Tribute to Prince

One Drop of Love pays tribute to the one and only Prince with: June Snow (& Billy), G. Reginald Daniel, Paul Spickard, Nancy Fathi, Michael Prewitt, Alex Regalado, Chandra Crudup and Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni

TRANSCRIPT:

Billy? How do you feel about Prince?

It’s always sad when such a talented person passes away at such a young age. I feel like when we lose an artist of my time, part of my youth is also gone with him and it just makes me sad.

Prince knew how to live. Prince understood his God given talents and he used those to better the world.

His whole life has been about challenging categories and I think he’s really undecipherable in a lot of ways because he’s a lot of different things

He’s an everything bender. He bends race, gender, expectations of putting this opinion with that opinion.

His music is a blend of all these antithetical music styles: pop, rock, funk, black funk and white rock – who would do that?

He understood his own intersectionalities. Which – I don’t think we understand – We understand that people have intersectionalities, but it’s harder for us to understand our own intersectionalities.

I want to be your brother and your sister too. I think I realized early on that he was messing around with this gender ‘thing.’ I did not conform to what I was told I should’ve conformed to, gender-wise, like – I played football. I just remember feeling, “Yeah, f** that. Look at him! And we all respect him. Why can’t we just…” it’s along the race lines too.

I will define what race means for me. I will define what being an artist means for me.  And he wasn’t afraid of that and he allowed himself to be Prince.

The world has lost a lot but I think right now he’s bending life and death. Everybody is talking about him in the present tense, even though he died.

My father, he grew up listening to Prince a lot, so therefore I had a little relationship too. It’s just shocking to see that he died.

He was so known over such a long period of time and by so many people, that that’s going to be a loss that’s going to be really hard to come to terms with. And it was so unexpected on top of it.

Yeah, I heard on the radio about Prince and my heart just sank. And I had this emotion and I was kind of in shock, like “What?” I don’t even know any Prince songs. But I know who he is and I know how important he is to people. And it just really made me really feel it.

Purple Rain came out, and I was like, “What? This little guy” (laughs and gestures). We always did the dance “I knew a girl named Nikki I guess you can say she was a sex fiend…” (laughter)

I connect Prince with first love. That’s what it is and it’s like, “Oh my God.”

Prince was a big influence on music and in general. He had his own style. He changed up the game and brought a lot of people to do what he does.

“I would die for you.” It’s been a while.

“I would die for you.” Ah! I did it (laughter)

“I would die for you.” (laughter)

It’s weird, I was thinking I would say, “Do you have any idea how much you influenced people?” And the best thing about him is, YES HE DOES KNOW THAT! I think he was fully aware of his influence on people and had this amazing confidence that was why he could say and do everything he said and did.

Thank you for the talent. For sharing your soul.
Thanks for the music. Thanks for the memories. You’ve given so much to the industry. To Black Artists. To women. Gosh, I’d hug him. (laughter) And wouldn’t let him go.