I should also mention that Mr. Starks and I will return for another thought provoking (or is that evoking) Afronerd Radio broadcast this Sunday at 7pm ET. We will talk about the following: the current music industry trend to use auto-tune (Stevie Wonder, Prince, Pink Floyd and Roger Troutman used vocoders in the past, albeit with far more artistic precision) as the centerpiece for an entire song; the fallout from the Miss USA pageant due to Miss California’s (Carrie Prejean) alleged politically incorrect response to the gay marriage question; Newsweek's recent piece on a real life Steve Martin movie moment-a Black family's story about their experiences adopting a White child; Black males vs females of color on the employment front and the demise of Black radio. In the interim, check out the above snippet from an upcoming two-part Prince interview on the Tavis Smiley Show, slated for April 27th and 28th. See you guys (and gals) on Sunday.
Oops.....Here's an excerpt from the official press release pertaining to the aforementioned interview:
Courtesy of Fenton Communications-
Legendary Musician, Prince, Talks Frankly in Exclusive Interview with PBS’ Tavis Smiley
Music Icon Discusses Harsh Father, Not Voting, Bria Valente, Music Industry
Los Angeles– April 23, 2009– Prince will appear in a rare and exclusive two-part interview with PBS’ “Tavis Smiley” Monday and Tuesday, April 27-28. Check your local listings for air times: www.pbs.org/tavis.
During the deeply personal and intimate interview with Tavis Smiley, Prince discusses the struggles of his youth in depth, his strained relationship with his father, his frustration with the music industry and his decision not to vote. Prince speaks particularly frankly on the music industry, insisting on an artist’s right to own their own music and accusing record labels of ripping him off on the internet. He talks openly about guitar playing as challenging and frustrating, and about how he met his protégée and collaborator, Bria Valente.
"The first thing I did is,” Prince says on being teased as a child, “I went into [my]self and I taught myself music. My father left his piano at the house when he left and I wasn’t allowed to play it when he was there because I wasn’t as good as him so when he left I was determined to get as good as him. I taught myself how to play music and I just stuck with it and I did it all the time and sooner or later people in the neighborhood heard about me and they started to talk about me and it wasn’t in the teasing fashion, it was more like ‘wow look what he can do’….once I got that support from people that I believed I could do anything."
On the state of the music industry, Prince does not mince words: “You can put out a record and [Nielsen] SoundScan refuses to count as many as they actually sell but you get paid on what SoundScan says that you sold. So if it's a low number you only get paid on that number. Meanwhile when you go overseas, you check some of the barcodes and titles over there, they have already ripped you off several different times and several different ways. With the influx of the internet and those sales, then you have really gotten your bank account emptied out. So we never really knew what Purple Rain sold. I don’t know to this day. I only know what they tell me. We are conducting an audit but you know, who knows?"
Prince is one of music's most popular and prolific acts with a career spanning more than three decades. His latest album, LotusFlow3r, a three-disc set, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and is available only online and at a single retailer.
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