I was only sixteen but I guess that’s no excuse My sister was thirty-two lovely and loose She don’t wear no underwear She says it only gets in her hair And it’s got a funny way of stoppin’ the juice! ~Sister, Dirty Mind
“The bridge worked for many artists but definitely NOT for Prince. His high-heeled shoes would have been a disaster on the grated floor surface of the bridge. His people had reached out to Denise Chatman by phone to discuss the layout of Studio 54 for a possible free performance by Prince, but in the middle of the conversation Prince took the phone and continued on with Denise rendering her almost speechless. Prince wanted to visit Studio incognito. I agreed not to alert the press. It was a gamble, but I had so much respect for the guy and I really wanted him at Studio on terms he would be comfortable with. I was hoping for an impromptu jam. I spoke to Richard Walters of the Norbu Walters Agency, a nice guy and a regular at Studio who was in touch with Prince’s people. Richard agreed to do whatever he could to help make it happen. A few days earlier, I was in my limo on my way to Studio and Frankie Crocker was on WBLS radio interviewing Prince in advance of his sold out tour at Radio City Music Hall. Frankie asked Prince “I know you are a gifted musician. How many instruments do you play?” A few seconds of silence and then Prince responded: “I play twenty four, but only nineteen really well.” That blew my mind. So a few nights later Denise monitored the back door and when Prince arrived she alerted me. I never would have recognised him in his hat and bandana with three friends under an assumed name. He thanked me and Denise gave him some drink tickets. Prince asked me if they were good for sodas and juice. I told him yes and they took off toward the upper level balcony and Rubber Room. A few hours later, I spotted them all sitting in the dark area of the Rubber Room watching the crowd below and stuffing their faces with candy and drinking soda of various colours, which explained the knapsack one of them was carrying when they arrived at the back door. I smiled and left them alone. A Prince jam at Studio never happened due to scheduling, but he did return to Studio several times for Frankie Crocker/Dahved Levy events. Prince never went to the DJ booth, he preferred to hang in the shadows and observe.”
– Mark Fleischman regarding Prince in his memoir ‘Inside Studio 54’
“Some fans don’t really wanna hear the truth. Some of them want to deify Prince, and they want you to do it, too. He was as human as anyone else. To take away anyone’s flaws and imperfections is to deny them the right to BE human. The truth has no agenda. It only hurts those who can’t take it. I mean, it’s not salacious or dirty or controversial. They just want to believe a certain pathology about how things worked and that we were all the BFFs and things were a total joy, day in and day out. Nobody argues that it wasn’t a privilege to be there. And, i did make many friends for life through that experience. But, it was also hard work for a very demanding person who had their own way of doing things. It wasn’t easy working for Prince, and it wasn’t supposed to be. I’m grateful and all, but giving your life to someone or something for 7 years straight? It’s not all gonna be roses and whatnot. I, personally, did a recording session with Prince, about 6 weeks before his death. On almost every album since he fired the Original NPG (with the exception of New Power Soul, N.E.W.S, The Rainbow Children, Musicology and ThirdEyeGirl) all the way to Hit N Run volume 2, I’ve appeared on all albums, sometimes with Sonny T., and other times Prince recycled my drumming from old recording for a new song. Also, Morris Hayes played with Prince longer than anyone else, ever. So, while his latest touring group may not have included us, we continued to be pinch hitters in the studio and performed various times with him. All those people saying, “Oh, Prince and i were tight, man! We were great friends. Hung out all the time!”. Lies, mostly. That wasn’t even the type of dude Prince was. He liked to create, and had very little tolerance for BS’ing and just hanging around. He had a select few folks that he was comfortable enough with to do more than work. He was not super comfortable in most social situations and rather shy, when one on one with people. Prince, contrary to popular opinion, did not do it all by himself. Ideas came from everywhere and everyone. And, if he heard a good one, he’d take it. A lot of people went uncredited. But, to be fair, you knew when you took the job that any work or social interaction with Prince was, by definition, his intellectual property. It is possible to contribute effectively to someone’s legacy and still maintain an objective or contrary opinion of that person. And, clearly, people are as interested in seeing his collaborators perform. Otherwise, the offers all around the world would be non-existent. Prince put us all on the map. But, if we didn’t have something to offer him, he wouldn’t have bothered with us. We are cashing checks off of what we did, too. I mean, the monetary aspect of doing a job has nothing to do with how you feel about your boss. I, personally, liked Prince. He could be funny, generous, insightful, humble and edifying to be around. But, he was a difficult person to understand sometimes, and could be very guarded. So, it was not easy to get close to him. And, that’s all fair. We were there mainly to work, not to be his best buddies. And, he would’ve looked at us suspiciously if we were posturing ourselves that way. What seemed to matter most to him was that the chemistry was right, musically. Certainly, spending day and night with a specific group of people will cause a bond to form. But, ultimately, he was the boss and we were the workers. In any other business, people who made positive contributions to places and people they’ve worked for have more right than most to be critical. They were there. Same goes with us, despite the romantic notion that in music, it’s supposed to be different or that working with a genius is supposed to be it’s own reward. Do you have any idea how good we had to be to work for PRINCE?? How much pressure we were under?? We had to be as proficient, if not better than him to channel his ideas and imagination, 24 HOURS A DAY. You can’t really fault anybody who’s lived through years of intense interaction with a crazy-perfectionist-genius who wanted results, IMMEDIATELY, for having a couple of unpleasant things to say.”
— Michael Bland (drummer in the NPG 1990-1996) , excerpts from a Facebook thread, 2018
“In his dressing room, a few candles burn next to a framed portrait of Prince. Rock’s crew is responsible at each stop for putting a new photo of the legend in a place of honor. Rock won’t say he and Prince were close, but they talked, and Rock loved his music. He saw Prince do one of his final shows, at a New Year’s Eve party in 2015 on St. Barts with Paul McCartney and Leonardo DiCaprio in the audience. He was distressed that his hero seemed to be surrounded by new people. Prince didn’t appear to have brought a girlfriend or a buddy along. “He just seemed all alone,” Rock says. Rock took another thing from Prince: He makes his audience hear the new stuff. He starts every tour with nothing, and doesn’t sprinkle in a greatest-hits package like many comedians do; even Jerry Seinfeld adds only 20 minutes of fresh material a year. At the Altria Theater in Richmond, tonight’s Prince picture features the artist scowling. “There’s so many shows that I got to stand right at the side and watch him get mad at motherfuckers,” says Rock. He impersonates his hero for a moment: “That was a B-flat, motherfucker.“ …Questlove has a nice surprise for Rock. He gives him his headphones and whispers he’s cueing up an unreleased Prince song few have heard. Rock is a Prince completist who owns nine versions of Computer Blue. He goes wide-eyed. The music plays, and Rock does a rubbery-leg dance around backstage.”
— Chris Rock in a Hard Place: On Infidelity, His New Tour and Starting Over, Rolling Stone, 2017
I was home watching TV and cutting up a steak when I got the call at 8PM. A friend of mine worked at a famous hotel in LA and one of the guests made a last minute request for a DJ to play the hotel bar. Someone that could get there and start playing in an hour. The bar frequently had live bands play, but never a DJ. So with little to no time, my wise and generous friend thought to throw a gig my way.
“Yeah, I can get there in an hour. Am I getting paid?”
“Yes, you’ll get paid.”
“What kind of party is it? What am I playing?”
“Someone’s renting out the bar for a private party. And that someone is… The Artist… formerly… known… as… Prince.”
That sentence was not real to me. Still not real. I had no time to really think or say anything but, “What? You serious? Yes. Be there as soon as I can.” Got off the phone and my stomach turned. Only a handful of people in the world have imprinted their music that much in my brain. And couldn’t he just call up any of the best DJ’s in LA to come play for him? Why’s he gonna trust someone who is by all means an unknown? I’d been DJing parties and bars for years but going from that to Prince is an Olympic leap.
The next half hour felt like a panic attack. I made a list of songs to play for Prince and his private Prince party. Ok, no Prince songs. He doesn’t want to hear himself. No MJ. I don’t want to insult him or anything. Didn’t they have beef in the 80’s? No hip hop. Can’t picture him rocking out to Kendrick. I thought of who he was influenced by and dragged some James Brown and Stevie songs into the playlist. Isley Brothers, Curtis. Great. 8:20PM. I still have to get ready even though I could spend the next month picking songs. I quickly close my laptop and get dressed. Pack up my turntables, mixer, cables and run them all to the car as I’m sweating through this black suit.
I get to the hotel with about five minutes to set up. The bar is completely empty aside from a couple of servers and my friend who made the call. And the room is almost lit exclusively by candlelight. I’m told to set up my turntables on the grand piano, which is also covered with candles, making me feel like hip hop Liberace. A waitress tells me there’s like an 80% chance Prince doesn’t show up. He just likes to rent out the bar in case he and his friends wander through the hotel and feel like stopping in. “But you should start playing music anyway in case he comes in. Who knows.” So I start playing songs to the very empty bar. The anticipation is a killer. My friend gives me a much needed glass of whiskey before taking off.
A giant spread of appetizers is covering the bar and getting sweaty. Spring rolls, cheese, orange juice. An hour goes by. Then another hour. A no-show. I’m kind of bummed out but also very relieved. I don’t know how I’m going to react if he walks in that door. So I’m just playing the set of my life to nobody. It’s like I’m getting paid to practice and listen to whatever I want on the bar’s sound system.
At 12AM the door opens and some guy walks over to me and without a greeting he says,
“Hey man. He’ll be here in 15 minutes. What are you gonna play when he walks in?”
“Oh I got some stuff lined up. Some older Stevie Wonder, the JB’s.”
“Yeah. Yeah, he likes that. Anything like that, Earth Wind & Fire, Chic.”
“Yeah I got Chic! I’ll play that.”
“And he wants to hear Janelle Monáe when he walks in. You got that?”
“Yup. Yup. Janelle Monáe.”
“Cool, he’ll be here in 15 minutes.”
I didn’t have any Janelle Monáe. I ran out to the concierge desk in the lobby to get the wifi password, ran back and started downloading a bunch of Janelle Monáe off of iTunes. Right on time as I cue up the track, the door opens and I catch a quick glimpse. Full on afro, turtleneck and a gold chain. I want to say he had a cane, but I was trying not to look directly at him. I didn’t want to throw him off or maybe infuriate him by making eye contact. Prince was in the room. I was just musical wallpaper. He and a friend sat down at a couch about fifteen feet away from me.
The grand entrance song blended straight into James Brown’s Talking Loud and Saying Nothing. I played Ike & Tina Turner, Charles Wright, Omar’s The Man, and Gust of Wind by Pharrell. My head was pretty much glued to the turntables, sticking to my no look philosophy, but I could hear bits of conversation. Hearing that Prince voice in person was something strange. It just belongs on record or on microphone. I start dishing out some other favorite tracks of mine, Think Twice by Jay Dee and Alicia Myers I Want to Thank You. There’s zero reaction to the songs I play. I’m still worried I’m not playing what he wants to hear. Is he gonna throw a spring roll at me?
A little later that guy from earlier comes back into the bar and walks straight over to me.
“Hey man. Just want to let you know, they love your music.”
“Oh really? Thanks. Do they want to hear anything in particular?”
“Nope. Just keep playing what your playing.”
Oh it’s on now. I can finally breathe and I’m getting props from the man himself, or from the middleman himself. And then it hits me. There’s only two people in there. Prince and a girl. I’m not there to DJ a private party. I’m there to DJ a date. Prince is on a date and I’m the entertainment.
I saved my set list from that night and I don’t remember playing half the songs on it. All I know is I was in deep concentration, mixing out of my mind. Messenger man came in one more time and said Prince might try to play the piano. When it was time, he would pop his head in the door and give me the cue to stop DJing. I had never seen Prince perform, so a private piano ballad to his woman and myself sounded alright. I stayed looking at that door for a while until Prince’s date walked over to me.
“Hey, so what’s the name of this song? He likes it and wants to know.”
“It’s a Smith’s cover. This Charming Man by Stars.”
She sat back down and relayed the info, to which he nodded his head. Now I’m stumping Prince with cool music. I play another track. She comes over to me again and asks, “What’s this one? He wants this on repeat.” Blacker 4 The Good Times by Ballistic Brothers. So I play that song a couple more times in a row. It’s now 4AM and I’m just a little delirious from being on my feet DJing for 7 hours. And I’m running out of music. My song selections are all over the map at this point. Esperanza Spalding, ESG, Broken Bells.
At around 4:30 Prince gets up off the couch and walks floats right over to me. He looks me in the eye, starts shaking my hand and says in a deep Prince voice,
“Thank you. That was very enjoyable.”
“Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.”
In my mind it was that smooth but there’s no doubt I was speaking gibberish.
And just like that he left the room with his date. He didn’t put any moves on her in the bar, but I like to think I helped him out by setting the mood for whatever happened next. I stopped the music and the lights went on.
And that was the best night of DJing I ever had or ever will have.
alder-knight 
