You Showed Us How To Reign
Wow! Not only was this man a musical genius, but a legendary icon unlike anyone the world has ever seen! I’ll never forget the first time I saw Prince perform because he left me speechless. This man was the definition of “do it your way.” He did not conform to society, but instead set his OWN trends. Prince, you truly left your mark on this world. I thank you, for showing us what it means to be unique. You demonstrated firsthand the power of pushing boundaries and living beyond limits. Prince, you taught us how to reign unapologetically in our own purpose.
— Brittney Michelle
Prince For a Lifetime
My friend Stephanie is the first person I ever knew who was crazy about Prince. She was so crazy about Prince that, on her 16th birthday, she threw a big party and had the DJ play almost nothing but Prince. And if you didn’t like it, you could leave.
You know how young girls pick a celebrity they’re going to marry? The first celebrity I heard Stephanie say she was going to marry was Prince. I mean I loved Prince and I wanted to marry him, too, but in observing her unbridled passion and dedication to him, I decided that–if it came down to it–I wouldn’t stand in her way.
Stephanie was a study in Prince fan-dom. She knew every lyric, every ad-lib, had every poster and every pin. And while we got older and the posters came down and the pins came off the denim jacket, her love never waned.
Some 20 years later, Stephanie called me on the phone. There was excitement in her voice and I could hear that she was smiling.
“Prince is coming to the Garden [New York City’s Madison Square Garden],” she said. “Wanna go?”
Does Trump use hairspray? Heck, yeah, I wanted to go.
Our seats were eye-level to the stage, which was set up in the middle of the arena; there were no bad seats. I remember staring wide-eyed and unblinking, in a stupefied trance as Prince sat down at the piano for a rendition of How Come You Don’t Call Me Anymore. I was in tears by the end of the song and remember spending the entire night in a euphoric altered state.
For me, the hook was always Prince’s voice and lyrics. Whether he was singing a song like Kiss in his Prince falsetto–because, face it, no one’s falsetto can be compared to Prince’s falsetto–or getting low and funky in a song like Gett Off, I marveled at his range and complexity, and the rawness of some of his lyrics juxtaposed with the clever innuendo of some of his lyrics.
The DJ on the jazz station I was listening to in the car was the first person I heard say that Prince was gone. What? My first reaction, interestingly, was fear. I got scared like I was about to be the first one to go down in a horror movie. Then I became disbelieving. That jazz station couldn’t know what it was talking about. What did they know about Prince? Then I thought of Stephanie, and the breath left my body like I had been punched in the gut.
I connected with her on Facebook a few hours later.
I just want to go to bed and pull the covers up over my head, she wrote.
You were the first person I thought about when I heard. My condolences, Love, I responded.
Because more than an iconic pop star had died. He was a first love–a first lover, if only in our 16-yr-old dreams. This was personal. And it’s going to hurt for a little while.
*Mwah* Prince Rogers Nelson. Thanks for the memories. — Sonja
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