“Could that be Prince and Apollonia strolling the streets of Georgetown?”
A very serious (these folks weren’t playin’ around) Prince look-alike contest held at Champions Sports Bar in Washington D.C. circa 1985.
Ron Smith, the “Celebrity Look-alike King,” is one of the judges who appears to be sitting next to a Linda Evans look-alike in the clip. Dynasty was hot in 1985, too, of course.
Rare 70s pic of Prince, uploaded by ChrisEagle08
The purple funk pixie turns 54 today. Happy birthday, Prince!
You are the reason I have dedicated my life to music, and also the reason for my occassional feelings of inadequecy. I mean, seriously, how can anyone ever compete with that?
Oh well, we do our best.
Here’s some footage of the master at his post-Purple Rain peak in 1985, tearing it up live at the Grammys, with The Revolution still in tow. He truly is the greatest performer rock or pop has ever seen, let’s just hope he doesn’t yank this cracking clip:
Prince & The Revolution “Baby I’m A Star” (live at the Grammys, 1985)
I still marvel at how groundbreakingly cool Prince was before he cleaned up his act and started witnessing for Jehovah. The bitch was a real provocateur…as can be seen in this video from 1980 in which Prince appears ready to sex-up the entire universe.
Draped in a be-jeweled flasher raincoat and wearing some lonesome cowboy’s red bandanna, Ann Margret’s leggings and Little Richard’s jockstrap, Prince’s outré fashion sensibilities echo the quirky mashup of new wave and funk in the infectiously groovy “Dirty Mind.”
Note to Damian Abraham: check out this video. Learn to accessorize.
Prince “Lovesexy” by Norn Cutson
After ten years in the (print) game, the hip-hop/soul/funk magazine Wax Poetics has reached its 50th issue, and to celebrate they have commissioned an exclusive mix from LA’s King of the Boogie, Dam Funk. In keeping with the issue’s theme, the mix is all about, as the magazine itself says: “one of the most iconic musicians in the history of African American music, the one and only Prince.”
A Prince-themed mix by Dam Funk? That’s two of the most brilliantly funky acts of modern times coming together. Dam stays away from the obvious hits, to focus instead on album tracks, live recordings and re-edits, and even adds his own exclusive cover version of the song “17 Days”. It’s great and a must for all Prince fans, even the most obsessed who think they’ve heard it all. You may know some of these tracks, but you won’t have heard them quite like this…
Wax Poetics’ 50th issue is also dedicated to the purple sex pixie (truly one of the most outstanding artists in the history of popular music, no?) and features interviews with, and wrtiting on; Larry Graham, Morris Day, Questlove, The Family, Frank Ocean and much more. You can buy the magazine, which is being printed on high quality paper and is designed not to be disposed of, directly from the Wax Poetics website. In the meantime, you can check out Dam Funk’s Prince mix right here:
1. Prince & the Revolution – 17 Days (original version)
2. DāM-FunK – 17 Days (D-F Re-Freak)
3. Prince – Irresistible Bitch (Props Re-Edit)
4. Prince (featuring Andre Cymone & Pepe Willie) – One Man Jam
5. Prince – Wet Dream Cousin
6. Prince – Dirty Mind (1981 Live Version)
7. Prince – Soft & Wet (original version)
8. Prince – Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (D-F Extended Re-Edit)
9. Prince – Sticky Like Glue (Props Re-Edit)
10. Prince & the Revolution – All My Dreams
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Download Dam Funk’s new EP for free
Dam Funk: King Of The Boogie
Mashup of the week. U Can’t Kiss This.
Thanks, Alpha1999.
The man who helped usher black pop music into the future turned 52 years old today. With rumor of a new album entitled Androgynine due for release this month, it’s a fitting occasion to harvest his Wikipedia entry for some of the odd and maddening details of his life:
• Prince was named after his [pianist] father, whose stage name was Prince Rogers, and who performed with a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In a 1991 interview with A Current Affair, Prince’s father said, “I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do.”
• Prince’s childhood nickname was Skipper.
• In a PBS interview Prince told Tavis Smiley that he was “born epileptic” and “used to have seizures” when he was young. During the interview Prince also said that “my mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, ‘Mom, I’m not going to be sick anymore,’ and she said ‘Why?’ and I said ‘Because an angel told me so.’ “
• After Tipper Gore heard her 12-year-old daughter Karenna listening to Prince’s song “Darling Nikki”, she founded the Parents Music Resource Center…[which] advocated the mandatory use of a warning label (“Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics”) on the covers of records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors.
• Prince was set to release [The Black Album] with a complete monochromatic black cover with only the catalog number printed, but at the last minute, even though 500,000 copies had been pressed, Prince had a spiritual epiphany that the album was evil and had it recalled, although it would later be released by Warner Bros. as a limited edition album in 1994.
• Prince became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2001 following a two-year-long debate with friend and fellow Jehovah’s Witness, musician Larry Graham. Prince said he didn’t consider it a conversion, but a “realization”; “It’s like Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix”, he explained. He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocks on people’s doors to discuss his new faith. Prince has reportedly needed double-hip-replacement surgery since 2005 but won’t undergo the operation unless it is a bloodless surgery because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions.
• At the 2008 Coachella Music Festival, Prince performed a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”, but immediately after he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance, despite Radiohead’s demand for it to remain on the website. Days later, YouTube reinstated the videos, while Radiohead claimed “it’s our song, let people hear it.” In 2009, Prince put the video of that Coachella performance on his website LotusFlow3r.com.
Here’s the man himself talking chemtrails, prophesy, and various other nonsequitors:
Though this clip has been around for some time, I think this latest version is of the best quality. This is from a James Brown concert in 1983, in which the hardest working man in show business invites both Michael Jackson and Prince to the stage for a little improvisation. Michael woos the ladies, while Prince - well you’ll just have to watch. If you blink you might miss him ride in on the back of a gigantic body guard dressed in a leopard wrestler’s outfit.
