The band Prince said didn’t know how good they were: “You don’t realise”
It’s easy for people to take their talent for granted when they’re at the top. Even the biggest stars in the world have to end up treating their jobs like a traditional nine-to-five from time to time, but while it can be business as usual most of the time, getting to play in front of thousands of people isn’t the kind of job anyone can phone in. You have to put your soul into making sure everything sounds fantastic, and Prince knew that the most talented artists of his time needed to go the extra mile to give people their money’s worth.
Then again, not many people seemed to have as high a standard as ‘The Purple One’ did during his prime. Throughout his career, Prince turned himself into the kind of musical Swiss army knife that was impossible to look away from whenever he got onstage, complete with James Brown’s dance moves, Carlos Santana’s guitar playing, and the ability to play nearly anything he could get his hands on when working without The Revolution.
For as impressive a hot streak as Prince was in the 1980s, though, he never seemed to release a bad album when his star began to wane. There were albums that didn’t do as well as others during his fight with Warner Bros, but when listening to some of his later works like 3121 or Musicology, he was always interested in pushing himself, and everyone who followed in his footsteps usually felt the same way.
But while any rock musician could take a few cues from what Prince was doing when he picked up a guitar, people like Outkast were bringing that eclectic spirit to the hip-hop community. Not everyone was used to people like Andre 3000 switching between rapping and singing on albums like Aquemini and Stankonia, but when he released The Love Below, it was clear that he was trying to become the next generation’s version of Prince, especially on tracks like ‘She Lives In My Lap’.
Even for all the talent that both ‘3 Stacks’ and Big Boi had, though, that didn’t stop them from drifting apart creatively, and once they decided to reunite, Andre 3000 eventually said that he was ashamed of selling himself out to make a few bucks. If you’ve got that much talent, though, you owe it to the world to show it, and Prince helped the rapper put everything back into perspective.
Looking back on their run of reunion shows, 3000 remembered Prince calling him to remind him of the kind of standard they set in their prime, saying, “It was odd for me, and right before the show, you see Paul McCartney and Prince walk on the side of the stage. Halfway through, I was already checked out. The very next day, I get a call from Prince, and the first thing he says is, ‘You know what your problem is? You don’t realise how big y’all are. You have to remind people who you are.’”
And as one of his loyal subjects knows, if Prince tells you to do something, you do it. Maybe 3000 had forgot about that rush that comes with putting on a hip-hop show, but whereas ‘The Purple One’ got parties moving with rock and roll tunes like ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ or sleak tracks like ‘Kiss’, the duo needed to make sure that people were bouncing to songs like ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ the same way they were when they were kicking ass up and down the South back in the day.
The reunions may not have been enough for the duo to reunite for a full album or anything, but judging by what Andre 3000 has been up to lately, he seemed to have taken a few of his creative cues from Prince. His release schedule may have fans desperate for anything new in the pipeline, but he knew he would rather have something he was proud of than throw out whatever slop he could for the masses.
