Vibes and Stuff.

Q&A: Touré on his Prince book I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

2014-06-25T09:55:00.000-04:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Purple Rain by Prince. So I thought I'd dig into the vaults and post this Q&A I did with author and broadcaster Touré in April last year discussing his book on Prince entitled I Would Die 4 U. The book explores Prince's place in society by looking at him through a lens of sex, spirituality and Generation X.

Why did you think now was the right time to write this book?

Well, I mean I’ve been a huge fan of Prince and I’ve been interested in his career for a long time and [Henry Louis] 'Skip' Gates at Harvard asked me to do a series of lectures about culture at Harvard. Its an annual series, he asked me to do it for last year, so two years ago we talked about it and said I could write and spend a lot of time studying the music of Prince, so that was the initial impetus. But I think on a deeper level for a few years, I think as a culture I think we collectively and righteously were in reverence of Michael Jackson following his sudden death -- and I think that was correct -- but when we took a breather after a year and a half, two years of that, I thought, well, there was this other guy who was pretty awesome at the same time and maybe we should give him some attention before he’s gone.

So do you think he’s been overlooked in some ways?

I wouldn’t say he’s been overlooked but I think over the past recent period Michael Jackson has gotten the lion’s share of the attention because he needed it. You know because he had a rough last decade in terms of how the culture viewed him so we were righting that ship and were real busy thinking about Michael Jackson and now maybe let’s think about Prince for a minute.

That’s interesting because they weren’t necessarily best buddies, They were obviously aware of each other though.

The culture looked at them in tandem, they were huge at a similar time. Like Thriller and Purple Rain come out...and they were sort of operating in the culture at the same time during that '80s period.

Just to get into some of the themes you explore you do highlight the spiritual and religious connections that some people may not look at when you first think of him? What’s been your feedback to that?

I think a lot of people are happy that I noticed that, happy that we are discussing Prince something deeper than as just a sort of sexual being. He’s much more than that.

What was the process on working and getting all your research together?

Well, I talked to a lot of people. For the first part of the book, it’s mainly talking to people, people who played with him in the Revolution and engineers, tour managers, ex-girlfriends, some musicologists. But for the last section where I talk about spirituality, you know, I wanted to talk to a couple of Bible scholars and those who are or were Seventh Day Adventists which was his childhood phase to understand a bit of what he was doing there to make the connections around what the music was actually doing. Because y’know, I think if you don’t know the faith as I did not before doing this, you will probably miss a lot of the allusions that he’s making, or the reasons why he’s saying certain things. And when you start to understand what Seventh Day Adventism is about then you’ll better understand better what he’s doing.

How willing were people to talk about him. He’s obviously a very private individual

I mean all the people who spoke to me were willing to speak to me. I didn’t attack anybody to speak against their will. There were several people who I reached out to who said they couldn’t do it and a lot of people were more than happy to talk to me. It’s been a long time since they worked for Prince in a lot of cases so y’know they’re like 'Sure, I’ll talk to you.'

There was one particular segment in the book where you detail your encounter with him while writing a cover story. As I was reading that section it reminded me of the Dave Chappelle Prince skit.

For sure, but my story predates the Chappelle skit by many years.

I guess I wanted to ask what you thought of that.

He loves playing basketball. He plays basketball with a lot of people. He had not really let the public see much of that before I played basketball with him. But they are a lot of people who played basketball with him. Most of them are not famous people but it’s one of his ways of interacting with people.

But what did you think when you saw that skit?

What I saw with what Charlie [Murphy] did, was that’s my story. It’s what I did. I lived that same thing years before.

I’ve noticed in recent years Prince has been a bit more willing to be more public given your perspective?

I don’t think he’s being any more public. He’s occasionally done a little thing here and there, like the MTV Awards, a Grammy thing, you know, he’s got some new music that he wants to play and promote, but I don’t think he’s been any more public than he has been typically.

Given how well known he is around the world there really isn’t much information out there about him. How hard was it to be authoritative and to come to conclusions when dealing with his personal life?

Well I wasn’t dealing with his personal life, I was dealing with his public life. I was dealing with the music that we’ve all heard and talking to people who know him first hand about who he is. So his private life, for the most part was not what I was dealing with.

Yeah. But there are definitely things that would obviously influence especially like the 'Prince's Rosebud' section, definitely you’re specifically touching specifically on how—

Well some people -- and I found information that would answer the questions as best as I could. But yeah, it’s hard to know what happened in his early childhood because not many people are telling the story of what happened.

There’s some really interesting and analysis of his songs in the book. The other day I was at a Raptors game and they played “Let’s Go Crazy” in one of the interludes and I heard the gospel influences that you had pointed out. In a way it’s really upfront in that song, but it’s never really discussed. Do you think he’s someone that has not really been accorded the analysis that his music really deserves?

Part of why I wanted to write this is that he was not getting the due for the complexity of his songs, so there’s definitely a void there to being able to construct these songs. I don’t think that anybody’s really done that.

There were a number of themes that you drew on for this book that I didn’t expect to see. I didn’t necessarily expect to see references to John Hughes movies or Generation X, which were pretty insightful but you were drawing on all of these different things. Did you draw on that stuff yourself or get it from the people as you were talking to them?

Well, that was the structure of the book, that it started out with what is the relationship between Prince and Generation X? What is the reason he became an icon and rather than just a superstar? It was more than just talent. It has to do with him having a special relationship to Generation X. What is that relationship? What does the generation need that he fulfilled? Well, here are the major things.

You identify it as a big brother relationship in some ways.

Yeah. He’s a baby boomer, but his audiences are almost entirely Generation X.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

1994: the Year the T-Dot Broke

2014-06-24T10:07:00.000-04:00

Here's a feature I wrote for Toronto weekly The Grid. 20 years ago two independent singles changed a music scene.

Hiatus Kaiyote on the meaning of "Nakamarra"

2014-01-26T18:14:00.001-05:00

Last August, I caught up with Australian 'future soul' band Hiatus Kaiyote when their North American tour stopped off in Toronto to play an entertaining show The Garrison. They'd already been generating a huge buzz from music fans and musicians alike. The group can count Erykah Badu, Questlove, and Q-Tip as musical peers that are also fans of their music and evidently this support has snowballed into genuine acclaim. Hiatus Kaiyote's single "Nakamarra" was nominated for Best R&B Recording at the 2014 Grammys. Before that Toronto show, I sat down on the grass in the parkette across from the venue and chatted about the music on their Tawk Tomahawk album. "Nakamarra" was an instantly striking song for me, yet I could sense there were deeper layers to the song that belied its immediacy. I asked the group what the song was about, why Q-Tip needed to be informed of its meaning and if it was linked to an Aboriginal artist (Doreen Reid Nakamarra) I'd read about through googling the word. Singer Nai Palm broke down the personal nature of the song and contextualized the specificity of the song to Aboriginal people in Australia. ----

NAI PALM: "Basically, like Nakamarra is a skin name, so it’s a tribal name you get given. There’s a series of different names and it places you in a different part of the family tree. Because there are so many nomadic tribes in the Australian desert, you come across somebody from another tribe that you’ve never met before and their skin name like all the skin names relate to other skin names.

So you can meet somebody and just based on what their skin name is and your skin name they could be -- even if they are younger than you -- they could be your grandmother or they could be your cousin or they could be your sister. So...just meeting someone there’s less warfare because it’s like you know what kind of respect level to treat them with, almost.

And it also ties in with breeding. You have the right skin name to breed with and stuff and it’s associated with land and animal totems and stuff like that. So that’s why Nakamarra is the name of this artist, but also there’s about seven skin names and everybody has them. Well, not everybody, but the indigenous people have them. And a girlfriend of mine , Hannah who is working in central Australia in a really remote community with indigenous artists and she was given a skin name and the song is about her.

But it’s also it’s kinda like, it’s pretty rare for a young artist living in a really rich cultural city to just drop everything and like, go out there. It’s a real extreme environment to put yourself into that not a lot of Australians are really educated on because it’s not really brought up in the media and stuff , so for me it was a song about her courage to go and explore that and do that for a while. I really respected her for that. And I really wanted to do something like that but it was kind of like my band was the priority.

I think it’s really beautiful that it’s the song people pick up on because it’s so Australian-specific, whereas we’re not really a patriotic Aussie band, y’know what I mean [laughs]. And the reason I wanted Q-Tip to really know about it is because if he just rocks off and he’s like ‘Yo, y’know we’re partying, blah, blah, blah...,' the song has got some pretty… [trails off]. I mean even the word "Nakamarra," like if he doesn’t even know what that is then I didn’t feel comfortable with him just spitting anything on it, so yeah, it was important for him to be aware about that."

Interview: Jessie Ware

2013-05-11T03:41:00.000-04:00

"I'm the least elegant person in real life." Talked to UK singer Jessie Ware a few weeks ago. Ware's Devotion album, a cool amalgam of pop and electronic music was released in the UK last summer. Here is my chat with the hilarious UK singer at Exclaim.ca. Read more

Video: Omar - "The Man"

2013-04-30T19:30:00.000-04:00

Quality.

Video: A-Trak & Tommy Trash - "Tuna Melt"

2013-04-19T04:54:00.000-04:00

Video of the year?

Review: Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge - "Twelve Reasons to Die"

2013-04-15T06:33:00.000-04:00

A multi-instrumentalist and producer who came to create classic soul after knocking beats out on samplers, Younge is an apt foil for Ghostface's rhymes, which have always liberally cribbed from sweeping '70s orchestral soul.

Video: Quadron - "Hey Love"

2013-04-09T04:43:00.000-04:00

Gotta love Coco and Robin's Kid n' Play dance moves in this video. Might be the song that blows this talented duo up. Also, given Robin Hannibal's involvement in Rhye, he is definitely putting himself in the producer spotlight this year.

Interview: Lianne La Havas

2013-04-05T18:11:00.000-04:00

My recent interview with UK folk-pop singer Lianne La Havas took place ahead of her first headlining gigs in Canada. Among other things, (namely her excellent debut album Is Your Love Big Enough?) we discussed her visit to Paisley Park to hang out with the one and only Prince. Read more

Rhye - "The Fall"

2013-03-05T20:00:00.000-05:00

Don't mind if I say I'm quietly obsessed with Rhye's new album Woman which is released today. Any excuse to check out this video exploring mid-life crisis again.

Interview: Just Blaze

2013-01-31T05:34:00.000-05:00

“I'm just gonna do what I feel like doing, that’s what I’ve always done. My mood may change tomorrow and I’ll make the hardest hip-hop record ever. I may go do a house record after that." My interview with producer Just Blaze is now up at CBC Music. Read interview

Interview: José James

2013-01-26T06:14:00.000-05:00

While I'm asking singer José James an interview question, a funky syncopated beat, punctuated by the frenzied vocal refrain “Get down!” briefly interrupts the proceedings. “My phone,” James offers a little sheepishly, as he apologizes and takes care of disarming the musical ringtone. Seconds later, he's back, ready to resume the conversation. “Dilla beat,” he says affirmatively, as by way of explanation. Read interview

Interview: Kendrick Lamar

2012-12-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

"What do we believe in? Do we believe in God, drugs, or some kind of higher power?"
I catch up with Kendrick Lamar just after dropping good kid, m.a.d.d. city to discuss the album's powerful impact and why it is the album of the year. Read the story.

Review: Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.a.a.d. city

2012-10-25T05:13:00.000-04:00

As the spectre of violence, death and paranoia hovers ubiquitously, we bear witness to a narrative detailing Lamar's transformation from a boisterous, impressionable, girl-craving teenager to more spiritual, hard-fought adulthood, irrevocably shaped by the neighbourhood and familial bonds of his precarious environment. Read review

Interview: Miguel

2012-10-04T03:27:00.000-04:00

"Yeah, I'm an R&B artist, but that doesn't mean that there's rules you have to play by. I can do and speak about whatever I want." Read my interview with Miguel at CBC Music.

Interview: Zaki Ibrahim

2012-07-01T06:24:00.000-04:00

“I'm a bird, I'm a bird!” I've been querying singer and songwriter Zaki Ibrahim about her extended absence from Toronto and this is her mock-defensive response. There's truth to her assertion, though, as her father – South African radio pioneer and activist Zane Ibrahim – often calls her "Zakbird." Read my extensive interview with Zaki Ibrahim at the Toronto Standard.

Video: Zaki Ibrahim - "The Do"

2012-06-19T15:45:00.000-04:00

Visually arresting video for song off Toronto export Zaki Ibrahim's eagerly awaited Every Opposite.

Video: Saukrates - "Tomorrow"

2012-05-26T09:58:00.002-04:00

Taken from the recently released and highly awaited "Season One," here's the latest visual from Toronto mainstay Saukrates. I caught up with Saukrates recently to talk about some of the thought process that went into making the album. Also thought it might be a good time to dig back into the vaults. Here's my review of 1999's The Underground Tapes, Saukrates' only previously released solo album. Here's Saukrates on MuchMusic in the late 90's/early 2000s (?) performing "Money Or Love" from the album.

In Rotation: Kimbra

2012-05-22T15:44:00.000-04:00

"Vows" the debut from New Zealand singer Kimbra is released today in North America. Known for accompanying Gotye on the worldwide hit single "Somebody I used to know," Kimbra asserts herself as an artist in her own right here. "Something in the Way You Are" is just one of the standout tracks on the album.

RIP Donna Summer

2012-05-18T00:41:00.000-04:00

Video: Mayer Hawthorne - "Henny and Ginger Ale"

2012-05-16T05:03:00.002-04:00

"I've got my cup and I'm filling it up."

Video: Agueroooo!

2012-05-15T05:18:00.000-04:00

Even loyal United fans have to admit this was a great moment in the history of football.

Interview: Melanie Fiona

2012-03-29T05:29:00.000-04:00

My interview with Melanie Fiona at CBC Music discusses her collaboration with Drake, her reggae past and new album.

Video: Rich Kidd - "Back in the Day"

2012-03-05T07:30:00.000-05:00

The latest simple yet very effective video from Rich Kidd, Toronto's hardest working producer on the mic. Previously on V+S: Click Hear: Rich Kidd
Credit is Due Rich Kidd and Busta Rhymes

Interview: Masta Ace

2012-03-03T17:13:00.000-05:00

As he embarks on a Canadian tour, I spoke with Masta Ace about his longevity and influence for CBC Music.