The story of Prince and Rick James is a strange one. It’s the tale of the two artists whose similarities can be attributed to their decades-long feud, and instead of uniting the two together, it caused one of music’s most notorious rivalries — one that started when James invited Prince to support him on his ‘Fire It Up’ tour in early 1980. At this point, Prince was a rising star, and due to his music being so different, he attracted both a black and white crowd. This was something James was all too aware of and, with that, decided that he had to make use of both for publicity and economic reasons. Little did he know, however, it would kick off one of the defining relationships of his career. Showing just how similar Rick James and Prince’s careers were, both artists released their debut solo albums in 1978, and both their careers would diverge greatly before ending in eerily similar fashions. The ‘Fire It Up’ tour was hailed as ‘The Battle of Funk’, and that was an understatement. The battle was a war, and the war was a protracted one.James’ friend and saxophonist, Daniel Lemelle, remembered how the string of live shows went down in Mike Judge’s Tales from the Tour Bus in 2018. Both acts were somewhat jealous of each other, both viewing the other as possessing the skills that their own act needed. They would both watch each other’s performances from the wings, with the jealously quickly bubbling up. Shortly after, James claimed that Prince stole his moves, aesthetics and even his idea for the girl group Vanity 6.Saxophonist Lemelle, meanwhile, went as far as to say that the Prince and his band were snobs and that he once forced Prince to drink cognac, which made him cry. Anyway, after the tour, animosity between both camps would reach a fever pitch. The story goes that Prince would make James work harder than he’d ever done on his artistry which is said to have been driven by intense jealousy. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rashad-ali9/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rashad-ali9/support
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2023/03/145 分
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