3, 2020 Minneapolis, MN Conference Presenters and Abstracts

Home , Billboards (ballet), Dirty Mind, Eric Leeds, International Lover, Lovesexy, Private Joy

An Interdisciplinary Conference June 2 – 3, 2020 Minneapolis, MN

Conference Presenters and Abstracts

Hosted by The School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK

Organized by Dr. Kirsty Fairclough, School of Arts and Media, University of Salford Kristen Zschomler, Minneapolis-based historian and writer, Sound History, LLC Chris Aguilar-Garcia Independent Scholar, USA

Dirty Mind and Controversy: Creating a Queer Icon

Sex and sexuality were key elements of the Prince persona and catalog from the release of his debut album and first single, “Soft and Wet.” While his early releases were essentially heteronormative and barely transgressive, particularly at the tail end of the sexually liberated disco era, in 1980’s “Dirty Mind,” we see the beginnings of a queer sensibility. Beyond what critic Ken Tucker termed a “liberating lewdness” in his Rolling Stone review, the album also included Prince’s first songs of outright social commentary with “Uptown,” and “Partyup.” In “Uptown,” Prince is pegged as gay because of his clothes and hair, and in “Partyup,” the 30- minute album closes out to the defiant chant “You’re gonna have to fight your own damn war / ‘Cause we don’t wanna fight no more!”

A year later, in the title track to 1981’s Controversy, Prince ponders, “Am I straight or gay?,” a bold question at a time fellow Queer icons Elton John and Freddie Mercury were not publicly out. In “Sexuality,” Prince goes on to proclaim the Second Coming not as the return of Christ, but the dawn of an “anything goes” sexual revolution free of segregation.

Within the framework of these two definitive albums, Prince solidly planted himself in the pantheon of Queer icons, laying the groundwork for a blockbuster career that relentlessly defied social and industry norms.

Please note that the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson is not affiliated, associated or connected with the conference, nor has it endorsed or sponsored us. Further, the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson has not licensed any of its intellectual property to the organizers or speakers. Conference Speakers and Abstracts 78 -88 Prince, The First Decade: An Interdisciplinary Conference June 2-3, 2020

Zaheer Ali New York University, USA

“Teacher, Why Won’t Jimmy Pledge Allegiance?”: Prince as Citizen

On August 23, 1984, at the Republican National Convention renominating Ronald Reagan for President, Ray Charles closed out the ceremonies with his soulful rendition of “America the Beautiful,” a version that he had made popular through his 1972 release A Message from the People. The original song, long celebrated as a popular alternative to the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” celebrates American greatness, prosperity, and Providential favor—all themes Reagan effectively exploited during his presidency. Less than a year later, Prince released the album Around the World in a Day, featuring the song “America,” which borrowed both a musical and lyrical phrase from “America the Beautiful”’s chorus: “America, America, God shed His grace on thee.” However, in Prince’s “America,” the soaring chorus was transgressively rendered with a growling lead guitar, verses warned of the perils of inequality, and the chorus closed with both a prayer and a warning: “Keep your children free.” In an almost Hendrixian way, Prince’s interpolation of “America the Beautiful” had turned a patriot’s anthem into a citizen’s jeremiad against the perils of Reagan-era policies, with a call to government and society to live up to its democratic ideals, or suffer a divine and political chastisement. To date, “America” was Prince’s most explicit, but not only, critique of state power. Beginning with a close examination of “America,” this presentation seeks to draw out Prince’s often overlooked political concerns during the first decade of his career, and challenges us to appreciate Prince’s early artistic voice as citizen.

Julie Beauregard University of Missouri – St. Louis, USA

A Phenomenological Study of Prince Fandom: Identity, Intimacy, and Idolatry

This study addresses individual experiences of Prince’s music and celebrity through a phenomenological examination of Prince fandom. In this research paradigm, “the ‘essence’ of human experiences concerning a phenomenon, as described by participants in a study” is focal and explored “in great detail” (Creswell, 2003, p. 15; p. 134). Data were gathered through a series of “unstructured in-depth phenomenological interviews” accompanied by researcher bracketing, memoing, and taking of formal field notes (Groenewald, 2004, p. 47; see also Klenke, 2016) to answer the guiding question: What effect(s) did the first ten years of Prince’s career have on you?

Using purposeful sampling (Patton, 2002), a sample of two “gatekeepers” were identified, ideal for phenomenological inquiry (Klenke, 2016). One is a Black woman from New York City; she was 7 when Prince’s first album was released. The second is a White man from small-town southwest Missouri who was 2 years old in 1978. Gatekeepers were selected because of their self-proclaimed superfan status and age, each citing Prince as a key influencer on their identities and cultural worldviews since childhood. Both are Christian, cisgender, and identify as straight. Gatekeeper commonalities and differences in relation to one another and to Prince’s complex performative displays of sexuality, gender, and race, musicking, and espoused beliefs yielded rich, descriptive data (Bailey, 1996), allowing for multiple subjectivities to be illuminated and saturation to be achieved (Leininger, 1994). Data explications included embodied experiences of consuming Prince’s music, reconciling tensions between the sacred and profane, and fandom’s impact on personal identity.

References Bailey, C. A. (2007). A guide to qualitative field research, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Groenewald, T. (2004). A Phenomenological Research Design Illustrated. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 3(1): 42-55.

Klenke, K. (2016). Qualitative research in the study of leadership, 2nd ed. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.

Leininger, M. (1994). Evaluation criteria and critique of qualitative research studies. In J. M. Morse (Ed.) Critical Issues in Qualitative Research Methods (pp. 95-115). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative evaluation and research methods, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Julie Billong Independent Scholar, France

Prince and the Fan Fiction World: The Early Years (Was I what you wanted me to be?)

The phenomenon and adoration of Prince has extended far beyond his original music and the music industry, helped largely by fandom and the dynamics of online fan communities. One aspect of this phenomenon has been fan fiction. Uncountable novels, short stories, remakes of Prince’s many lives have blossomed on sites and apps such as Quotev & Wattpad. Those still well-hidden gems provide evidence of how Prince fan fiction relates to the known history/canon of the subject while at the same time projecting an alternative history.

If, as Matt Hills observes (2003), fandom is performative, then fan fiction provides an outlet where fans of Prince can perform personal desire and longing, alongside a shared experience with a wider fan community and knowledge base.

The importance of fan fiction in extending (and keeping alive) the Prince phenomenon (artistic world) is undeniable and this paper will examine the early years of Prince fan fiction from 1978- 88. In particular, it will examine how representations of desire and longing for Prince in fan fiction, as well as the fan representations of Prince himself, tells us something about the nature of that fandom, and the image strategies created by Prince himself. It will also hope to show how both these show change and evolution over time.

What can be referred to as ‘Prince Fanon’ has become a special playground where fans can perform and transcend the Prince universe in interesting and highly symbolic ways.

The aim is to show how Prince fan fiction adapted to, mirrored, and even transcended the fluid evolution of Prince’s image and music, creating performances where everything is doable, accepted, and, as with Prince himself, resistant to accepted norms.

Scott Bogen Independent Scholar, USA

Prince and Me: How I Became Prince

“I have no interest in staying to see Prince, I hate disco…” On October 5, 1981 I spoke those words to a friend, we had gone to First Avenue to see a rock-a-billy band whose headlining slot had been usurped at the last moment by Prince. My friend’s response was to pin me to the stage, telling me that I was staying. I protested but relented. The entire course of my life changed that night, within 6 months I would perform on that same stage, winning a lip-synch contest as Prince.

Using a combination of anecdotes, never seen before images, sound recordings and video from my private collection, this presentation will provide a rare and unique glimpse into what it was like to be an early Prince fan in Minneapolis. My fascination with Prince became an obsession that would lead me to a point where I was as close to being Prince as perhaps anyone could be in 1982. Ultimately leading to the night I performed as Prince at First Avenue knowing he was in attendance and how he lied to me later that evening.

Through vignettes of my life intersecting with Prince and his musicians, whom remain friends to this day, I will explore the mystique of Prince and his fans during the early years. The time before the release of Purple Rain when he was still “ours.”

Natalie Clifford Independent Scholar, USA

From Dirty Mind to Dirty Computer: Prince’s Profound Influence on Janelle Monáe

Without Prince, there would be no Janelle Monáe. While Monáe has created her own inimitable, electric lane within music today, she has referenced her artistic debt to Prince visually, stylistically, and lyrically throughout her evolution over her career. This is largely due to Prince’s work during the first decade of his musical career.

Prince’s imagery and musical style from 1978-1988, beginning with For You and ending with the unapologetically Black Lovesexy - featuring an androgynous Prince on the cover - reflect his ongoing defiance of conventional understandings of gender, as well as an evolving sense of the artist’s role in society. Throughout his life, Prince demonstrated a desire to use his voice as an artist to challenge norms and systems of power.

I argue that the groundwork Prince laid in his first decade created a crucial foundation for queer and gender expansive Black artists like Monáe to elevate their own music to a higher realm. Specifically, I will examine the significance and themes of Prince’s Dirty Mind, 1999, Parade, Sign o’ the Times, Lovesexy as texts in connection with Janelle Monáe’s artistic evolution across Metropolis, ArchAndroid, Electric Lady, and Dirty Computer.

In regards to methodology, I will analyze specific lyrics and imagery from the albums of both Prince and Janelle Monáe to inform my argument on how Prince in his first decade carved space for Black queer and gender expansive artists later, with a focus on Monáe. This exploration is valuable to artist-activists within critical race studies and gender and sexuality studies.

Sam Coley Birmingham City University, United Kingdom

Parade: A La Recherché De Nouveaux Sons

By 1986, the Prince-pioneered Minneapolis sound had become increasingly co-opted by copycat musicians and was a familiar presence on US radio. Yet Prince had already shifted focus, relocating the sonic home of his eighth release to Continental Europe; arguably creating his most diverse album in the process. This paper explores how Parade was the first Prince record to consciously embrace a more international fan base. I discuss how the use of French language and ambience throughout the album draw on the ‘prestige’ associated with the Gallic lifestyle, adding a cosmopolitan flavour which helped Parade connect with European audiences. I argue that Prince capitalised on the cultural currency of France and its language to create a more elevated style of music, and purposely distance himself from the Minneapolis sound. The paper contextualises Parade against the musical backdrop of 1986 and considers the subsequent critical responses of the music press. I contend that the album was part of a strategic move to reach beyond traditional US notions of ‘rock and roll’ stardom and establish himself as a truly global performer. In achieving this goal, Prince willingly sacrificed some of his American fan base, yet secured his credentials as a bona fide international artist in return. Parade marks a pivotal point in Prince’s career, ultimately shaping his future output and forever altering how the world viewed him and his music.

Keith Corson University of Central Arkansas, USA

Once Upon a Time in France: The Black Expatriate Tradition in Under the Cherry Moon and Sign ‘O’ the Times

Following the global phenomenon of Purple Rain (1984), Prince actively distanced himself from the star persona, stylistic markers, and industry expectations associated with the breakthrough album and film. While his follow up album Around the World in a Day (1985) explored utopian psychedelia rooted in late 1960s British and American rock, his output in 1986 and 1987 dramatically re-contextualized his image. Moving away from the androgynous and racially ambiguous persona reflexively commented upon in the title track to Controversy (1981), Prince firmly situates himself within broader traditions of African American artists in his film Under the Cherry Moon (1986) and the following year’s double LP Sign ‘O’ the Times (1987). From shooting his directorial debut in black and white on the French Riviera for the former to the Parisian streetscape cabaret backdrop for the album cover of the latter, Prince consciously places himself within the tradition of African American expatriate artists who looked to France for creative inspiration, critical appreciation, and political salvation. This paper presentation will examine the ways in which both projects image Prince as a continuation of iconic black artists working in France (Josephine Baker, Alain Locke, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Dexter Gordon, Bud Powell, Melvin Van Peebles, et al), while also using his creative output from 1986 and 1987 as both a commentary on his past and a precursor to his future work.

Kamilah Cummings DePaul University, USA

Others Here with Us: Examining Prince’s Relationship with His Black Audience

During the mid-1980s as Prince cemented his position as one of the biggest “Pop” stars of all time, some music journalists bandied about an unsubstantiated theory that he had lost touch with his Black audience. Some even speculated that his Black album was recorded as an attempt to reconnect with Black listeners following the release of what critics described as more Pop- and Rock-oriented albums. These theories persist today. However, in truth, analysis of the first decade of his career reveals that Prince’s reign would have been impossible without the ardent support of his Black audience – his first and most loyal audience. Yet, Prince’s relationship with this audience is often overlooked. While the massive success of Purple Rain allowed Prince to expand his audience, he neither left nor loss his core audience. Through an examination of his consistent performance on Billboards’ Black music charts and his perennial presence in Black media including radio, television, and magazines, this presentation will disrupt the false narrative that Prince lost connection with his Black audience in the 1980s.

Rhiannon Jackson Dalglish Independent Scholar, Australia

Prince and the Political: Why Does Everybody Have a Bomb?

Between Bob Dylan and #blacklivesmatter, there was Prince. While in the 1970s and 80s he was best known for fusing pop, soul, funk, rap and rock, with lyrics that explored love, sex and the future, it was during this first decade that Prince hinted at the political themes that would grow more overt throughout his career. Ronnie, Talk to Russia and 1999 critiqued the nuclear threat of the Reagan administration, while Partyup and Dance On call for peace and partying over war and dying. One of Prince's biggest hits, and most obvious protest songs, is Sign O' the Times, in which he laments a world devastated by AIDS, gang violence, natural disasters, drug abuse and the Challenger disaster.

This presentation will review two intertwining aspects: the history of modern protest songs and the US political climate of the 1980s. Through examining these narratives, I will demonstrate that Prince's responses to social, economic and military events made him a significant contributor to the political music movement from the outset of his career. These early protest songs served as the armature on which his later protest songs were built, most notably in songs such as Money Don't Matter 2night, We March, and Baltimore. Prince's musical activism is as significant to his oeuvre as his songwriting, choreography, directing, producing and designing, and is deserving of greater investigation by fans and historians alike.

De Angela Duff New York University, USA

Conjuring the Prince Mystique

Before the symbol and the color purple, Prince’s key visual signatures were the trench coat and smoke. Both were prevalent beginning with Dirty Mind and reaching their peak during the Controversy and 1999 eras. This talk will concentrate primarily on how the ubiquitousness of smoke from fog machines, combined with light, present in music videos and album art would come to symbolize how Prince was ultimately evoked–mysterious, otherworldly, and bewitching.

Chris Foss University of Mary Washington, USA

“Take Me With U”: Prince as Revelation and Inspiration

My presentation would be a personal reflection on the transformational power of Prince drawing on my own experience as a Twin Cities native and Minnesota college student during the first half of the 1980s. It would intersect with CFP topic areas such as Prince and Minneapolis, Prince and race, Prince and fandom, Prince as star/celebrity, and Prince as mentor.

As a naïve suburban white kid raised to revere both progressive political values and conservative Christian morals, a fall from grace as a 19-year-old left me profoundly off kilter, no longer sure who I was or what I wanted from life. The eclectic Minneapolis music scene played a crucial role in helping to fill the void of my lost faith and to supply a version of kinship and community, and it was in Prince that I found an unlikely mentor.

That Prince became such a huge star was a decided inspiration to me and many fellow Minnesotans so used to coming up short or feeling overlooked. Prince also opened my eyes to a multicultural Minneapolis I had not paid attention to before. Above all, his self-confidence and lack of self-censorship was a real revelation. I ended up finding my voice as a writer in some columns about my fandom for my college newspaper and in the small pond controversy they engendered. Prince was an epiphany who served as the catalyst for my self-transformation.

Racheal Harris Deakin University, Australia

“Take me Baby… I’m Yours”: Prince as Your Ultimate Lover

While Prince is frequently remembered for his ostentatious stage persona and the overt sexuality of his lyrics, his evolution into a contemporary Don Juan figure did not take place overnight. As the lyrical content of early albums such as ‘For You’ (1978) demonstrate, his initial foray into the world of celebrity was one in which the concept of sex, sensuality and love was broached quite tentatively. My discussion examines the evolution of Prince’s persona as romantic lover. I focus on his first five studio releases, with a view towards the metamorphosis of Prince’s appearance, as expressed through album artwork and music video performativity of this period. Lyrical content and sound will also be discussion points, as will the language Prince used to describe himself during interviews of this era.

Despite recent academic interest in Prince and his enduring impact on music, film and popular culture, the visual element of his performance persona, specifically in relation to album artwork, remains relatively untouched by scholarship. As such, my discussion presents a new avenue through which we might consider the romantic narrative which Prince constructed throughout his image as performer. It is in the first years of his career that the shift from shy sentimentality to fully-realized sexual liberation is most apparent and thus, discussing these albums and their visual content allows for a more robust consideration of Prince and his performance style to occur.

Felicia Holman Independent Artist and Scholar, USA

Purple Music and Pleasure Activism

"I also dedicate this book to Prince for the awakening. He said 'I only wanted one time to see you laughing'." --- adrienne maree brown; "Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good" (2019, AK Press)

In June 2020, three years after her first appearance, independent artist and Prince scholar Felicia Holman excitedly returns as a presenter to the University of Salford. Felicia Holman is a veteran cultural producer/programmer/writer, as well as a co-founding member of Afrodiasporic feminist creative collective, Honey Pot Performance. Felicia creates, presents, and supports innovative interdisciplinary performance that engages audience and inspires community.

As both celebratory homage to Prince Rogers Nelson's intrepid cultural impact and an entry point for broader conversation on the legacy and value of pleasure positivity for/within POC communities, Holman's 20-minute performance lecture-- Purple Music & Pleasure Activism -- illuminates the links and intersections between the carnal artistry of Prince's 1st decade as a commercial recording artist (1978-1988) and the positive/progressive social paradigms purported in adrienne maree brown's New York Times Best Seller "Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good" (2019, AK Press).

Purple Music & Pleasure Activism themes/chapters: ● Black Midwestern Roots & Work Ethic (exploring both Prince's & adrienne's) ● "Me/We" Mindset (a la Prince hero & fellow Black Midwesterner, Muhammad Ali) ● "Dirty Mind" Mindset ("Uptown") ● "1999" Mindset ("DMSR") ● "Lovesexy" Mindset ("Dance On")

Ian Jackson Harvard University, USA

“If U Set Your Mind Free, Baby, Maybe U’d Understand” What We Can All Learn from Prince about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

“There was a grand plan. He wanted this band that was his Sly and the Family Stone,” drummer Bobby Z. said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune following Prince’s death in 2016. “We were a rock band with [Dez Dickerson and Andre Cymone], then a multicultural, utopian, uptown, black-white-Puerto Rican thing, and his lyrics came alive.” That band that Prince sought was The Revolution. Intentionally inclusive of mixed ethnicities, genders, and faith backgrounds, Prince set out to bring a band together that represented the audience he wanted; the people with whom he wanted to “get through this thing called life.” (“Let’s Go Crazy”, Purple Rain, 1984)

Even away from others, in his work as a solo artist, Prince purposefully reflected diversity, equity and inclusion through his lyrics, his immense musical range (which drew from multiple cultures), and his creation of alter-egos, particularly the gender-non-conforming character Camille, in which Prince crafted one of his most personal and defining songs for listeners in the LGBTQIA community, “If I Was Your Girlfriend” (Sign O’ The Times, 1987). Another song released on the same album, “Starfish And Coffee”, was written about his then-fiancée Susannah Melvoin’s childhood classmate Cynthia Rose, who in later years would have been labeled autistic. Initially set up as an oddball character, the song ultimately paints Rose respectfully, as someone from whom we can all learn something profound.

Similarly, this presentation will illustrate how deeply embedded the topics of diversity, inclusion and belonging are in Prince’s first decade and beyond.

Katie Kapurch and Jon Marc Smith Texas State University, USA

A Purple Paisley Haze: The Beatles, Hendrix, and P-Funk in Prince’s Psychedelia

This paper examines Prince’s psychedelic imagery in Around the World in a Day (1985), which is frequently compared to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Prince was characteristically evasive about that particular influence on this record, but his concept album does share musical diversity, visual imagery, and lyrical themes with the Beatles’ LP. We begin by considering how the form of the concept album allows Prince to negotiate the competing states of loneliness and community, a tension that pervades Pepper. Around the World, however, intensifies the emphasis on embodied solutions to structural social problems as he deals openly with issues of racism and poverty. We also illustrate the Pepper association through a close reading of “Lovely Rita” and Prince’s “Raspberry Beret,” two songs whose imagery related to driving and clothing both articulate non-normative sexual desire. Following, we argue that there is another legacy that unlocks the Pepper influence, one that involves two preceding artists Prince acknowledged—and who were more obvious about their own Beatle love: Jimi Hendrix, who covered Pepper’s title track days after it was released, and George Clinton, who discusses the formative influence of the so-called Fabs in his memoir. We organize this psychedelic legacy through attention to purple, which became Prince’s trademark the year before Around the World, but points back to Hendrix’s iconic “Purple Haze” (1970) and the Afrofuturist color palette of Clinton’s aesthetic. In this way, the Beatles function as a reference point for appreciating the psychedelic musical dialogue between these three major black artists, especially Prince.

Eloy Lasanta Independent Scholar, USA

Prince: The First Decade…Was Just the Beginning

When Prince set out to conquer music, he knew exactly what he wanted and how to get there, releasing just the right songs, targeting specific audiences to maximize growth, but eventually realizing where the mountain top was and when it was time to focus on the music singularity.

78-81 = The Foundational Years …where Prince was finding himself. For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, and Controversy were an amazing start to his career, so strong that they have remained favorites to many friends (fans) long after he released albums which by all accounts are superior in their production, songwriting, and instrumentality.

82-85 = The Stardom Years …where Prince was at the height of his fame. The success of 1999 fed into a new deal for Prince and Warner Bros that got him a movie and a multiple-award winning soundtrack to go along with it, Purple Rain. There’s a reason why most people think Purple Rain when they think Prince. But the writing was on the wall for Prince and his fame and how it wasn’t really what he got into music for.

86-88 = The Experimental Years …where Prince started to find a new voice. What followed Purple Rain was a number of projects, most scrapped but others that saw the light of day, including Parade (and Under the Cherry Moon), Sign ‘O’ the Times, The Black Album, and Lovesexy are eclectic but also show a progression toward what would eventually come in the 90s and beyond.

Arthur Lizie Bridgewater State University, USA

“Old Friends 4 Sale”: The Cinematic Afterlife of Prince’s 1980s Hits

From 1982-2018, sixteen fiction films included previously released original Prince songs licensed for cinematic use (not including the special case of Girl 6, which mixes original and catalog tracks). Of these, fourteen featured tunes from Prince’s first decade on Warner Bros, from “Sexuality” and “Sexy Dancer” in 1982’s long-forgotten Daryl Hannah vehicle Summer Lovers to “Head” in Waiting to Exhale (1995) to Steven Spielberg’s use of “I Wanna Be Your Lover” in his 2018 adaptation Ready Player One. This presentation takes a two-pronged approach to examining these cinematic songs, investigating on both a contextual and a textual level. On the contextual level, song licensing is a balancing act between making money and brand/reputation management. The presentation looks at how and when within Prince’s career arc these dozen songs have been licensed (“Delirious,” “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Let’s Go Crazy” have each been used twice). Some questions: How were these dozen songs licensed and why? The songs cluster in four groups, from the mid-1980s to the mid-20Teens: Why the gaps? How has licensing changed since Prince’s death? On the textual level, the second part looks at how the songs are used within filmic narratives and what meanings are constructed. Does “Prince” act as a constant aural sign or does his meaning change over time? All told, this presentation explores how Prince and his organization want his first-decade hits to mean on film and what they have actually meant.

Robert Loss Columbus College of Art and Design, USA

Rockhard in a Funky Place: Prince and the Black American Working Class 1986-1988

In his Village Voice review of Sign ‘O’ the Times, Greg Tate describes the Black community's disappointment with Prince's recent work before praising the 1987 double-album as "too black" and "so black it spurs sexistential debates between the brothers and sisters." This paper examines the intersections of race and class in Prince's career and work from 1986-1988, and specifically the tensions between Prince's desire to remain true to his Black working-class upbringing, his pluralistic utopian visions, and the pressures of being a pop star following Purple Rain. This presentation considers the recording history and music of Sign ‘O’ the Times, the aborted Black Album, and Lovesexy as ongoing negotiations and imaginings regarding a Black working class in a post-civil rights era marked by deindustrialization, a growing Black middle- class, pathologizing national narratives about Black inner cities, and the rise of hip-hop culture and rap. In this important transitional period which yielded brilliant music, Prince attempted to reconcile his utopianism and globalized cosmopolitanism with his foundational belief in traditional Black working-class values like discipline, community, and the dignity of labor without abandoning his bohemianism. Jazz, soul, blues, funk, and rap, combined with a new band and a stage show featuring prominent Black performers, mark an important turn in Prince's career in which he began to put blackness front and center. Rarely considered in terms of class, Prince nonetheless confronted the ideals and realities of class in America throughout his career, and these years reveal a changing class consciousness that would continue to evolve.

Leah S. McDaniel and Shannan Wilson Independent Scholars, USA

When Did You Fall In Love with Prince: An Examination of the Inception of Prince Fandom and Influence

The panel discussion will display how Prince as an artist unites fans and musicians through his musical talents and human persona.

Leah S. McDaniel, independent scholar, journalist and emerging mediums marketing specialist, seeks to examine individual perspectives of the pivotal moment that Prince Fandom began. McDaniel will interview sources across various mediums, from industry insiders and relatives to self-proclaimed fanatics, to understand where their fascination with Prince initiated pertaining to the first decade of his legacy. Through the interviews, McDaniel will dissect the foundation of what made Prince unique and using those themes contrast how they appeared in Prince’s musical works to uncover the conscious and subconscious ways fandom influenced his early art.

Shannan Wilson, professional researcher and independent scholar, further analyzes how Prince shaped and influenced the sound of the 80s and 90s through his pinnacle works in the first decade of his career. Wilson will delve into what inspired Prince’s early work and the blueprint it laid for future generations of artists that followed his path. Through the examination of definitive musical works from a multitude of artists, across several genres, Wilson will highlight the linkage between Prince’s early catalog and the changing sound of music from artists he directly and indirectly influenced, and the lasting impact of his work as an influencer.

McDaniel and Wilson will use written and visual mediums to bring the dynamism of the research work to life, culminating in defining the essence of what it truly means to be engaged in Prince Fandom.

Darryle Merlette Independent Scholar, USA

Prince by Numbers: A Computational Study of Prince's Creativity (with Emphasis on the First Decade)

You know the type: People who define Prince's best years as in the 80's. But is it true that Prince was more creative in the 80's than any other period of his artistic life? Ignoring for a moment the subjective, qualitative notion of "best", we do have quantitative analysis at our disposal. From this perhaps we can approach one way to answer that question. In addition, there are other questions that such analysis may shed some light upon such as: Did his most productive years happen during his first decade of recording? Did his level of output in the 80's forecast what was to come later? Was he really a modern day Mozart? In this talk I will use some mathematical analysis drawn from ideas in systems theory and inspired by the work of Cesare Marchetti and Theodore Modis to provide a novel perspective on these issues.

Arlene Oak University of Edmonton, Canada

“News From Nowhere”: Paisley Park as place and meaning

The lyrics of the opening verse of the song Paisley Park (1984) introduce a place that attracts peaceful, smiling, colourful people who, when asked “where they’re going”, “tell you nowhere” … presumably because they already are ‘somewhere’: at Paisley Park. While, in the song, Prince places Paisley Park in people’s hearts, by September 1987 Paisley Park was a real place at 7801 Audubon Road, Chanhassan, MN 55317: a site and building that played a profound role in Prince’s life. This paper explores two inter-related aspects of Paisley Park: first, its physical reality as a material and spatial place; and, second its imaginative representation of ideas about self and community. By considering some of the realities of Paisley Park alongside speculative associations of the place with selected philosophical perspectives on creativity, this paper considers Paisley Park as an extension of Prince’s image and style into architecture, and also as a significant material representation of inventiveness and generosity.

Robert J. Patterson Georgetown University, USA

A Prince Black Aesthetic and the Rhythm and Blues Imagination

In multiple interviews, rhythm and blues artist Ginuwine has cited Prince, along with Michael Jackson, as significantly influencing his style and performance. Specifically, Ginuwine identifies Prince’s energy and passion while performing as worthy of emulation. Prince’s performances, from his style (clothing, hair) to his lyrics to his dancing, often defied popular and historical representations and scripts for how black men were to perform black masculinity. This paper turns attention to two rhythm and blues artists—Ginuwine and Kenny Lattimore—whose careers launched in the 1990s to trace what I am terming a “Prince Black Aesthetic.” As an artist, Prince often is described as pushing the boundaries of rhythm and blues culture and heteronormative gender(ed) scripts. In identifying a Prince Black Aesthetic, I trace Prince’s influence on rhythm and blues artist and culture to chart a descriptive set of characteristics that become embedded within rhythm and blues culture, even as Prince himself remained a cross- over artist and performer. The analysis here focuses on how Prince revises rhythm and blues aesthetics, calls attention to the performativity of gender in black communities, and how contemporary rhythm and blues returns to this historical moment to expand its own framework for understanding rhythm and blues culture.

Twila Perry Rutgers University, USA

Gender-Bending and Altered Voices: Prince, Camille, and the Opera Canon

Prince was known, especially in the 1980s, for playing with concepts of gender fluidity in vocal performance, appearance and subject matter. One of Prince’s alter-egos was Camille, a character in which he sang in a high-pitched, speeded up, distorted, sometimes androgynous voice. It has been said that Camille was based on a 19th century historical figure, Herculine Barbin, who was raised as a woman but, later in life, reclassified as a male.

This presentation explores the connection between Prince’s Camille persona and past and present traditions of gender fluidity in voice and performance in opera.

In the earliest years of opera, the roles of women were sometimes sung by castratos–men who had been castrated before puberty in order to keep their youthful, high-pitched voices from changing to a lower range. Later in opera, women performed the roles of men and young boys in what became known as “trouser roles.” Women still sing these roles in some of the most celebrated works in the opera canon. There has also been a recent revival in the popularity of countertenors, men who sing male roles, often heroic roles, in a high-pitched voice that would generally be associated with women.

Issues of gender identity and gender fluidity are currently prominent subjects in public discourse, including talk about opera in the contemporary era. Prince’s sometimes gender- bending appearance, his voice alterations and the subject matter he addressed as “Camille” in the 1980s warrants a place in these discussions.

Annie Potts University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Private Joy and Purple Sexology

During the 1980s, Prince gained notoriety as an artist prepared to provoke, shock and challenge the sexual norms and propriety of the time; songs released by Prince during the first decade of his career – such as Head (Dirty Mind, 1980), Private Joy (Controversy, 1981) and Darling Nikki (Purple Rain, 1984) – directly challenged assumptions about the heteronormative sexual script, the reproductive imperative, the sanctity of marriage, and the ‘taboo’ practice of masturbation. Prince also played with ‘coming’ in various ways in his music, not least through his own often loud and unrestrained climactic moments in songs such as International Lover (1999, 1982). In this paper I analyze the place of orgasm in selected songs and performances from Prince’s 1980s repertoire. My reading is informed by pop culture of the 1980s, queer critiques of Masters and Johnson’s teleological model of ‘normal human sexual response’ (including its restrictive reliance on coital, couple, and orgasmic imperatives), and also by the notion of the ‘orgasm machine’ (derived from Deleuzian theory). Orgasms of the 80s featured in this talk will include (but are not limited to) those in International Lover (1999, 1982), Jack U Off (Controversy, 1981), Temptation (Around the World in a Day, 1985), Lovesexy, Glam Slam (both on Lovesexy, 1988), and If I was Your Girlfriend (Sign o’ the Times, 1987). Ultimately, this paper asks: how might a ‘purple orgasm machine’ create unique sexual (and non-sexual) pleasures? And does there have to be an endpoint?

Casey Rain Independent Scholar, United Kingdom

Prince, Michael, and Camille – Androgyny in the Age of MTV

In the history of contemporary black pop music, 1978 could be considered the true “Year Zero”. It was in this year that the newly-signed Prince Rogers Nelson released his debut album, For You, and it was also this year that a 20 year old Michael Jackson formed a creative partnership with Quincy Jones that would not only lead to his debut adult solo album, Off The Wall, but also to the biggest selling album of all time, 1982’s Thriller. Finally, it was in this year that singer Mike Nesmith of The Monkees first developed the idea of a music television show focusing on the video format, called PopClips - a show that directly led to the creation of MTV.

Over the next decade, the cultural impact, partnerships and relationships of MTV, Michael Jackson and Prince had changed almost every aspect of the music industry. Some of the clearest changes were in the visual representations, appearances, and sounds of contemporary black artists. In 1978 and 1979’s For You and Off The Wall, Prince and Michael Jackson are represented in the tropes of disco, with primarily black audiences, afro hairstyles and defined gender identity. Yet a decade later, with 1987 and 1988’s Bad and Lovesexy, we see drastic visual and sonic changes. In this talk, we seek to understand this change, their journey, and the role their individual success, and the success of MTV played in their artistic development, exploring androgyny, their rivalry, and the song “Bad” – the intended duet between the two megastars.

Casci Ritchie Independent Scholar, Scotland

Undressing Prince Rogers Nelson -- Bodywear, Adornment and Masculinities, 1978 - 1988

Prince is a true rarity within popular culture; instantly recognised worldwide by an unpronounceable icon, the Love Symbol, and forever affiliated with the colour purple. His unique style is often celebrated as flamboyant, eccentric, provocative and ultimately wholly unique. This eclectic style developed throughout his formative years with Prince experimenting early on with womenswear, second-hand clothing and bodywear. In this paper, the term bodywear will apply to the garments worn by Prince that are both cut and worn close to the natural body such as leggings, bodysuits and underwear.

Sociologist Joanne Entwistle describes the relationship between clothing and body, ‘dress lies at the margins of the body and marks the body and marks the boundary between self and other, individual and society’ (Entwistle 2000). This paper will discuss the intimate relationship between Prince and his clothing, investigating the complex boundaries between Prince’s duality, masculinities and bodywear.

The paper will follow Prince’s formative years, focusing on albums For You (1978), Prince (1979), and Dirty Mind (1980) and their own distinctive visual identities. The author will chart the development of Prince’s signature bodywear garments, from store-bought black bikini briefs found in downtown Minneapolis to bespoke Paisley Park leotards. A compact study will also focus on the unconventional wearing of body chains under/over bodywear pieces during this time.

W. Russell Robinson North Carolina Central University, USA

Kimberly R. Moffitt University of Maryland – Baltimore County, USA

An Erotic Supreme: The Lyrical Sexual Politics of Prince Rogers Nelson

Three years since his death, the musical ecosystem still rings hollow as the spiritual, psychic, political and yes the sonic/lyrical presence of Prince Rogers Nelson was silenced by mortality. Unequivocally, his music resonated with the masses as he crossed multiple genres. From R&B, to funk, to rock, to punk, hip-hop, house, to jazz, his musical essence made a global impact. As academics continue to decode his lyrics, his musicology, and even his sense of fashion and style, we offer an additional space that too deserves scholarly examination: his fixation with what many during the conservative 80s deemed taboo: erotica. In addition to the many awards for his seminal work, 1984’s Purple Rain soundtrack, Prince, though indirectly, was responsible for the creation of the parental advisory label due to the now infamous Darling Nikki. Employing a textual analysis of songs authored, and some cases performed by others, this joint presentation of music within his first decade will be straddled within disciplines of cultural studies and sexology. This work will be informed with scholars such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill-Collins. It is the intention that the final deliverable will be in the form of a public presentation rooted in a digital humanities platform.

Robin Shumays Independent Designer & Scholar, USA

Punk, Paisleys, and Polkadots: Prince and the Evolution of Iconic Style

This paper will highlight the evolution of Prince’s iconic looks and fashion sensibilities throughout the 1980s. Beginning with his first music video, “I Wanna Be Your Lover” clad in a leopard top and skin tight jeans, Prince immediately emerged not only as a phenomenal musician, but a fascinating gender-fluid risk taker as well.

Fashion continued to be an integral part of Prince’s persona at all stages of his career. I intend to explore the elements of Prince’s personal style and the relationships between his attire and his music, asking what some of the overlapping themes and looks were during this period, and what new themes did he create? How do those themes relate to his constantly evolving gender fluidity and racial expression?

I will also explore Prince as “the outsider, the rebel, the original afropunk” and how he attracted a fan base, particularly in the African-American communities, who related to his freedom of expression and gender fluidity at a time when it was far less acceptable. How did the punk, new wave and ‘new romantics’ movements influence him, and why? During the period immediately succeeding Purple Rain from 1984-85, how did Wendy and Lisa’s growing musical influence also inspire Prince’s fashion turns?

Finally, most celebrities are trendsetters to some degree, but I will explore what made Prince so distinct from other celebrities as a fashion icon, and ask what inspiration up-and-coming designers can take from his journey.

Maciej Smółka Jagiellonian University, Poland

The Evolution of Purple: How the Minneapolis Sound Changed In Its First Decade

There is no doubt that Prince was the key figure in developing, shaping and maintaining the phenomenon known as the Minneapolis Sound – a musical phenomenon deeply connected to the city of Minneapolis. Its character in the first decade of Prince’s professional career not only has become a recognizable feature of the region of its origin but also has been embedded in the urban identity. However, the sound was far from staying uniform or homogenous in the first years of its existence. Since Dirty Mind LP, a first full-blown illustration of the phenomenon, it was constantly changing, evolving, reshaping itself through the examples of next publications.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the Minneapolis Sound along with Prince’s role in the process. By researching the selected examples, including songs from Prince’s first ten studio albums and the releases of the Minneapolis Sound’s other projects like The Time, Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6, the study concentrates on how the idea of the phenomenon has evolved from Prince’s debut album For You from 1978, until his Lovesexy LP from 1988.

Therefore, by showing how the sound of a city can change, this research highlights the difficulty of pinpointing what the Minneapolis Sound actually was or still is, which version of the phenomenon should be considered a textbook example, and how all of this may influence its general perception even today.

Zach Stiegler Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

Madhouse, Prince, and Miles: Jazz and Pop Interplay in the 1980s

In 1987, Prince bookended an especially prolific year with two albums from Madhouse, one of his most compelling and underacknowledged projects. Via collaboration with fluent players including Sheila E., Eric Leeds, Matthew Blistan, and Clare Fischer, jazz flourishes had already permeated Prince’s mid-decade work including Parade (1986), The Family (1985), and the unreleased Dream Factory (1986). This gradual adoption of jazz elements culminated in Madhouse 8 and 16, wherein Prince embraced jazz more fully than ever before.

Simultaneously, jazz in the 1980s made a pronounced shift toward pop, via artists including Spyro Gyra, Grover Washington Jr., and Kenny G, among others. Miles Davis’ 1980s work is emblematic of this trend, as his Decoy (1984), You’re Under Arrest (1985), and Tutu (1986) albums embraced instrumentation, structures, and production styles prominent in the pop music of the day. Davis’ dalliance with 1980s pop is further underscored by his recordings of hits by Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson, as well as session work for artists including Public Image Ltd., Toto, and the all-star charity single “Sun City.”

In short, as Davis’ jazz leaned into mainstream pop influences in the 1980s, Prince’s brand of pop increasingly looked to jazz for stylistic inspiration. Drawing on literature in jazz scholarship, popular music studies, archival interviews, and contemporaneous reviews, this presentation engages a comparative analysis of these inverse stylistic trajectories to parse the interplay of genres represented by Prince and Davis, and to glean what this can tell us about the complicated relationship between jazz and pop.

Marcus Thomas University of Hartford, USA

Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife: A Feminist Criticism of Purple Rain

Prince could easily be considered the most provocative musical artist of his time. He frequently oscillated between profane and religious iconography in his songs, combining sexual and spiritual overtones into seamless devotions. In a sort of reverence, Prince regularly explored female agency and sexuality through his music, video, and film projects. However, many of his earlier works had the cumulative effect of reducing female participants to being little more than objects of male conquest. Although in real life Prince often served as a creative mentor to women musicians, in his movie Purple Rain the artist limited female participation to advancing male conquest or male character development.

Purple Rain is a 1984, semi-biographical film starring musician Prince. The story centers on a young entertainer who struggles to find his musical path while escaping his father’s shadow. While the movie proved to be a box office success, it was criticized as being sexist and borderline misogynist. Though most male characters exhibit redeeming qualities that probably keep the film from being considered misogynist; Purple Rain is a sexist expose with few meaningful female roles outside of their relationships to men. An examination of five female characters will show that women in the film are reduced to sexual objects that are not valued for thought or creative input. Purple Rain is shot entirely from the male gaze, only briefly exploring the non-physical attributes of its female characters. Also, the film does not pass the Bechdel- Wallace Test that examines whether the film has at least two named female characters who talk to one another about something other than a man.

Erica Thompson Independent Scholar, USA

“Do I Believe in God?”: The Media’s Depiction of Prince’s Spirituality (1978-1988)

During his 1999 appearance on Larry King Live, Prince discussed myriad topics, including his new album, the new millennium and what the host thought was the artist’s newfound spirituality.

“You were once kind of raucous, right?” King said. “You certainly would not think of you as a great believing soul.”

As he conveyed to King, Prince had always acknowledged the role God played in his life. But King had been influenced solely by the erotic aspect of Prince’s image at the height of his fame in the 1980s.

This paper highlights the media’s role in crystallizing that perception of Prince during the first decade of his career, despite the abundance of spiritual messages in his music. The goal is to demonstrate that critics largely overlooked and minimized those messages — and his spiritual evolution — until the release of his spiritual concept album, Lovesexy, in 1988. Prince’s own role in the media’s misguided view will also be considered.

The author analyzed articles from a sample of publications — New York Times, L.A. Times, Rolling Stone and Ebony — selected based on scale of readership, frequency of coverage and diversity of perspective. The author also conducted interviews with journalists (e.g. Anthony DeCurtis, David Browne), as well as members of Prince’s media relations team (e.g. Howard Bloom, Robyn Riggs) to gain further insight.

Duane Tudahl Independent Scholar, USA

Prince’s life in the music of Parade/Sign O’ The Times

The music I make a lot of the time is reflective of the life I am leading. -Prince

Because Prince wrote, produced and played almost every instrument on the majority of his songs, his music is literally the story of his life. Each is a snapshot of how he felt that day and the stories behind these tracks overflow with struggles, frustrations, love and lust (both have four letters, but they’re entirely different words), and emotional breakups, but also the joys and optimism of the times.

Prince was drained when he began working on Parade in April 1985. He’d spent the last 6 months on the biggest tour of his life and was releasing his newest album Around The World In A Day, the product of his decision to follow art instead of commerce.

Parade is the story of Prince’s overreach, and Sign O’ The Times is about the resurrection of his career as he struggled to find his voice again without his road tested band and his fiancé.

I’ve spent 25 years documenting Prince’s music, interviewing his band members and practically everyone in the studio with him. The result was my 2017 book Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions: 1983-1984. The second volume, Prince and the Parade/Sign O’ The Times Studio Sessions: 1985-1986 is due in 2020.

As Prince has said: “All my life is in my music.”

We just have to know where to look.

Karen Turman Harvard University, USA

Vous êtes très belle: Recontextualizing the Myth of French Utopia in Prince’s Under the Cherry Moon

Paisley Park is in your heart, or perhaps in France? Prince’s second feature film, Under the Cherry Moon, takes place in the south of France—but the geographic situating of the film reaches far beyond a homegrown Minnesotan’s dream of palm trees, sunshine, and balmy Mediterranean weather. The cinematic aesthetics and themes of the film reveal a more acute transcription of a Paisley Park utopia defined by freedom of oppression based on class, race, and gender. The film’s visuals echo jazz age entertainment reminiscent of performances by the Nicholas Brothers, the Berry Brothers, and Josephine Baker from the 1920s through the 1940s. The French locale adds yet another layer to the equation: during the interwar years, Paris became a haven for black entertainers, artists, and intellectuals who discovered an almost utopian experience in comparison to the violent racism in the U.S. I examine class, race, and gender in Under the Cherry Moon through comparative analysis of black writers and entertainers during the Harlem Renaissance and the French fetishization of Black American expatriates. In addition to Josephine Baker’s performances and legacy, I will consider Claude McKay’s Banjo (1929), a narrative re-evaluating blackness and contextualizing the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance in the south of France. Overall, this study will critically analyze the philosophical and sociocultural underpinnings of Prince’s underappreciated Under the Cherry Moon and, in turn, further examine cinema as a medium to communicate social engagement.

Michael Ugrich Independent Scholar, USA

“Ladies and gentlemen… The Evolution.” How Prince utilized technology to create his magnum opus, Purple Rain.

Prince revolutionized the Minneapolis Sound in the early 1980s by blending cutting-edge electronics with rock and funk, dynamically changing the direction of popular music. Starting with the release of Dirty Mind in 1980, his musical style drastically changed and evolved over a sequence of releases that led to Parade in 1986. While Prince’s best album over that timeframe remains entirely listener preference, his most successful album is unquestionably Purple Rain. Every note, lyric and song has its own unique meaning and identity to achieve a distinctive balance, but what is truly intriguing about Purple Rain is the technology that he utilized to achieve said balance.

From the harmonized guitar intro of “When Doves Cry,” to the enigmatic atmosphere that is the opening bars of “The Beautiful Ones,” Prince had the ability to instantaneously grab a listener’s attention. Technology, such as the recently released Linn LM-1 Drum Machine, was applied in unique ways in which only he could achieve to create the iconic sounds featured on the album. This study will observe Purple Rain from both the micro and macro levels by examining the analysis of Prince’s compositions, his exploitation of technology and the relationship of how the music blended with visuals to further expose the emotional content of the music. By digging even deeper into the creation of Purple Rain, one can truly appreciate the genius of how everything merged together to create a rock/pop masterpiece.

Matthew Valnes Duke University, USA

Prince and the Post-Civil Rights Era Black Popular Music Aesthetic

This paper examines two Prince recordings from 1982 to argue that the way he engaged with and combined various musical styles, performance practices, and music technologies represents what I call a “post-civil rights era black popular music aesthetic.” With the passage of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, African Americans gained legal enfranchisement but still experienced discrimination and marginalization. In response, musicians began to push the possibilities of black popular music, incorporating emerging music technologies such as synthesizers, voice-altering technologies, and drum machines. In the process, they expanded traditional conceptions of black musical practices, black identity, and black subjectivity.

This presentation examines two songs, “1999” and its B-side, “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore.” In the first example, I explore how Prince substituted the traditional horn section for the new sound possibilities of the synthesizer and combined them with the rhythmic figures of funk, creating what has become known as the “Minneapolis Sound.” This combination, coupled with the song’s apocalyptic lyrics, suggests that Prince pushes beyond the standard conceptions of what black popular music should and could sound like. This did not mean, however, that he completely abandoned older practices. Instead, by coupling “1999” with the solo voice and piano piece “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore,” Prince, as a post-civil rights era musician, expands black musical identity by combining various musical styles and performance practices, while simultaneously expanding the boundaries of black popular music history.

Sherry Wien Monmouth University, USA

Eavesdropping with Tricky: Listening In On Friendship Under the Cherry Moon

Tricky (Jerome Benton) eavesdropped on Christopher Tracy (Prince) in the movie Under the Cherry Moon in three scenes: 1) while making out with the landlord in their apartment lobby, 2) while sprinkling flower petals in Christopher’s bath, and 3) while Christopher chews crunchy French bread. This multimedia presentation explores the nature of listening and friendship. How did Tricky and Christopher listen to each other? How did they maintain their friendship and partnership through listening? When does eavesdropping become auditory voyeurism?

In 2017 I gave a presentation, “Stare: A Content Analysis of How Prince Directed and Avoided Gaze in His Songs and Movies.” The functions of Prince’s eye contact were: attraction, threat, sex, and intimacy. I played music segments and categorized song lyrics within these themes. I showed clips from Purple Rain, Under the Cherry Moon, and Graffiti Bridge. I discussed the fetish of voyeurism and with this current project, I explore milder and more platonic versions of auditory voyeurism.

The central relationship of my film analysis is the fictional friendship between Tricky and Christopher Tracy in Under the Cherry Moon. I’m focusing on eavesdropping from Tricky’s perspective. However, there are more scenes of eavesdropping from Christopher’s point of view (Mary’s phone call with her fiancé, Isaac Sharon’s answering machine message to Mrs. Wellington, and Tricky’s conversation with Mary Sharon as they dance). Restaurant guests overhear “Wrecka Stow!” and Mr. Sharon’s goons listen in on Tricky and Christopher’s café conversation. Even film viewers eavesdrop at Mary’s party and Christopher’s piano lounge.

Crystal N. Wise University of Michigan, USA

From The Black Album to Lovesexy: Using James Baldwin to Explore “Hundalasiliah!,” Prince’s Joyful Exaltation

Prince and James Baldwin are two of the most prolific and profound artists who exuded the “freedom to be.” In their works, Prince and Baldwin regarded Black music, specifically the Blues, as an act of freedom that created joy from pain. On December 1, 1987, Prince ironically exercised his artistic freedom by cancelling the release of The Black Album. On this same day, James Baldwin died. In a 1990 Rolling Stones interview, Prince explained that he “suddenly realized that we can die at any moment, and we’d be judged by the last thing we left behind. I didn’t want that angry, bitter thing to be the last thing. I learned from that album, but I don’t want to go back.” It is not clear whether Prince was aware of James Baldwin’s death at the time The Black Album was cancelled, but his decision is a clear indication of Prince’s concern with using his art to do as Baldwin describes as the role of the artist which is to “illuminate [the] darkness” and “to make the world a more human dwelling place.” In this paper I analyze the lyrics from Prince’s tenth album, Lovesexy album, which reflect Prince’s spirituality and positivity, a contrast to The Black Album. I discuss the findings in relation to Prince’s documented personal and career experiences and Baldwin’s essays, “The Creative Process” and “The Uses of the Blues” to show how The Black Album was an important part of Prince’s creative process to realize joy and freedom.

Mike Wyeld and Chopin Gard University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

Sitting in the Bath with My Pants On: Non-Binary Identity in Prince’s Recording Studio 1978-1988

“The solution to ANY creative problem is ALWAYS technical.” – Film Maker Anthony Minghella

“Prince discovered that if you put the tape machine down to half speed, you can sing in your normal voice and play guitar, and when you put the tape machine back to regular speed, it's going to be higher and thinner, he would sing the whole song at half the tempo in his normal voice and he'd play guitar parts at half the tempo, and then speed the machine back up." – Paisley Park Engineer Susan Rogers, speaking about Prince developing the character “Camille.”

During the first ten years Prince constructed for himself what some have identified as a kind of genderqueer or gender non-conforming identity, which he sometimes referred to as Camille. He created an elliptical sonic chamber, allowing audiences to question gender and sexuality. Like the Anechoic Chamber at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, Prince’s studio absorbed ideas.

How do we get from Prince on American Bandstand, unable to answer Dick Clark’s pop-centric questions, to one year later Prince in bikini briefs on the cover of Dirty Mind? The answer lies in the spaces he created for himself with some key players; on stage and in the studio.

During the recording of many of the tracks on the recent Prince vault release “Originals,” the only other person in the studio was sound engineer Peggy McCreary. During the ten years from 1978 to 1988 it is the women engineers who captured Prince’s journey of gender and sexuality.