Draper - Prince Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution

I make music because if I dont, Id die. I record because its in my blood. I hear sounds all the time. Its almost a curse: to know you can always make something new.

Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson first became fascinated with music at the age of six, when he saw his fathers three-piece jazz band perform. Everything about it seemed amazing: the sounds that came out of his fathers piano; the chorus girls that came out dancing at Nelson Srs command; the emotive power the whole thing had over the people in the audience.

Prince became obsessed with music as an outlet for his innermost feelings. In the 80s, those feelings seemed to fall perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist. Twenty years after that epochal event in a tiny jazz club in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince had become a global superstar. The most famous musician on the planet, the author and star of Purple Rain, had only just turned 26.

Commercial success is one thing. Being one of the most important and talented artists ever to have graced the earth is quite another. With the April 1978 release of his debut, For You, Prince began a ten-year run of albums on which he continued to push himself and his art further and further. In a decade widely remembered for its selfishness and soullessness, Prince redefined the concept of soulful music.

Taking his lead from the flag-bearers of funkSly Stone, James Brown, and George Clintonand artistic pioneers such as Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, Prince imbued his art with his idiosyncratic view of life, turning out music from the mind of a sex-obsessed deviant (Dirty Mind); a bomb-fearing party-animal (1999); a God-fearing man searching for a ways to reconcile the spiritual with the sexual (Lovesexy); and so much more.

When Prince had finished redefining the music, he took his battle for individuality to the record business. During the 90s he waged war against his record label, Warner Bros, changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, and pronounced himself a slave to the system. He might have faced derision from all corners then but now, a decade into the 21st century, its become obvious that Princes actions werent just crucial for him, but for whole generations of musicians to come.

Many in the music business continue to suffer as a result of their initial failure to embrace the internet, but not Prince. He was the first artist to release a whole album online via his own self-financed record label, and has continued to seek out new ways to release and promote his music, even going so far as to give it away for free. His fight for artists rights has shown future generations that they dont have to adhere to anyone elses rules, and shown how one man can stay relevant for more than 30 years on the strength of a passion to challenge the status quo and change the way things are done.

It should come as no surprise that an artist who wages war on staying still remains impossible to define. Im not a woman, Im not a man, he sang on Purple Rains I Would Die 4 U. I am something youll never understand. He has remained true to that expression ever since, whether by fusing masculine and feminine concepts, changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol (and back again), turning his back on his raunchy past and becoming a devout Jehovahs Witness, or breaking new ground on the internet and then seemingly removing himself from it entirely. Throughout it all he remains Prince: indefinable, contradictory, an enigma wholly committed to beating his own path.

This book is not a muckraker, its not a gossip, and its sure as hell not bent on setting one man up to knock him down. Prince has been ridiculous, Prince has been amusing, Prince has been astounding. Hes been the envy of every musician on the planet. His peers might be stuck in an endless cycle of albums and tours, but Prince doesnt need to be seen unless he wants you to see him. Prince: Chaos, Disorder, And Revolution will simply tell you what happened and how, leaving it up to you to make your own conclusions about the man who has done it all, and yet continues to look for more ways in which to do it.

Jason Draper

London, England