The end of a Purple Reign: Prince Dead at 57
The legendary musician Prince has tragically died at the age of 57. There was no-one quite like him: a man with the midas touch, who was probably the only person in the world who can get away with changing his name to a symbol without losing one iota of credibility.
God of sex and and titan of guitar, he was an incredible dancer and prolific songwriter. Prince was a chameleon.. His eclectic back-catalogue slips effortlessly between soul, funk, hip-hop, jazz and psychedelia. And not just his own records: he also wrote extensively for other people. His music possessed an un-ignorable, brutal immediacy, but at the same time a sprawling lushness that you could get lost in for hours.
What he lacked in stature (Prince was just 5' 2'') he made up for in flamboyance. His live performances were hurricane-powered, just as sensual as his unashamedly sexual lyrics. His persona defined the exuberance of 1980s showmanship, and was at the vanguard of the burgeoning sense of gender-fluidity of that era, something he shared with Boy George,Annie Lennox, David Bowie, Grace Jones. The machismo of his lyrics, ("My temperature's runnin' hot/Baby U got 2 stop/'Cuz if U don't I'm gonna explode/And girl, I got a lot)" was undercut by his effeminate image. This rejection of gender conformity is just one of the many contradictions of which this artist was constituted. On the title track of 'Controversy', he archly asked the question of everybody's lips: “ Am I black or white, am I straight or gay?" An exhibitionist and a recluse, a man and a woman, a party boy and a mystic, a louche and a perfectionist. "Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people." he said.
He was an activist, too. He supported the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement, commenting “The system is broken. It’s going to take the young people to fix it this time. We need new ideas, new life…” He criticised Wall Street, and then changed his name to emancipate himself from the music label Warner Brothers, after they trademarked his name.
Prince championed female musicians. Just look at 2014's world tour, where his backing band, 3RDEYEGIRL, was an all-female outfit who he supported ceaselessly. He launched the careers of Lianne La Havas and Janelle Monae, and had a long history of allowing female artists, such as Sinead O'Connor and Chaka Khan to cover his songs.
But then - this is Prince - ever the contrarian, he also expressed Republican views and became a Jehovah's witness, which forced him to reject same-sex marriage and abortion.
In a 2004 Rolling Stone Interview, Prince said "Spiritually I feel very different from the way I used to, but physically? Not at all. I don't look at time that way, and I don't believe in age. When you wake up, each day looks the same, so each day should be a new beginning. I don't have an expiration date." Amen to that.
