE HAD THE FUNK. Most of the other black RnB Artist didn't know what love was, that's why they don't cross over as well.

OK it took everything I had not to slap that snot of him. Though I rarely come down on people for having an opinion despite how fucked up it is, this was a tough one. IMO It was borderline racist. So what was he trying to say? Black people don't know what love is? ? ? ? ? The only reason I let him get away with it was because he was with his black girlfriend. So I was like I wanted to ask him does his girlfriend know what love is?

But yeah, there's an interview still in circulation where Prince tells the interviewer that he's Italian. I can't call that one. I don't know if he was playing a joke or if he was trying to pass.

I've seen it referred of Prince that he has been too black for some white people and too white for some black people.

That's one of the things that draws me to an artist, that you can't pin them down - I guess as much as it is a turn on for me, it can be a turn off for others.

BlackandRising said:

-----
Right on brother!! Black music has been taken over by thugs and anyone that plays an instrument is going to get a hard time. It is definity a young black audience that would have a problem with P.

BlaqueKnight said:

I remember that whole "mixed" lie back in the mid-1980's (you know, the whole Purple Rain thing where is mother is white Italian). However I think it's weird because P IS mixed [isn't his grandfather white???]. Anyway, other than that, I've never heard P say that he's anything but a brother. Even on the "It Ain't Over" CD from "One Night Alone," on "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?" he says, "you make a black man wanna moan tonight!!!!" I LOVE that line; it's so hilarious. On "Face Down," he writes about starting in the music business about how he "tole them he wanted to see a song about a *black* chile going buck wild and they just laughed in his face...." So you see, other than that PR/mixed comment, I've never heard of him referring to himself as anything other than black [who just happened to have some white blood in him].

Like a said: P is one of the most misunderstood, illperceived artists who's ever lived!

At this month's National Order of Black People meeting, I'll entertain a motion to analyze just where "we" stand on this Prince fellow. We'll be sure to take into account his mention of the roundest Afros in "Reflections," though I anticipate a few objectors will bring up his penchant for dating light-skinned, ethnically ambiguous women a few decades his junior.

The final vote should be interesting.

Expect an exhaustive report by August.

DigitalGardin said:

Just play "Adore" for them and see what they say then. And besides, not all of Prince's songs have him playing the electric guitar in them anyway. I can't believe you've heard alot of Black people make such a comment. Sounds like it may be just an excuse because they think he's too weird to listen to or not very open-minded to other types of music.

DigitalGardin said:

i was around in Prince's early days, i'm 45 years old and i have attended every one of his concerts. and back in the days the majority of his audiences were black. I'm a black female and i know that black people love PRINCE.

ThreadBare said:

ThreadBare said:

7IS4ME said:

ThreadBare said:

Just looooovvvveeedddd your post!

DigitalGardin said:

Well love, let's put it this way. I don't know any black folks that think of Prince as a white artist. Hell every black person I know gives him serious props for being the shit!! That is all kinds of black folks the hip hop heads, the earthy crunchies, the boogies, the ghetto, the wealthy. Pretty much every black person understands his greatness. That is not to say that all black folk like him, but I will be honest I have heard as many black folk say they don't like his voice as they say they don't like his guitar. I think that what happend to Prince, Micheal, and Whitney was that they crossed over in major way when that wasn't happening for alot of other black artist. Therefore for a brief period Prince and his ilk were labeled as sellouts and the like. Hell this even happend to Hammer.
I like to think that the majority of black America through Hip Hop, I might add has gotten a little more mature about success and having a white audience. If Prince is a white artist then so is Jay Z, Beyonce (she won Miss TRL by the way), Nas, Lauren Hill, Wycleff Jean, etc. Because honestly if you are not selling to a white audience on some level you aren't going to last. Now of course their are exceptions (Luther Vandross and Mary J. Blidge come to mind) but for the most part the facts of life are that everyone is selling to that audience. This does not change the soul of the music or musician by the way. This has been going on since the first group of Africans sang songs of torture, sadness and God in the cotton fields so many years ago. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong all of them went through this by the way. They weren't real and that type of foolishness but that is just not so. I hope that sheds a little light on your postition.
Peace

POOK said:

Pook, dude be weak. And, by the way, P's 90 music is several shades "whiter" than his

80's music. And before someone gets all pissed off and tries to make something out of

not much let me just say that I mean this in the most conventional sense of the word.

It’s like this: think of all his 80’s records, with the possible exception of ATWIAD, and

match them up with an inspiration and chances are it’s going to be a someone or some

musical movement (discounting the truth of Binary J right now) that’s black. Do the

same with the 90’s records with the exception of Symbol and Crystal Ball, and you get a

little bit of Joni Mitchell, a little bit of Aerosmith (WTF?), a little bit of Sheryl Crow

(WTFF?), Celion Dion, oh yeah you also get some Jazz inspired the devious dj who

keeps the local mall and elevators around the nation sNEWsing. Thank goodness for

Musicology, derivative as is, I finally felt a pulse.

I think Prince's support among the black community is stronger than it appears to be and his perceptions are highly nuanced. His persona and experimental spirit have been met with ambivalence from day one, but his work is respected if not admired among blacks as a whole.

As I recall, some of his 90's albums and singles did better on the R&B charts than they did on the pop charts, if that's any indication.

Don't see hardly any at the concerts. Whats that tell you? Huh, we're watching the playoffs.
Say prince and we think Will Smith. Nuf said.

DigitalGardin said:

I personally never heard any blacks refer to Prince as white. But I have found this to be true among my people; play a song that blacks are unfamiliar with that is guitar oriented and blacks will surely conclude that it is a white rock group. I'm a black guy who plays guitar, and I have drove my truck thur the 'hood playing "Living Colour" loudly, and watched the looks I get from my people. As if I was a 'sell-out'. Anybody who has ever listened to 24-7 Spyz, Bad Brains, Living Colour, know that these groups are proud to be black. Mine you radio media has a large part in this stereoplaying. It's aim is to control our musical taste so as to spoon feed us on what they want us to listen to and thus buy.

ThreadBare said:

you go threadbare

On the Chapelle Show (the one with the Prince,parody coincidentally)...he did the skit with the whites and electric guitar and how the black people said turn that shit off...then the blacks started grooving to the drums of Questlove...and just for fun he threw in the electronic piano and bullhorn for the latinos..that shit was funny.

time for my testimonial: as a black woman, i find this entire thread totally, totally ill. that is all.

prince's black fan base

should never be counted out

we are here 2 stay

we were there at the

dawning of his fame

and we were there when

he changed his name

prince is one of the

strongest voices representing

4 a people whose cries

have fallen on deaf ears

he is one of the

black general's of justice

we are proud of him

and when he speaks,

we listen

PurpleCharm said:

I don't know what color you are, but he may not look mixed to you but he does to me. He has the complexion and oh my god let's not mention the eyes, his lips are definitely black. They're full, not big. When I mentioned his eyes, they are a pretty green and brown mixture. I don't know too many black folks that have green eyes. Green contacts maybe. Vanessa Williams has the same color eyes and I think both her parents are light-skinned blacks.

How can he be a white artist when he has Cornell West, Eric Dyson and Tavis out at Paisley during the last Celebration. The presence of those three individuals should let anyone know how he is viewed by blacks in general. If there was/is a negative connotation assosiated with Prince in regard to his blackness, i seriously doubt he would have the ability to get those gentleman in a room together. Further, the Final Call (Louis Farrakan, NOI) also sent reps up to cover the celebration as well and ran an article in the paper praising the shows and forums.

thesexofit said:

PurpleCharm said:

yup! I was there too at the Joe and like she said... 99% black. And several people has seen Prince several times. And it was freakin COLD OUT THERE!!!! Not many things black folks will stand out in the cold for
i needed one of these ----->

DigitalGardin said:

I find that totally hilarious since Prince is behind the Time... one of the most popular RnB bands in the last 20 years... and also wrote hits like I feel for you, Glamorous Life, Nasty Girls, and believe me they were super RnB hits.

I think some Black men feel threatened by Prince publicly exploring his feminine side thru fashion, hair and (ahem) makeup. Like I have told several Bruthas who wanted to crack on Prince and call him a f*g, I tell them Prince has had more p**sy than you will ever see and by the baddest women who you will ever DREAM of!

laylow03 said:[quote]This is MY opinion. In an interview with Tavis Smiley back around the New Power Soul album, Tavis asked P about the whole name thing. P responded that "people of color will always call me Prince." Blacks didn't seem to make a big deal out of it. They just called him Prince. Even Whitney Houston said that she'll call him Prince no matter what.


yup, that would be me! I tried the whole explaining who I was talking about without saying the name, and just said "fock it! PRINCE, I don't give a-dam what he is callin himself these days." and everybody else I know did the same thing.