{"id":309591,"date":"2021-07-27T22:20:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T19:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/princes-welcome-2-america-and-what-we-can-learn-from-a-star-who-vanished-too-soon\/"},"modified":"2021-07-27T22:20:25","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T19:20:25","slug":"princes-welcome-2-america-and-what-we-can-learn-from-a-star-who-vanished-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/princes-welcome-2-america-and-what-we-can-learn-from-a-star-who-vanished-too-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"#Prince’s ‘Welcome 2 America’ and what we can learn from a star who vanished too soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Prince’s ‘Welcome 2 America’ and what we can learn from a star who vanished too soon<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n There\u2019s a special kind of skepticism that follows a posthumous album release from a major pop artist. Projects like Aaliyah\u2019s highly successful I Care 4 U<\/em> and Johnny Cash\u2019s abysmal Remixed<\/em> have been called out as vulgar record-company cash grabs and critically panned as either unrealized potential (the former) or inessential versions (the latter). Michael<\/em>,<\/em> the first album Michael Jackson\u2019s estate released shortly after his death in 2009, is a cobbled-together grouping of what sound like rejected B-sides or unwanted works-in-progress. Amy Winehouse\u2019s Lioness: Hidden Treasures<\/em>,<\/em> an album released a mere five months after the British vocalist tragically passed away, contains tracks that sound more suitable as added bonus material for an anniversary edition of her Grammy-sweeping Back to Black<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Prince\u2019s upcoming release, Welcome 2 America<\/em>\u2014his first posthumous studio album since his death in 2016\u2014has little in common with the afterlife output of Jackson, Cash or Winehouse. Set to stream on July 30, this full-length album is a cohesive start-to-finish concept that bridges many of the artist-formerly-known-as-a-symbol\u2019s career highs.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Welcome 2 America<\/em> does what Prince\u2019s former output does not. It\u2019s pre-woke wokeness at its best, a searing and tender yet direct critique of the United States, created during the first two years of Barack Obama\u2019s presidency. Long-time fans, such as Dr. Christopher Smith, a research associate at the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto, think the decision to hold the record back is a reflection of Prince\u2019s social<\/a> acumen. He \u201cchecked the collective temperature of the nation and decided to not discount the historic moment,\u201d Smith says. Much of the U.S. was still celebrating its first Black president. \u201cPrince didn\u2019t want to rain on the parade,\u201d says Smith. \u201cHaving an African-American president had very material manifestations where people were actually feeling a certain kind of hope. I can completely understand why Prince was like, \u2018Yeah, now is not<\/em> the time.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Prince had a reputation for being politically-on-the-job early in his career. Sign o\u2019 the Times<\/em>, released in 1987, was a lament on the drug wars and the Reagan administration of the day. But this new album goes further in its socio-political commentary, with lyrics that refer to the singer\u2019s homeland as \u201cland of the free, home of the slave,\u201d and unabashedly claim that \u201ctruth is the new minority\u201d and \u201ceverybody and their momma has a sex tape,\u201d while chanting a call to action to \u201cdismantle all monopolies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little Red Corvette<\/em> it ain\u2019t.<\/p>\n

At a first listen, the key tracks on Welcome 2 America<\/em> might sound like they were crafted post-2013, when the Black Lives Matter movement spread globally after George Zimmerman fatally shot an unarmed 17-year-old African-American high school student, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Fla. And, based on Welcome 2 America<\/em>\u2019s forward-sounding instrumentation (electro-fused structures that Lil Nas X and Frank Ocean have built upon), the disc also sounds like it might have been made weeks or months before the Minneapolis-born polymathic musician died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0How Prince, rock\u2019s effortlessly dangerous star, changed the game<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the album, like Prince, was ahead of its time. Recorded in 2010, Welcome 2 America<\/em> was fuelled by conversations Prince was having with the New Power Generation (or NPG, his supporting band from 1990 to 2016). Between sessions, the band would sit down at Prince\u2019s insistence to watch Henry Louis Gates Jr.\u2019s 2008 PBS series<\/a> African American Lives 2<\/em>. Gates is a professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and the miniseries featured research into the ancestral lineages of prominent African-American guests, putting a spotlight on past injustices and present achievements, as well as historical experiences pre- and post-slavery.<\/p>\n

One of the most prominent vocalists on the new album is NPG singer-songwriter Shelby Johnson (her stage name was shortened to Shelby J. by Prince), who had worked with Prince since 2006. She describes studio time for Welcome 2 America<\/em> as part classroom and part therapy session. \u201cPrince gave me DVDs about African-American culture to absorb when we weren\u2019t singing,\u201d she says over the phone from her home in North Carolina. \u201cHistoric moments that I didn\u2019t learn in school, films about Black Wall Street and the mistreatment of Black communities . . . stuff that is so ugly, you don\u2019t want to acknowledge it. But it made me think about the injustice happ<\/a>ening in my own country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also watched a documentary of Wattstax over and over again before we sang,\u201d Johnson says, referring to the 1965 benefit concert that featured more than a dozen gospel, R&B, soul, blues, funk and jazz acts commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Watts Rebellion, an event that took place over six days and was instigated by police brutality. \u201cI just became such a sponge. He kept telling us that things don\u2019t just happen when it comes to racism. I learned that once you acknowledge something that\u2019s bad, you can\u2019t change the past but you [also] can\u2019t pretend that it never happened and that things are just the way they are now. The creativity and the collectiveness and the conversations about what we were watching on PBS or in documentaries, and what was happening with the elections in the news<\/a>\u2014that made it into the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson takes the role of lead vocalist on a Welcome 2 America<\/em> track called Running Game (Son of a Slave Master)<\/em>. When she first received the music, she was taken aback by lyrics such as, \u201cHow much do U want 4 that real dope beat? \/ Another A&R man, lyin\u2019 through their teeth \/ Son of a slave master, meet and greet \/ There goes the publishing and U\u2019re back on the street.\u201d \u201cWe [the band members] would come into the studio, look at the lyrics and stare at each other,\u201d she says. \u201cI remember saying, \u2018Ooh, he is going deep!\u2019 \u201d Running Game<\/em> is a mirror to Prince\u2019s own career, including his widely publicized legal battles with Warner Bros. in the \u201990s, when he changed his name to a symbol and appeared in public with the word \u201cSlave\u201d on his face. The song connects America\u2019s civil rights movement to Prince\u2019s own challenge of working with a major music label, one that expected him to be a non-stop hit machine.<\/p>\n

For all its sharp critique, the record has its bright sides. In a song called 1,000 Light Years From Here<\/em>, Prince lays it all out for his country: \u201cNow got 2 show \/ What it means 2 b American \/ Good life, liberty, innovation \/ Every child, no matter what colour \/ Getting an education.\u201d And on a track titled Yes<\/em>, Prince, Shelby J. and NPG vocalist Liv Warfield offer up a jubilant anthem that is nevertheless laced with caution: \u201cIf U\u2019re ready 4 a brand-new nation, YES \/ If U\u2019re ready 4 a new situation, say YES \/ If U\u2019re ready we can turn the page, YES \/ As long as they ain\u2019t movin\u2019 us 2 a bigger cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked on more than 50 songs that are in Prince\u2019s vault that touch on all of these concerns for the world,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cThe joy is there. You can hear [it] in the music. But consciousness for what causes pain is also there. This album is the beginning of a new journey for him. He wasn\u2019t about just reporting on the news this time around. He wasn\u2019t wasting time whining about it. He saw NPG as part of the solution to the chaos. He\u2019d constantly ask us, \u2018How can we change this system moving forward?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Prince\u2019s early work was known for focusing on explicit sexuality and the complexities of romance and monogamy in the midst of \u201980s excess. Sign \u2019o the Times<\/em> marked a turn to the more political, getting into themes of racial justice and his developing interest in spirituality. The record was \u201cless of a shift in terms of his overall consciousness with regards to engaging with the historical memory and legacies of racial oppression in the U.S.,\u201d says Daphne A. Brooks, an award-winning music critic, author and professor of African American studies at Yale University, \u201cbut rather a seizing of growing entitlement to be able to speak about it directly through his art. Prince worked in stages around different kinds of goals, especially in the first quarter of his career. His later development has to do with the economic shift in who he was and how he was treated as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"U.K.<\/p>\n

U.K. singer Laura Mvula (Courtesy of Atlantic Records)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A standing theme throughout his career is Prince\u2019s powerful connection to both genders. \u201cIt goes all the way back to his alter ego, Camille,\u201d Brooks says, referencing the pseudonym Prince used for an album of the same name that was never officially shared with fans, save for one, rare, advanced pressing of the record, which went up for auction and sold for US$29,645 in 2016. On Camille<\/em>, Prince sped up his own singing and heightened his register and pitch on various tracks, so his voice could be perceived as being biologically female. A few of the album\u2019s songs, including If I Was Your Girlfriend<\/em>, went on to be resurrected for Sign o\u2019 the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Brooks describes Prince as having \u201cprogressive feminist ideals\u201d and points to his deep and meaningful professional relationships with women such as Sheila E., Sheena Easton, Wendy & Lisa (Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman), and Rosie Gaines\u2014whom he shared the spotlight with onstage and in recordings. \u201cHe became interested in having different kinds of female voices represented,\u201d Brooks says. \u201cHe also believed their voices to be a piece of him.\u201d Many of those collaborations, as well as songs he wrote for female artists such as Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor (Nothing Compares 2 U<\/em>), Martika (Love . . . Thy Will Be Done<\/em>) and the Bangles (Manic Monday<\/em>), have recently been re-examined after Prince\u2019s estate exhumed his own recordings of these songs on a 2019 disc called Originals<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And there may still be more new Prince offerings to come. Yet another unreleased recording, a song titled Overcome<\/em>, written by British pop singer Laura Mvula and Chic legend Niles Rodgers for Mvula\u2019s 2016\u2019s The Dreaming Room<\/em> album, was a catalyst for Mvula\u2019s Pink Noise<\/em>, scheduled for release on July 2. Upon listening to Prince\u2019s take of Overcome<\/em> (which he secretly recorded and sent to Mvula), she decided to rethink her entire sound and depart from the moodier, cinematic soundscapes she\u2019s known for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have Prince\u2019s version on my laptop and I guess I\u2019ll have to release it one day because it means so much to me and my career,\u201d Mvula says via phone from London. \u201cHis take on this song was the premonition to my new album. It made me think in a funkier, sexier way, and it made me be at peace with weaving activism into my music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pink Noise<\/em>\u2019s jewel-in-crown is a song called Remedy<\/em>, which would fit perfectly on Welcome 2 America<\/em>\u2019s track list. Its lyrics echo Eric Garner\u2019s last words\u2014\u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d\u2014before dying when former police officer Daniel Pantaleo put him in a prohibitive chokehold on July 17, 2014. The choice to include that line was prompted by how unabashedly truth-filled Prince\u2019s most politically charged songs are.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrince taught me so much about fighting for your identity and not taking your own music for granted,\u201d Mvula says. \u201cHe was a prophet and a teacher, and he [taught me about] having the confidence to continue in this wild industry.\u201d
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