Touré - Nothing Compares 2 U: An Oral History of Prince

Praise for
I Would Die 4 U:
Why Prince Became an Icon

Im a Prince scholar and this is the ultimate Prince book. Questlove

Tour is one of my favorite writers and Prince is on the Mount Rushmore of modern music and this is the best book about Prince Ive ever read. Q-Tip

It took the singular talent and journalistic skills of Tour to capture the wild genius and larger than life influence of Prince. Jann Wenner , founder of Rolling Stone

For those who understand how singular an artist Prince is, this bookevery bit obsessive and revelatory as its subjectwill be a great pleasure. For everyone else, its mandatory. It unfolds like a good mystery, as cryptic clues are deciphered one after another. Joe Levy , Editor, Billboard

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

Nothing Compares 2 U:

An Oral History of Prince

2021 by Tour

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-64293-918-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-919-4

Cover art by Tiffani Shea

Cover image by David Gahr/Premium Archive via Getty Images

Interior design and composition, Greg Johnson, Textbook Perfect

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press, LLC

New York Nashville

permutedpress.com

Published in the United States of America

Dedicated to Prince
and the amazing people of Princeworld
who have made me feel welcome
inside the Purple kingdom
over the past twenty years.
Its an honor to share your stories.

Ultimately, spiritual evolution is the axis on which inspiration and creativity spinthere r so many songs that Ive written and recorded, sometimes it is hard 4 ME 2 believe it comes from one source! All of my musicality comes from GODthe blessing/curse ensued when I kept sneaking back in2 the talent line dressed as another personI got away with it several times be4 they caught me!!

Prince (from a 1994 email to me)

Contents

by Susannah Melvoin

Life is filled with moments that change everything. I had no idea that this would be that moment.

One weekend in LA, Lisa and Wendy picked up Prince at LAX and brought him back to our little house. A minute or two into his visit, sitting around the kitchen table, Wendy and Lisa asked if they could play him the audition demo I had just finished recording. This demo got me my first big singing gig working for Quincy Jones. Back then, we had a small boombox that never left the kitchen table, and thats what they used to play the cassette. While I hid in my bedroom for what seemed like nine hours, they listened to the song. When it ended, the only thing I could hear were the small wooden chairs squeaking. I could barely keep it together. Then I heard a little clapping and Prince saying, Aww. I walked out of my tiny room, scared of what hed say or not say. He had a sweet smile on his face, looked right at me, and said, You want to come sing with our family? You know you want tocome on. I stood staring at Wendy, Lisa, and Prince. I was so grateful to Wendy and Lisa for being supportive of my dream, and I was so happy to be asked to sing with my family and Prince.

Of course I said yes! But what was really happening is that he could see that the three of us were a family, and our union helped us to be greatbecause good family members make good band members. In a band, you need to learn the art of listening; to know when to back up the solo player; to hear when the vocals need blending; and to lay out, and let the music say what the music is going to say. Like in a family, sometimes its better to listen than to speak. We learned that at home. Prince saw that we were a family and he wanted to be a part of it. He wasnt pulling me into his family; he was pulling himself into ours.

From that moment on, I spent years with Prince as partners, experiencing meaningful love, making plans for our family together, and creating incredible music. It changed my entire life. Over time, I intimately experienced the depth of Princes desire to unite with family. It was a longing from early on. Prince would often tell me about his childhood when hed pick me up and wed drive around Minneapolis. Prince would tell me stories of his father, and it led me to think he wanted to be back in his fathers life. Prince would find the family tribe hed been longing for after he was thrown out of his fathers home. He would find that tribe in the home of Bernadette Andersonmother of his best friend Andre Cymone and her five older children. It was the perfect union of family and music, twenty-four hours a day. This was the beginning of a long history of making families with the folks he shared life and music with. There would be other families beyond the Melvoin/Coleman families that Prince would connect to throughout my years with him. Those families were the Rivkin Family, the Leeds brothers, and the Escovedo family. I know there are more. These are families who could communicate through music, and music was Princes mother tongue.

Prince was known for his ability to do everything himself, but I believe he wanted a tribe to supplant his musical and emotional needs. Prince would always use the collective we when referring to any creative plans, goals, or ideas he had. He longed for his tribe to go all the way with him. I found that he was at his best when he had his chosen family with him. Family is what you make it, and Prince was all about family. He chose his family based on a harmony of purpose. I shared his purpose. To him, that purpose was to make music together, to love music, and stay connected physically even when it was excruciatingly difficult to do so. If I wasnt able to fly to where he was fast enough, he would question my love and devotion to him. When he needed me, or anyone, all ties that bind you to him were woven into the fabric of your ability to get to him quickly.

But I loved him. Deeply.

When Tour asked me to write the foreword to this book, I was overwhelmed with memories of our time as a family. What Tour has done here is to bring together a rich historical blend of Princes chosen familial voices, to create a choir. When these voices meld together you can find resonance and harmony that only that family can understand. The music and relationships that make up the seasons of Princes history, we all shared together. Since our time by his side, weve all grown in different directions, but nonetheless remained the roots of his family. Its beautiful and quite telling that Prince would choose a family that was black, white, Puerto Rican, Trinidadian, Mexican, straight, gay, Jewish, Christian, Jehovahs Witnesses, single, married, music makers, and life livers. It was always his idea to have his chosen family be diverse yet united in his purpose to make amazing music and make a life together with exceptional human beings. The bigger the family, the wider the scope of musical history that make up Princes soul purpose. Who wouldnt want that?

Love and kindness,

Susannah

This oral history of Prince, one of the most complex celebrities of his time, draws on over twenty years of research and countless conversations with Prince and people who were close to himmusicians, lovers, engineers, managers, photographers, bodyguardsall sorts of Princeworld insiders who knew him well. Ill take you through Princes difficult youth, his epic rise, his music, and the long, slow, tragic descent of a man whod eschewed drugs early in his life but was dragged down by them later.