As Sherman M. White, Aaron J. Kimble, and Jerod Lockhart – the authors of an essay collected here on ‘The African American Father–Son Relationship in Purple Rain’ – note, ‘the amount of scholarly research related to Prince has significantly increased since his passing’. The reason for this – I can attest as one who worked on a critical biography between 2005 and 2012 – is that Prince appeared to dislike the academic study of his work.
Prince did not want anyone who worked with him to discuss their experiences in the studio or onstage, and while he was alive, very few of his associates, friends, or colleagues were prepared to talk to interviewers, aware that to do so was to arouse his permanent ire and, depending on status, be cast out. An unfortunate result, one that those writing about him were attempting to rectify, was that a distorted picture of him emerged, created mainly by the testimony of those who’d fallen out with him. Since his death, many more books have emerged, and colleagues have been happier to talk in print or at conferences, most prominently via Professor De Angela Duff’s well-attended Prince symposiums at NYU Tandon. However, negative word has also increased, so much so that Prince’s estate were forced to block a 9-hour Netflix documentary as Variety announced in July this year.
The editors of this new anthology of critical writing on Prince, bizarrely, are dismissive of all past Prince biographies, asserting that the ‘narrow confines’ of the traditional biography have been ‘less than impressive’ (p. 4). It’s a surprising claim for a book with narrow confines of its own, concerning itself exclusively with five subjects (Black masculinity, Gender Performativity, Beauty, Race, and Spirituality).
None of this is to question what is here, but the Prince fan (or scholar) who confines herself to this anthology will end up with a limited picture. The editors note approvingly that readers will learn as much about White, Kimble, and Lockhart as they do about Prince from their essay (p. 3), but not why we should prefer this. Much better is Zada Johnson’s exploration of the portrayal of Black masculinity in Under the Cherry Moon, which highlights how what Prince was doing with his character was completely ignored by most critics at the time, making the strongest case I’ve read for this film.
The only interview here is with Prince’s basketball coach, Al Nuness, which adds a little more detail about his childhood but might work better as part of an essay on Prince and sports than as a stand-alone chapter. The focus throughout is mostly on the visual side of Prince’s work, both specifically in chapters addressing his contributions to Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster Batman and the music video for his song ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’, and casually throughout, as in a chapter (loosely) addressing his collaboration with Sheila E, which devotes much of its length to Prince’s dress, hair, album covers, and appearances on TV. This is one of two chapters that discuss Prince collaborators, with Samuel Fitzpatrick’s attempt to give back agency to Denise Matthews, who worked with Prince on the Vanity 6 album, undercut by his contention, ‘I would argue that “Vanity” was, indeed, Prince’s greatest creation’ (p. 158).
Cassandra D. Chaney prepared for writing about ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ video by watching it seventy times in 1 week, drawing up tables analysing the lyrical content of the song and comparing it to the visual imagery. From this, she concludes that Prince rejected Eurocentric standards of beauty and recognised that every woman has ‘the capacity’ (p. 81) to be the song’s subject. It’s a worthwhile observation, but by addressing this video in isolation, Chaney ignores Prince’s very complicated interactions with women, both positive and negative, highlighting the limitations of defining the man through one song.
Only one chapter considers (the first half, at least) of Prince’s work in breadth, with Tony Kiene’s essay looking at Prince’s life between 1978 and 1996 from a sociological perspective to observe how Prince articulates ‘urban rage, protest, subversion, and contempt’ (p. 86). Although he moves freely through Prince’s career, he’s also mainly drawn to the musician’s visual work, including making a case for a Prince movie even more widely disliked than Under the Cherry Moon, his much-misunderstood sequel to Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge (1990).
The Batman essay (previously published in Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men) is also pleasingly detailed, simultaneously exploring the origins of Prince’s interest in working with this property, the way his soundtrack has been reevaluated over the years, and the complexity of getting involved in a transmedia project of this scope, even looking (as few have done) at how Prince revisited the comic character he created for this era, ‘Gemini’, in a later comic book. But he again drifts into focusing on, in his words, ‘Prince as Filmmaker’ (p. 152). Almost all these authors are more interested in Prince onscreen than in the studio, which limits the writing.
Ultimately, this works as a more interesting addendum to the existing writing on Prince than a standalone book, and the editors do their authors a disservice in suggesting otherwise. There are many fascinating academics worldwide expanding Prince studies in different directions – whether through the lens of Black sonic geography, ethnomusicology, fashion, or autobiography – with these authors among them. But in dismissing the work of past biographers and claiming ‘many works about Prince are nothing more than hagiographies’ (p. 170), the authors exclude both the professional and the passionate amateur.
I’d counter that there is something to be learned from any book on Prince, including this one, but this collection is too reliant on overfamiliar parts of the artist’s career, perhaps because it’s easier to recall watching Purple Rain or buying his records (two essays here have identical recollections of looking at Prince’s album sleeves and finding him attractive) than digging deep. As years pass and memories cloud, a good biography (especially bolstered by first-hand witness accounts) will become increasingly important – to deny this is to limit the study of Prince rather than boost it.
