The History of Me: In Prince

I'm listening to a Kanye West song. I like the line: "I've been on ya, since Prince been on Appolonia..."

One of the things I like about *being around* black artists (I mean, listening to, reading interviews etc.) is that they talk about Prince. Living in Canada I've only known one big Prince fan, in Cegep.

Then there was that annoying guy in sec V who suddenly discovered that Prince was a great musician, and tried to inform ME that Prince plays 27 instruments, arrogantly assuming I didn't have any appreciation for Prince as a musician... when I had just given an oral presentation on the Utopia theme in Prince songs. (Sometimes Boys think they know more about music than girls. Like cars and football, or something. Hmph!)

And then there's Kevin Smith--who I don't think is a Prince fan. I think he's a Purple Rain fan. (And so he would probably appreciate why I was so thrilled when someone--Pablo or Fernando?--bought me my own cone-puppet. "You don't need them. You don't need anyone. All you need is ME.")

So it's fun when I'm looking at some Prince thing on youtube and other people from the US (maybe it's not about skin color... maybe this is an American--Canadian thing) say Oh cool! I remember when this song was on the radio all the time! My sister and I used to play this every day!! about some Prince song that I never even heard released on radio.

Man. Where were these people when I was 15?? South of the border I guess.

Mind you... my other fave groups were Bruce Cockburn, Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac, which probably top a list somewhere of Music White People Like. (...Though Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back" is based on "Little Red Corvette" and Prince played the synths on it for her. AND Prince and Kate Bush have both played one song for each other, on each other's albums. ...Pretty sure there's no Prince-Cockburn connection, though. Well they're both top guitarists.)