Prince was a singer who also played his guitar and his music combined elements of rock, funk, pop, R&B, hip-hop and more.
He started making records in the late 70's and rose to super-stardom in the 1980's, putting him as that decade's musical royalty along with Micheal Jackson and Madonna! He continued making hits in the early 1990's, but by the end of the decade, he had more attention to his name change (a symbol that couldn't be pronounced, and therefore become known as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince") as well as his dispute with Warner Brothers Records.
In the 21st century, he known mostly for blocking his content from appearing on YouTube, his reclusiveness. as well as his ever changing views on controversial topics.
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Now, I want to share a few thoughts on the Artist Forever Known as Prince
1) my memories of Prince
Being that I was born in 1980, I was too young to pay attention to his 80's hits when they came out.
I first became aware of Prince in 1991. I was in 5th grade that time and I was new to watching MTV (which was actually Music Television at the time, and actually played music at the time).
Prince's hit song was "Get Off". By then, he ditched his purple gear and moved on to yellow.
But that video "Get Off". It was super-raunchy with both genders being half-naked and doing sexual dances. It was like watching a half-naked "orgy" before I even knew what an orgy was!
To top it all off, was the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, with Prince performing "Get Off" and his showing his rear end to the end! The MTV awards performance was way more explicit than Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl halftime!
Also, that song had a banging beat with great bass and more!
Everything else that came before & after that song just couldn't compete!
2) Gender
That video also brought another aspect of Prince!
Most men who would wear feminine outfits (especially with the color purple) (also revealing outfits) and sing with a high-pitched voice are commonly stereotyped as being "gay" as in homosexual!
But in nearly every video, Prince was not only dancing with women, but they women with the "supermodel" look! Women who are seen as "the sexiest women on earth".
As I mentioned on facebook about Prince and David Bowie (who also died earlier this year)
David Bowie & Prince: musical legends who re-assured males who don't conform to traditional masculinity they too can get the hottest looking women in the world wink emoticon
I find this very important because many males who don't conform to the jock or gangsta image commonly get accussed of being "gay" and "fags" even when they're not homosexual! This stigma doesn't only gets attached to feminine looking boys but also to any male seen as "weak" or "unathletic".
Many males would get nervous even wearing anything pink or holding anything related to "Hello Kitty" for the fear of being seen as "gay".
Males who do such things and say "I'm not gay" are accused of "hiding in the closet", and "having a closet made of very transparent glass" and more!
As far as I'm concerned, a male can wear all the pink Hello Kitty gear, work in mostly female environments, have a flower on his ear, be interested in gardening & interior design and still have super-horny excitement about doing sexual things with multiple women!
I wear masculine clothing (I want big pockets and therefore prefer baggy pants over skinny jeans), got that mustache like Ice-T and Metallica's James Hetfeld. I spend at least once a week lifting weights, and a major fan of UH football! Grew up with heavy metal & gangsta rap! Also wanted to be a Ninja Turtle! Lots of masculine stuff in me!
But my career has been mostly in occupations dominated by women (schools, libraries, retail)
I listen to a lot of bubbly teen pop!
...........and I love stuffed animals :)
Yes I visit Sanrio for the Hello Kitty stuff (though my favorite character is the masculine Badtz-Maru)! But I have no shame is saying Hello Kitty is cute too! And yes, I like some of the stickers sold at Morning Glory!
Despite being into all that "girly" stuff, my sexuality is straight as the straightest line out there! Going to the clubs and dancing with the ladies is one of my favorite activities ;)
I don't "kiss & tell" but there's some other fun stories with the ladies as well :)
While Jerry Seinfeld's TV character was right in saying there's nothing wrong with being gay, Prince & David Bowie showed us that having a feminine side doesn't stop you from having the horniest fantasies (and realities) with the hottest women out there!
3) mixed racial ancestries
Prince identified with being African-American, though it was obvious that he had some European ancestry too! His parents were both of mixed-race.
When African-Americans were being enslaved, some of the European masters raped some of the female slaves!
After slavery, race-mixing was banned in many states, but didn't stop some European-Americans having sexual relations (including consensual, non-consensuals, marriages or affairs) with African-Americans.
However, the legacy of slavery included the "one-drop rule" in which those with even slightest amount of DNA from the African race were just considered "black" and "non-white" and therefore not qualified for any privileges given to those purely of the European race!
However, even centuries later, even with a US president with an African father and European-American mother, there's still people invested in a "one-drop rule".
Even though Barack Obama grew up in a European-American household and attended a school in Hawaii with a reputation for being a "haole school", that didn't matter to white supremacists who were so upset of him becoming president that early in his 2008 campaign, the Secret Service had to step in and provide him protection way earlier than they normally would for those running for president.
But it's not just white supremacists who are so invested in the "one-drop rule". When Beyonce appeared in a cosmetics ad highlighting her African, French & Native American ancestries, and when the fact got repeated in the "Inter-racial Dating" facebook page, there were people who so adamant that "Beyonce is just black" as if they were insulted that someone even thought that Beyonce also had non-African ancestries as well!
Here's one screenshot that I took last year
And the same happened for Prince.
Daily Beast writer Stereo Williams was hopping mad that journalist mentioning his multi-racial background! His attitude was "How dare the journalist act as if he wasn't purely of African-American ancestry"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/24/prince-loved-his-blackness-and-yours.html
My facebook response to that
Yes, Prince loved his blackness, but dammit, he was also multi-racial and too bad if you don't like it! This idiotic "one drop rule" from the slavery days make it sound like you should only identify as either "black" or "white", when you can be both.......... and more!
It is writers like Stereo Williams who disrespect millions of multi-racial people out there with his nonsense that people should only be identified by one part of themselves!
I also mentioned in other comments to discussion boards that many times, a multi-racial person might identify with one side more than the other!
Prince grew up in a family that culturally identifies more with African-American culture than European-American culture! That doesn't mean his multi-racial background doesn't exist, it just means he relates to African-American culture more!
AS for me, I might have a German last name, but not a single relative of mine that I met was of pure-German ancestry. My grandfather with a mix of German-Portuguese ancestry died months before I was born! My mother also had Puerto Rican mother. My father is from Mexico and while he had mixed ancestries, his looks lean more to the native side of Mexico! So yes, I look Latino and identify with more the Latino side! But please don't say about me, "he's just Latino, that's it!" because that's NOT TRUE!
Respect people's multiple ethnicities and racial ancestries!
