![]() ![]() You find out quickly who respects and who disrespects you. ![]() “I don’t mind if people are cynical or make jokes-that’s part of it, but this is what I choose to be called. “It’s fun to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Things change here,’” he said during rehearsal, backstage at the Monte Carlo Sporting Club. He was also surprisingly thoughtful and serious regarding the name change. couldn’t keep up with his output soon he would be writing the word “slave” on his cheek in more provocative protest. He spoke at length about his frustration at not being able to release music when and how he wanted to, how Warner Bros. We convened in Monte Carlo in May 1994 he was parked there for several days to receive honors at the World Music Awards. We spent the next year getting together off-and-on-in San Francisco, New York, at Paisley Park-before he agreed to an interview for Vibe magazine (where I was then working), his first time going on the record in print in almost five years. In early 1993, I reviewed the opening of the Act I tour for Rolling Stone and received word that he wanted to meet me. I had a front-row view of this dizzying era in Prince’s career. And largely lost in all of this confusion was The Gold Experience-Prince’s finest album of the decade, an imperfect but rewarding record that became a casualty of extra-musical drama. Having already asserted, about six weeks earlier, that he was retiring from studio recording, many speculated that the name change was an attempt to finesse his way out of his contract with Warner Bros.-a deal he had signed less than a year earlier, with a potential payout of $100 million that was trumpeted as the biggest in history. With the announcement came a proclamation that The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (the nomenclature that many settled on) would no longer be performing any of his old songs, as they belonged to the old name. (It was the title of his previous album, generally referred to as the “Love Symbol” album and he had been signing autographs with the mark for some time.) People went nuts: Was it a joke? A scam? How could he have a name that no one could say? Hadn’t he gone far enough already with all those silly “2”s and “U”s instead of real words in his titles? The greatest artist of his generation immediately became a punchline. ![]() On June 7, 1993-his 35th birthday-Prince informed the world that he was now to be known as an unpronounceable symbol that, in one form or another, had entered his iconography in recent years. ![]()
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