On April 22, the world lost music icon Prince (aka Prince Rogers Nelson), 57. He was found dead in an elevator at his Paisley Park home outside of Minneapolis, MN. His unique talent will be sorely missed, and his shoes will never be filled.
Prince
His passing isn't the first tough blow music fans have been dealt this year. Powerhouse Maurice White, 74, founder of the R&B group Earth, Wind and Fire, joined the ancestors in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles on February 4. In 1992, White was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, with which he suffered until his death ... a death reported by mainstream media, but not nearly to the same extent as Prince's departure.
Maurice White
“My brother, hero and best friend Maurice White passed away peacefully last night in his sleep," Verdine White, bassist for Earth, Wind and Fire, stated in a Feb. 5 Associated Press article by David Sauder and Hillel Italie. "While the world has lost another great musician and legend, our family asks that our privacy is respected as we start what will be a very difficult and life-changing transition ... Thank you for your prayers and well wishes.”
An array of renowned musicians and other celebrities, including Nile Rogers and Chris Rock, expressed their appreciation of White and his legacy.
White founded Earth, Wind and Fire in Chicago in 1971. The group emerged from a previous band known as the Salty Peppers. Other members, in addition to Verdine White, were Phillip Bailey, Ralph Johnson, Larry Dunn, Al McKay, Andrew Woolfolk and Ronnie Laws. Years later, the band grew even more. Earth, Wind and Fire is known for its dynamic horn section (one of the elements of the band that I have loved since becoming a fan during my junior high school years), energetic theatrics, elaborate stage shows, the interplay between Maurice White's tenor vocals and Phillip Bailey's falsetto, and Maurice's skills with the kalimba (African thumb piano). Earth, Wind and Fire racked up a number of memorable hits throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including "That's the Way of the World," "Devotion," "Reasons," "Sing a Song" "Can't Hide Love," "Getaway," "Fantasy," "Love's Holiday," "September," "Boogie Wonderland," "After the Love Has Gone," and "Let's Groove."
I've always thought of Maurice White, and the band as a whole, as essentially Africentric (African rhythms blended with Black diasporan sounds, such as classical and smooth jazz, gospel, dance music, blues, and rock). Their entire songbook was a message of universal love, exuding and encouraging unity, consciousness, spirituality and empowerment. I really believe their vision was to create harmony among mankind for its betterment.
I've had an opportunity to interview both Phillip Bailey and Verdine White — Phillip for The Empowerment Initiative Online Newsletter's July 2002 anniversary issue (I'd created TEION as a printed publication in Monroe, La. on July 8, 1999, two years after attending the Million Man March); and Verdine for the Vision Magazine in Little Rock, for which I've served as associate editor.
One question I asked Phillip was how his and his bandmates' careers had grown with Earth, Wind and Fire.
"We appreciate our music more than we did when we first started the group," he answered. "When you experience success, you never live life enough to feel the full impact of your career — and this is what happened to us! As we began to live, and felt the full impact of our career, we started to appreciate our music. Earth, Wind and Fire could not have survived if it was not for 1) our history; 2) the testimony in the quality of our performance; 3) the way we demonstrated things over the years; and 4) a certain type of respect that we have received from people around the world."
"We appreciate our music more than we did when we first started the group," he answered. "When you experience success, you never live life enough to feel the full impact of your career — and this is what happened to us! As we began to live, and felt the full impact of our career, we started to appreciate our music. Earth, Wind and Fire could not have survived if it was not for 1) our history; 2) the testimony in the quality of our performance; 3) the way we demonstrated things over the years; and 4) a certain type of respect that we have received from people around the world."
When Earth, Wind and Fire came to Little Rock to headline the 2010 edition of the city's annual Riverfest, I asked Verdine whether, and how, the band was reaching listeners of all ages.
"We are reaching audiences of every generation ... from ages 18, 19, 25, 35, and up," he said. "We have not had any difficulty adjusting with the changing times ... blending in today's music with our style of music."
"We are reaching audiences of every generation ... from ages 18, 19, 25, 35, and up," he said. "We have not had any difficulty adjusting with the changing times ... blending in today's music with our style of music."
I cherish the golden opportunities I was given to interview these members of Earth, Wind and Fire. Unfortunately, Maurice was battling Parkinson's during those times, and was no longer touring.
I regret not having had the opportunity to interview him ... or Prince.
I regret not having had the opportunity to interview him ... or Prince.
"Remembering the Other Prince" was the title of the April 22 edition of The Hutchinson Report. Earl Ofari Hutchinson — noted author, political analyst, radio talk show host and regular contributor to The Empowerment Initiative Online Newsletter News Flash — showcased Prince's work helping those who couldn't help themselves, as well as his advocacy work in other areas.
Hutchinson started off his column by using Prince's lyrical statement on the death of Freddie Gray, who was among a number of black men and women who have been died at the hands of police in recent years:
Does anyone hear us pray?
For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray
Peace is more than the absence of war.
If there ain't no justice then there ain't no peace.
Does anyone hear us pray?
For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray
Peace is more than the absence of war.
If there ain't no justice then there ain't no peace.
"Baltimore
police officials couldn't have been too thrilled about these lyrics ... ," Hutchinson wrote. "They were the lyrics in Prince’s 'Baltimore,' a rollicking, but moving, and
heartfelt tribute to the slain Freddy Gray that was released weeks before his
May 2015 benefit concert for the Gray family.
"The lyrics were Prince’s in-your-face message to Baltimore police and city officials who first stonewalled Gray’s death, and then watched as riots convulsed the city in the aftermath of it. This was no fly-by-night cheap, celebrity photo-op publicity gambit to capitalize on the turbulent events in the city. The month before, the soft-spoken Prince gently reminded and admonished the audience at the Grammys at the Staples Center in Los Angeles: 'Albums — remember those? Albums still matter. Albums, like books and black lives, still matter.'"
Even before Prince took the stage at the Grammys and in Baltimore at the Gray Benefit concert, he'd caused a flap two years earlier with his lambasting of Wall Street greed in his song “Ol’ Skool Company,” Hutchinson pointed out, adding that the artist had minced no words:
"The lyrics were Prince’s in-your-face message to Baltimore police and city officials who first stonewalled Gray’s death, and then watched as riots convulsed the city in the aftermath of it. This was no fly-by-night cheap, celebrity photo-op publicity gambit to capitalize on the turbulent events in the city. The month before, the soft-spoken Prince gently reminded and admonished the audience at the Grammys at the Staples Center in Los Angeles: 'Albums — remember those? Albums still matter. Albums, like books and black lives, still matter.'"
Even before Prince took the stage at the Grammys and in Baltimore at the Gray Benefit concert, he'd caused a flap two years earlier with his lambasting of Wall Street greed in his song “Ol’ Skool Company,” Hutchinson pointed out, adding that the artist had minced no words:
Fat cats on Wall Street, they got a bailout, while somebody else got to wait.
Seven hundred billion dollars, but my old neighborhood, ain’t nothing changed but the date.
"When I heard those words, I thought back to the Prince concert I attended in the early 1990s and especially the one I attended at the Inglewood Forum in April, 2011," Hutchinson continued. "At this concert, Prince insisted that tickets not carry the standard usurious, highway-robbery prices for big-name performers' concerts."
Prince gave more than $1 million from proceeds of the tour to the Harlem
Children’s Zone and more than $500,000 to arts programs in New York and North
Carolina, Hutchinson revealed. "This made sense and was in keeping with Prince’s rage against hunger,
poverty, and especially its devastating and corrosive effects on children in a
track in his 1985 single, 'Hello.' He both pleaded for and scolded America for
its abysmal indifference to the hungry and poor: 'We’re against hungry children,
our record stands tall, but there’s just as much hunger here at
home.'
"It was that social consciousness that was too often ignored, downplayed, or missed completely. This was also true with Michael Jackson. And as with Jackson, Prince had a track record to prove that he really did care." Other cases in point brought out by Hutchinson included Prince's donations to such charities as City of Hope, Jazz Foundation of America, Urban Farming and the Edith Couey Memorial Scholarship Trust Fund ... and, at one concert, his onstage advocacy for the Rebuild the Dream foundation, which provides jobs, skills training, and business opportunities for minority youth in Chicago.
"It was that social consciousness that was too often ignored, downplayed, or missed completely. This was also true with Michael Jackson. And as with Jackson, Prince had a track record to prove that he really did care." Other cases in point brought out by Hutchinson included Prince's donations to such charities as City of Hope, Jazz Foundation of America, Urban Farming and the Edith Couey Memorial Scholarship Trust Fund ... and, at one concert, his onstage advocacy for the Rebuild the Dream foundation, which provides jobs, skills training, and business opportunities for minority youth in Chicago.
Like Jackson, Prince often faced demands to say and do
more outright against racial injustice, Hutchinson wrote. But Prince chose his battles carefully and cleverly. "It was his charitable work and willingness to use
his music when and where he felt it could make a difference and to make his
protest in his own way against injustice that must be known and remembered."
Still, Prince at his death received more figurative flowers than Maurice White did.
Still, Prince at his death received more figurative flowers than Maurice White did.
Brother Wayne, host of the KABF-FM, 88.3 radio show Respect For Life, a regular reader of The Empowerment Initiative, observed that Prince emerged on the music scene with a fan base that was already largely white. Therefore he was more on the radar of the white-priority system ... and that system has so much control of Black people that it even affects how we honor our musical geniuses.
"Check out how white peoples' reaction to musical genius Prince has amped up our reaction too. Whereas, white people had no or very limited reaction to the death of another of our musical geniuses, Maurice White, so we had a very subdued reaction too. This disappoints me. Freedom to think for ourselves is the main battle."
Brother Wayne, you are so right. Prince made an impact, but to the "mainstream," he made more an impact than Maurice. But these men, and their legacies, should receive equal attention. Prince and Maurice were among the most ingenious, remarkable, and phenomenal musical artists that this world has ever seen.
I can go on and on here about the Prince and Earth, Wind and Fire songs and moments I cherish the most. But two burning questions loom above my fond memories and the issue of who was more appreciated/mourned:
What musicians will take over where these giants left off?
Who will put aside the matter of mere money, take the music to another level and empower, motivate, and encourage people to make the world a better place?
I wonder.
