The Most Powerful Writing About Prince
Over his decades-long career, Prince granted very few interviews. But that didn’t stop journalists, critics, and fellow musicians from writing about him.
Hilton Als, "I Am Your Conscious, I Am Love," Harper's, Dec. 2012
"And one thinks, Looking into Prince's eyes must be like looking at the world. Or, more specifically, the world of one black man loving another. How freaky is that? And who's on top in that kind of mind fuck? (Probably Prince, given that he's capable of articulating this basic truth, as he does in his 1992 song 'Sexy M.F.': 'In a word or 2—it's u I wanna do/ No, not cha body, yo mind you fool.')"
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Kurt Loder, "Prince Reigns," Rolling Stone, August 1984
"With music, Prince seems to find his most perfect union. Apollonia remembers seeing him in the studio, her oblivious mentor, lost in sound. 'It looks like he's in there in his own spaceship, his own capsule, just taking off, and the sky's the limit.'"
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Robert Palmer, "Is Prince Leading Music To A New Biracism?", The New York Times, Dec. 2, 1981
"How rigid are racial categories in contemporary pop music? Prince recently found out when the Rolling Stones invited him to open several West Coast concerts on their 1981 tour. The suggestions of androgyny in his fluid body movements and flamboyantly minimal stage costume were more than a little reminiscent of some of Mick Jagger's early performances, but the almost entirely white Stones audience apparently failed to make the connection. They pelted Prince with fruit and bottles, causing him to cut his sets short. Similar reactions from white radio programmers have kept Prince's records off most FM rock stations; it's the stations with black music formats that are playing them."
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Ann Powers, "One Night With Prince," Los Angeles Times, Jan. 8, 2009
"Prince's personality seems to be governed by two oppositional impulses: the hunger to create and an equally powerful craving for control. Intense productivity battles with meticulousness within his working process. Others might not anticipate his next move, but it is all part of the chess game for him."
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