mmm, yeah, the whole thing is kind of funny to me. I wasn't allowed to listen to his music growing up because of the religion and now he's part of it...but you know, alot of his music has always had lyrics about god in them and he was raised Christian Science so maybe it's not that surprising he's a JW now. Anyway, the religion was really strict and hard on many of us but I'm not so sure it's as strict or hard on a rich and famous musician who has been saved by Jehovah from a life of evil. He looks like a good convert to have.
What do you think of PRINCE the singer being a JW?
by redhotchilipepper 19 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
kaykay_mp
dont worry, he'll snap out of it soon enough. he'll see that singing about orgies and making money off of it can be fun. hell, i'd do it for free! maybe he'll be a member of this site as an ex-JW.
laters
kaykay_mp
-
Doubtfully Yours
The fact that I like some of his music doesn't change my opinion that he's such a big weirdo!
Many weirdos inside the WTBTS, so he'll fit right in with most. Really.
DY
-
AK - Jeff
I think he is just another Michael Jackson - talented, rich. But like Michael, he will not be able to sing Brooklyn approved for long - he'll have to put disclaimers on everything that disagrees with WTBTS official policy - like MJ did.
I personally think he is just a weird character anyway. The money always wins the battle of faith in these cases, be it sports or mucic or whatever - I think he is prob just bored being weird - looking to be weirder.
Jeff
-
redhotchilipepper
I have to agree, I always did think he was a weirdo. I mean dressing all in purple like a grape. All the time. Something is wrong with that picture. I wonder how much money he donates to the ORG. I guess that's why they let him get away with stuff now that us little pee ons couldn't. He just may come aboard the forum someday and we'll get to talk to the weirdo himself. He can't be as weird as that Ray of Light(Brownboy) dude. Oh my! A few screws loose there. Maybe Prince and Ray of Light/Brownboy are worshipping buddies?
-
freedom96
Being a witness meant being "no part of the world."
Prince still tours, though he doesn't need the money or fame, still makes music, and is involved in his career just as much as ever, if not more so lately.
His career is not condusive to the lifestyle of a rank and file JW. If one of us had behaved the way he does, back when we were in, I do believe we would be spending a lot of time behind closed doors in comittee meetings.
-
DanTheMan
I never could see the brilliance of his music that my best friend would talk about all the time
me either, he's got 2 or 3 songs that I like OK but for the most part his music doesn't move me very much
I can't see how a JW could go onstage in front of adoring fans and really let loose and bring the house down with a great balls-out show. It's like listening to Christian rock bands who try so hard to ROCK but they just suck because music is such a mystical enterprise that fundies can't hack it at all.
-
Makena1
Erotic City is one song that gets my two left feet moving!
-
Brownboy
I can appreciate the talent that Prince possesses. I would like to meet him someday.
BB
-
Country Girl
Prince is considered a musical genius because of his ability to play *all* of his instruments, and to play them well, and his ability to mix multiple tracks of his own music for a complete song. He, as Michael Jackson and Larry Graham, is very talented, but a little on the strange side. Goes with the territory, I suppose. He released his first album in 1978, I believe, when he was 17 years old. I might be wrong on this, but I think the date is right.
According to "The Purple Reign" (a book I read awhile back) he was raised Seventh Day. In an interview with Karl Coryat of Bass Player magazine, the following:
"Nothing Compares 2 U
Things went much smoother once I had been paisley-whipped into shape. Yet it seemed no matter what I asked, the conversation turned to either God, Larry Graham, or both?The Artist freely admitting he modeled his bass style after Graham?s. Prince first briefly met the slap pioneer at a Warner Bros. company picnic in 1978, by which time Larry had moved on from Sly & the Family Stone and was a star in his own right fronting Graham Central Station. The two met again a few years later, this time at a Nashville jam. "Larry?s wife came up to him and pulled an effects box and cord out of her purse," The Artist remembers warmly. "Now that?s love." But Graham and the man he calls "Little Brother" didn?t develop a real relationship until the ?90s?"relationship" perhaps being an inadequate description. "Here?s a guy who has a brother hug for you every day," says The Artist. "And once Larry taught me The Truth, everything changed. My agoraphobia went away. I used to have nightmares about going to the mall, with everyone looking at me strange. No more." The couple forged an ocean-deep spiritual connection?The Artist is a Seventh Day Adventist, Graham a Jehovah?s Witness. "I mean, Larry still goes around knocking on doors telling people The Truth. You don?t see me doing that!" [Probably before his conversion.]
The Artist invited his "older brother" to Minneapolis, set him up with a house of his own, and welcomed him into the Paisley Park family, "signing" him to a handshake-based deal with NPG Records. Before long Graham was playing with The Artist?s band New Power Generation and feasting Graham Central Station on Paisley?s incredible rehearsal and studio facilities. And ever since, after years of always picking up the bass for at least a few numbers per set, The Artist has hardly touched the instrument onstage. "I can?t even physically reach for it anymore," he laughs. Why? "I don?t know. I hope it?s out of respect for Larry, and not because I feel inadequate compared to him."
It just seems natural that he would be attracted to another apocalyptic religion. The subject of God, spirituality, and his search for the sacred, mixed with his confusion about sexuality (his own, and others') seems to pour out in his music through his lyrics, verbal intonations and screams, and the erotic tones and vibrations of the instruments. His themes seem to be the same, just more subdued these days.
I kinda miss the wild, purple "Slave" that took me from being a shy, reticent XJW to a music-loving club-goer with a zest for life. Hope his Purpleness gets out from under his NEW slavemaster. I think I'd prefer Warner Brothers to Witness Brothers.
CG