It has been just over a week since Prince‘s death and the heartfelt tributes are still rolling in. As the world continues to mourn, Rolling Stone has shared a lost cover story featuring an interview with the Purple One from 2014. Now titled as “A Final Visit With Prince“, the interview was open and rich with insights about a number of aspects of Prince’s life.
Among those insights was a comparison between fasting and recording.”After four days, you don’t want food anymore. … It’s like this thing that says, ‘Feed me, feed me.’ When it realises it’s not going to get fed, it goes away. … It’s the same with music. I had to see what it’s like to stop making albums. And then you go, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I don’t feel the need to do that anymore.'”
One of the topics that has captured a lot of attention was his stance on Chris Brown‘s abusive past. He was dismissive of the reporter’s claim that his behaviour was “unforgivable”, saying, “Unforgivable? Goodness. That’s when we go check the master, Christ. … Have you ever instantly forgiven somebody? It’s the best feeling in the world, and it totally dismantles that person’s whole stance.”
Most of the reactions to Brown’s behaviour have been understandably negative, including views shared by Bethany Cosentino about the themes in one of his latest songs. It has also been alleged that Brown is a repeat offender.
Prince’s point seemed to be his interest in mentoring Brown in order to “fix stuff”. The idea was brought up while he avoided speaking about Michael Jackson‘s death:
“He is just one of many who have gone through that door—Amy Winehouse and folks. We’re all connected, right, we’re all brothers and sisters, and the minute we lock that in, we wouldn’t let anybody in our family fall. That’s why I called Chris Brown. All of us need to be able to reach out and just fix stuff. There’s nothing that’s unforgivable.”
Brown wasn’t the only artist of today that was mentioned. Justin Bieber, however, wasn’t exactly depicted as positively as Brown was. When discussing the current state of the music industry, he said, “You’re trying to find the personality first, make sure you’ve got that locked in,” he says. “And it’s better if they got scandal on ’em or a reality show or sex tape. And they have it down to an art. They’re getting street cred for Justin Bieber now!”
Similar views were also shared by The Pet Shop Boys‘ Neil Tennant in a recent interview with Noisey. “There’s a problem in pop music, in spite of what I just said, which is subject matter of pop music. There’s currently only one subject matter and that is the singer, and possibly their emotional life, or their issues with fame. There’s not a lot of role playing going on,” Tennant said.
Read the entire interview with Prince on Rolling Stone’s website here.
Image: Triple M