“The right decision”: Why did Prince reject ‘We Are the World’?
On January 28th, 1985, Quincy Jones gathered a musical A-team for a humanitarian goal. At A&M Recording Studios in Los Angeles, the biggest names in music came in to form an all-star choir to sing ‘We Are the World’. Ray Charles was there, Bruce Springsteen was there, Diana Ross was there, Bob Dylan was there, even if he forgot the world and what he was doing there. But Prince? Nowhere to be found.
By this point, the artist was at the absolute height of his fame. His first albums proved his genius status, but it was 1984’s Purple Rain that made him an all-out, unquestionable star. Both the soundtrack and the movie were huge hits, skyrocketing him to global notoriety as one of the biggest names in music.
So when Jones assembled a cast of exactly that, wanting to fill his studio with the biggest and brightest celestials, Prince was a notable omission. Seemingly, everyone else was there as a powerful who’s who of the time. The list of featured voices is long, including Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder and more. But the cast and their reputations were really the whole point.
‘We Are the World’ was a charity single raising money as aid for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It came soon after the success of Band Aid, with Jones seeing what Bob Geldof managed and deciding America should do something similar.
However, just like Band Aid, it now carries a complex and conflicting legacy. Similar to the questions over how helpful the former was or whether the lyrics are merely a privileged take on a serious global issue, people questioned how much ‘We Are the World’ was about making a difference, or merely making it look like these artists cared, boosting their individual image over actually causing any truly meaningful change. Sure, it raised a lot of money as it became one of the best-selling singles of all time and made $10.8million for charity in only four months. However, given the net worth of the voices on the track, it raises the question of whether these artists could have been doing more outside of the song.
That’s part of the reason why Prince was nowhere to be found; he was already doing more. Sheila E was in contact with Prince throughout the night when the single was being recorded. She was there even when the star was still being asked to come and join them, believing and knowing that she was only invited to the studio in the hopes she’d convince her partner and close collaborator to tag along.
“It was getting late, and I was looking forward to singing one of the verses, but they kept asking, ‘Well, you think you can get Prince here?’” Sheila recalled that night when she began to feel like maybe her presence there was motivated. But she knew he wouldn’t come, partly due to the energy of the room as she said, “I already knew he wasn’t going to come because there was too many people and he would feel uncomfortable,” but partly because he didn’t feel the need to be involved in the big public single.
“We were already giving to so many, not just foundations, but a lot of the times on that tour before we even got to that night, we were already stopping at children’s hospitals and doing free concerts for the kids who have cancer and disabilities,” Sheila said. Prince was already doing his bit and was doing it in private. He didn’t feel the need to splash his face and name over a bestselling single in order to do something good, and Sheila supported that, stating, “I think he made the right decision”.
Pair that with the bustling room, Prince’s shyness and the fact that Bob Geldof, who had a hand in organising the track, once called the artist a “creep”, and it simply became a room he naturally wouldn’t want to be in. But, in keeping with his commitment to doing good, he did give them a track of his to feature on the We Are the World album, still pledging his support for the cause.
