Prince: A cultural icon who stretched boundaries of music and black sexuality like no other before or after him
When we talk about Prince, we often pause for a moment realizing that describing him in one sentence just isn't enough. The Purple One offers diverse topics to talk and ponder about, and he needs to be explained, needs to be described in the context of various facets of pop culture, including obviously music, he influenced.
A master of many instruments, a cultural icon and funk champion, His Royal Badness became known for his all-round professional view and stance on music, his passion for production and his larger than life stage presence.
He seemed to have had a separate effect on all of us and to those who knew him personally, but who was he to you? That question may not be easy to answer straight away, but let's take a step back to look at how The Prince of Funk impacted the music to come after him, his cryptic use of symbolism and the mystery that surrounded his sexuality.
A surprising aside for introverts: an often unknown fact is that Prince was very shy in his early days. Following a rather coy interview in 1979 with host Dick Clark on TV show 'American Bandstand', Prince vowed to his mentor at the time, Pepé Willie, that that would be the last time he was shy onstage. And just like he vowed, Prince's stirring magnetism and charisma in perfect pairing with his powerfully catchy music would make him famous beyond imagination in years to come.
Sexy Prince
The extravagant era of disco in the '70s was changing, and in a time when conservative mindsets were being stretched, Prince's debut in the music industry couldn't have come at a better time. Sexual stage personas were not a new thing, where you had your typical drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll stars such as Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop to name a few, but there weren't any artists of color to challenge the traditional conventions of black masculinity.
Grabbing outfits from a wardrobe ranging from high heels to suspenders to black bikini briefs to stockings, it was clear The Purple One wanted to become the very entity and symbol of sex on stage.
Audiences couldn't help but notice the steaming characterization of androgyny and it left many to question his sexual preferences. Prince seemed to use his performances as a way to get audiences equally aroused to both his firey performances and persona. Never revealing too much about his personal life or orientations, the mystery of who Prince really was turned out to be one of his biggest selling points. People were fixated on solving his sexuality while being blown away by his musical prowess and the result was a riddle of science to say the least. Prince's charisma would echo through time and influenced a multitude of artists: from Beyoncé to D’Angelo to Lenny Kravitz to even modern-day chart-topper The Weeknd, who said, "Image, lyrics, content, storytelling, cohesive body of work: That’s Prince to me," according to NME.
The Prince of Funk
Proving to be a wunderkind when he first started, Prince showed his prodigious attitude towards music at a young age, learning a multitude of instruments and even producing entire records by himself. On his debut album 'For You', released when he was just 20, it is said that Prince played every single instrument - a total of 27 in all.
Prince came in at an interesting time in America, wherein the country was stepping out of an era when segregation kept white and black communities separate. At a time when music made by and for the black community was majorly R&B, jazz and blues, Prince felt an urgency to stretch the boundaries of these genres.
What happens when we say the word funk? What thoughts come to mind and what sensations do you feel? The term can mean different things to different people, yet we all can pin it to the sense of movement: the tempting desire to get down and dance while our ears are perked to the less-is-more complexities of both rhythm and bass underlining a strong or catchy melody.
Drawing inspiration from bands like Roxy Music and Gary Numan, Prince refused to be pigeonholed by R&B and added elements of rock, new wave and punk to his music; and his third LP 'Dirty Mind', released in 1980, was his weapon of choice to reach a wider audience.
The resulting amalgamation of such influences left a new musical texture that audiences couldn't describe but were captivated by. Whether he knew it or not, Prince's uninhibited desire to move his body to some funky tunes would inspire generations to come. Evidence of Prince's funky tones can be found in an extensive list of today's musical heavyweights including Bruno Mars, Pharrell and Nick Jonas to name a few.
The Prince of Symbolism
Prince's use of symbolism was a rampant part of his image, found in various music videos, his album art and more. He even developed his own playful lexicon; a series of terms made up in his own language. With words like lovesexy, superfunkycalifragisexy, spooky electric, we get a glimpse at the many-faceted Prince who seemed to relish in the combination of feeling and imagery partnered with intellectual lyricism.
One of the most commonly seen symbols adopted by the artist was the glyph which he referred to as "the Love Symbol". The symbol is linked to the Egyptian Ankh symbol and combines both traditional and female symbols and was actually used as a name change, according to Vox.
Prince's label Warner Bros. sent out floppy disks to the press at the time in order to incorporate the symbol into their media coverage. The adoption of the symbol came as a possible means to irritate his label who were seemingly trying to prohibit him from releasing too much music (as funky as that sounds) as well as a means of testing journalists who misconstrued information about his name change. In some ways, this precedent echoed the current struggle to get the press to adhere to gender binary norms and refer to artists by their preferred pronoun.
Prince -- a performer to be marveled at, a musician to be studied, and a creativity explorer to be followed -- set many goals and achieved them. And we hope that many take inspiration from him to stretch the boundaries of music, sexuality and fabulousness.