This is Prince, remember to podcast from 89 three the current today a conversation with the tech writer Entrepreneur and social media power user anneal dash about Prince's secret life as a computer nerd Hey, this is Andrea's funsen and I am here now with anneal dash so excited. He's in town. He agreed to stop by and chat Hey, Neil. Hello.
I'm so glad to be here So I am trying to think of the right way to introduce you because I know you through Twitter We've developed a Twitter friendship and you are a huge Prince fan that is not what you do for a living Not yet. I wish it were but you've developed this real love of Prince that is so palpable And I think of you almost like a historian of Prince's kind of relationship to technology and to his fans How would you describe your relationship to Prince and his music? You know, I mean well everybody has that story if you're my age of being whatever it was a kid and seeing you know These songs come out and change a lot of I mean I definitely remember hearing The muffled sounds of controversy through the door to my sister's room when I was a kid and sort of go that's forbidden I wonder why you know and that was definitely there and then and then like everybody grew up in the 80s Like here's the music at Tom Depressant and it's amazing and you know the back then the sort of The thrill of going and digging through the crates to find you know was there one of these 12-inchingles It was still in print and doing that and then the interesting thing for me right sort of at the age that I am is I you know came out high school and was really into technology. I was You know making like a little now what we would call apps and and right?
You know the web came out right as I got out of high school and in college and was like I actually ended up dropping out I just love the internet so much and the first thing I found was the sort of Prince community online because he had done Well, he changed his name and he'd done the interactive CD-ROM right and a lot of fans I think we're like I gotta go upgrade my computer to be able to run this thing because like it was not a you know It wasn't like a you know download this off the app store and you're off and running It was like this is a process and literally I remember There was a news group which was the sort of discussion forums on the internet before the world wide web even was existing and People being like I have to install a sound card in my computer So that I can play for it since the interactive CD-ROM and and what the hell do we call the guy now? And you know it was a great and so that this sort of community is forming together and really forged in this crucible of understanding technology a lot of people don't know that you know around this time so the I think the same month that he changed his name in June in 93 The Prince news group was formed and these discussions were going on there were Internet services for like chat and things back then prodigy was one of them in the first place is there was like a weekly Prince Fans chat as prodigy faded and a well took over moved a well and there would be the room was called Paisley Park And there would be a you know a Prince fan chat and it started on Monday nights But it's going longer and longer as more people join and so it'll be a little easier to do it this Sunday nights And after we had been doing it It's like a couple years of 94 and five and I point these other mysterious Handles would start to show up in the chat room. Oh and so the emancipation happened to come out until 96 but the names on the The AOL accounts were like these are like Twitter handles They were short or like bed ice cream right and there's a song on the man's patient in this bed ice cream So it's like this sort of you know tip off of this things come on and a couple other hands were like NPG 2000 and one was henna 2000 and it was my taste dog at the time and you know and people would sort of piece together like Isn't that her dogs name? You know it's the sort of like thing and it was like who are these people and and then the moment that I think it clicked for a lot of There's a couple dozen fans that would be there every week and talk about you know sure literally at that point Like how do you say the symbol and what does it mean?
And is he ever gonna put a record out again? I mean there were these really like what is going on with this guy? Yeah, it's like confusing time in his career Yeah, and keep in mind this is only two years after he'd had a huge hits with like times of pearls and symbol out So like he was a very mainstream active wasn't like he hadn't really faded that much and right before that He'd had most people for girl Which was like one of his biggest hits that he ever had and so he was seems a very current artist and never more inexplicable right like right after the Symbol that name change but before it ever been explained before you know He had sort of given any context to it at all and people genuinely thought he was like Disturp like he was off, you know, right and so the fans are like what happened This guy ten years ago is the biggest thing about what's going on So there's a lot of this like really what felt very fraught And you know to part of it too is like I was like 19 so like everything really matters, you know about your favorite musician and So these folks in Paisley Park that we knew were inside somehow so coming in and talking to the chat room and In the moment that to me jumps out would have been in January of 95 They this order and I remember which in the hands was just sort of casually like yeah I'm gonna work on this medley of all his songs because he's gonna retire Prince of the American music awards And we're like what do you mean? They're like Princess dead and you know it was very it was like confusing like he hadn't used the story Or whatever and you know lo and behold less than two weeks later.
He does this I thought really great American music awards performance where they play what would become the purple medley single He played like a three or four minute sort of medley of all his Great hits under the imprints and then literally are like you know his name changed with somebody that's whole voice over And he did a medley of songs that would be on the whole experience later Okay But it was exactly as this you know mysterious a well account hit late now and there was no it was like This was there were no leaks it was not the press and media none of us were connected to these days If it would happen on social media would have been and then he's paper next day and you know vetted or verified or confirmed it But we were like oh my gosh this person's there like they know they called it and And it was just stunning and you certainly it was funny too Because I think a lot of us were like fairly young and you wanted to kind of put the person actually be like I think this is Like I think you know and you know people like you've lost your mind too you know like it was a really like kind of crazy moment and And that's I think for and I still it's funny because there's people there who I was in this chats with 27 years ago who I'm still friends with Wow and was connected to some of them are like senior at Google are at like I've gone on to these amazing careers I mean you know we're all teenagers early 20s and then you get up and grow up and you get married and you get in all that stuff and have a career and And to sort of reconnect in the recent years like on Facebook and Twitter as you do with like your old like classmates or whatever Was really interesting and so and then as that reconnection happened last couple years I was like do you remember like a little bit like so did I have to remember this wrong like am I With Prince's yeah, and I'd say transcripts from a couple of conversations. Oh wow and you know after you passed You know I said to my husband, you know, I think I had like a you know I am conversational friends in 1996 and you know my wife knows me like you know for 15 years now She's like okay, you know like she wasn't like get you know go get help She was like okay, and this is and I had sent a note of condolence to my tea We did just connected online because I was a fan of whatever and then she says a sort of follow on I Was like by the way, you know, so a lot of us fans have been wondering for 20 years now Was this you know was this really you was this you know people and she's like oh, yeah And it's like well, what about this other name and she's like oh that was Prince So we're trying to resume, you know, well and it was the way he used the name so I'm trying to remember I think she was like it dependable at times like the handles I mean actually something he did many times over the years is like we're this broad collective and we're from this voice that is Paisley Park or the NPG or whatever and it's like listen, it's not like, you know It's over there that person in the corner is the one writing like we know who's gonna prove everything where it goes out And then the other sort of interesting parallel to this is that he had you know What are the 15 or so websites over the years? right so to start up in the band and after his attention wandered and Me being a geek my background is I work on social media and and sort of create a lot of early social networking social media tools And so I knew the tech folks because I'm in tech and so I would reach out to them the web folks people like Sam Jennings Who did a lot of websites over like the early to mid 2000s for Prince Scott Addison Clay who did the Lotus flower site and sort of things around that era and even earlier people and You know, I just kept in touch with him because we were internet nerds. Yeah, and also of course Prince fans and You know, I'd reach out to them be like, oh, yeah, you know He was spending a lot of time and one of the things I think people don't really realize is like a lot of the folks who were engineers and Studio staff at Paisley in the mid 90s Went on to form Bitstream and Bitstream was one of the first internet service providers in the Twin Cities and later in 12 Very so important early like, you know, web access and internet hosting service Yeah, and you know, like Michael Copeland and just a bunch of people actually over there were you know And it really pioneers of the country's internet scene too crazy and and so and that so both of my world intersected and it was like There was nothing that could have been more You know just compelling to me is like the two things that I was like really obsessed with yeah The internet and Prince and like here's both, you know And and that's part of why it was so well done like the first website He did in 96 the dawn.com was really good.
He got agency that kind of bill They wish was like at the time like the hot studio that was doing the sorts of things But it was still very Prince like and that he would kind of just disappear things from the site sometimes And so I started archiving it because I realized he you know, it's funny for as meticulous as he was about how like you present Selfie's music he was also very haphazard like, you know, the every time I kept thinking like he was like his be sides are so good I was like it's also just really bad catalog management to have like some of the best stuff You've ever recorded on this song that you can't buy for any price anywhere Right, you know until that like the hit selection came out least with some of them But like I treasured those 12 trucks because it's like some of the still have never been released in any format that you can buy Right, but that also knit the community together because it was like, oh, you got this well I've got that let's trade and you know back in the 80s and 90s when I started collecting I remember literally sending a self-addressed down below to like some guy in Sweden Like I hope you'll send me back a VHS tape I hope it works on American VCRs and like, you know three months later alone build something which I'll actually found in doing the research recently for some Pieces I've been writing this note from guys like I have these tapes promo tapes that were only distributed at one VH1 event with some remixes of You know a song and and I had the guys like AOL handle and then you know We all knew each other sort of these like, you know, not real name to pseudonyms And then it has real name for the postal address for him and it's Steven Hill who's now at BET and the guy putting together the BET Prince tribute Okay, you know, because he stayed if any guy got to interview Prince background musicology or something And like he was in the community then and then like I was like I know that guys You know a well-handled for 20 years ago So people like stayed with it and stayed engaged with it And I just um I always found that extraordinary and so I started like having it because I knew he was I think he saw it as sort of like, you know, the back in the day the records were they would have the flats This cardboard rectangles like the size of an album cover they would use about it And they put him up all over the record store and then at the end, you know, you worked a record store and you're like, okay I'm gonna go recycle these or throw them away like who cares and I think he saw the websites a little bit like that I was gonna promote this album and then it's gonna go away and as fans It was like, no, this is like the stuff you're writing is incredible and on the very first website the dawn.com one of the first things he Was clearly the site had been tied to all the things going on in 1960 got married in February the last kind of You know significantly promoted Warner's album So I guess I was order came out and then man's patient came out in October in the fall And was supposed to be obviously time to you know, breath this child and this you know freedom all these things and he Started setting all that up in advance of the wedding the dawn.com was initially promoted as like, you know It was gonna give the details of his wedding. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that was like the teaser graphics We're like wow, okay, just the idea of Prince big married period was like that guy really, you know It was like stunning. It was unfathomable.
I mean we all love my day but it was like really, you know and And they had this the one the very first thing they did was like they watch they had their honeymoon and why and it did Of course concerts there because why wouldn't you do giant concerts and Honolulu on your honeymoon and like they started promoting that and they put up The program for the wedding and it was like, you know, this kind of beautiful romanticized story of Prince of like, well, you know, the artist's foreman and his friends So I'm like to meeting each other and what their relationship was about and it was really it was very sweet And it was also like stunningly personal It's like this view into his life and then being a geek We're like what else is on this site? So we started poking around and in those days if you would just sort of type in the address of website and leave the web page off I'm just showing you like here's the other files that are on this part of this web server and We just started finding stuff. I mean there was tons of stuff and One of them was this letter called a letter from the artist and it was It was stunning it was in plain English not even like he wasn't using like a picture of an eye for the word I like he spelled out the word for like for the first time since like, you know before controversy It was incredible and he wrote he reproduced the press really put out in like 95 about wanting to separate his contract with Warner But it was which had gotten some pick up then and we you know in those days We were still reading like a print magazine to get that news yeah And then he wrote a first person letter from Prince about why he changed his name What his issue was with the record industry? He said and you know, it was so rare for him to make a public statement not in music that was vulnerable right and he's like, you know I was a young kid of 17 when I agreed to this recording contract and I made mistakes and Still it almost takes my breath away because you never heard something like that from him publicly And it's like he could be extremely vulnerable in music, but that was almost a different character Do you think he wanted that to be found?
I mean he's so in control You know and it's funny so what happened was we found it and that was actually what I had the one and only sort of Conversation I had with them about so I said, you know, we found the letter and I just I beg you to put it out It's you know, the world needs to hear this and I mean it's still filled that way and you know and he just said in time Like a very like, you know, he kept up the mystique even in chat, you know, and I talked a lot of other people had much more substance of conversations with him and they're like, you know, press his friends and And and and then a couple weeks later they put out like this edited version of it That was like from the NPG the dawn staff, you know, and it was like we feel and I was like, it was we Ain't nobody else over there's got like a contract with one or brother's like, what are you talking about? You know, and so any was sort of you know Kind of you know emotionally get it like they sort of removed like the really compelling parts But I'd saved the old version and actually got that I recently reconnected with had this fan site And I was like, let me send you this copy and he would just sort of put it up on his site And and some more things like archiving those that the wedding program the images from that Yeah, there were other things I wish I'd saved, you know, at the time we didn't think it was gonna take the website down Right, so we just saved stuff that we thought was particularly interesting. There was a I remember a Top 10 albums like the most listen albums and it was like it's just like up 1996 was like just of all time so he had like, you know, he had a Graham Central Station album He had Bjork's post which should really I never heard him before since mentioned Bjork, and I loved her And I just was like, oh my gosh, does this mean you know, he's gonna like play song or heard something I never heard again. I didn't know if it was like maybe that was like my taste pick or you know, and then of course, you know, Again being friends like listed the as yet unreleased and it's a patient is one of the top albums And it was like sure, okay And and all that kind of stuff was like I mean he was basically blogging like it was what I'm sort of recognizing today Like he was like sharing his little things he found and links to what he found was interesting There was another piece this one I did save which was So they had each of the albums up and they would have like the liner notes and the credits Sometimes more complete than the credits over on the actual albums, which was interesting and then They had the hits the B sides, you know, the box set But in lieu of Alan leads his liner notes, they had what you could tell from reading Were princess notes to Alan about what to include in the liner notes I think you just posted this on your own site I did I did I put it up on medium because I was just like I think people need to see this like this was his own words and and Alan actually confirmed He's like yeah, this is the notes that I was saying so I never knew it was on the internet Wow, but like this is what he said and to again see a first person Prince telling us what he wanted us to know about the biggest songs he ever had the biggest hits he ever had Uh, Jill Jones actually comes up multiple times in the notes and he talks about you know, she was fearless and I cliff that vocally and she would just do whatever and That was why she was so great on 1999 on these other songs and she saw that The notes when I posted them and she was just like, you know, I can't believe he said that about me And that and I mean obviously she had a very long lasting relationship with him and doing very very well But um, it's different to say I was gonna go on the record for you know, this archive and so some of those materials I had held on to for 20 plus years And I just felt after he passed like The thing that casual fans never saw was the amount of thought the amount of self-awareness the when he put aside the Artifice of you know being this magical mysterious elf that generates, you know, funky sexy music over here, right?
And it was like just a guy who was Obviously extremely passionate about his music and started but had this broader mission about like what the industry was gonna be and how he was gonna be respected as an artist and set it in plain english Sometimes and set it straight to us and the fans and told us and direct conversations with fans and that Two-way conversation with fans continued through the whole second half of his career for the last 20 years And on to twitter yeah, and on twitter I mean I think that was the thing that that that um, you know On the day he passed I had a series of tweets eulogizing him which I think a lot of us did and in one of those you know I never got a chance to really meet him but you know he'd trek message me on twitter a couple times and we chatted whatever and You know like anybody has a lot of followers and Twitter There's a bunch of folks that sort of hate me and like well look for excuse me I'm like you've lost your mind like that is impossible And I'm like the reason I mentioned it is not because I thought it was actually it was really common right and people didn't realize like My late friend Erica Kennedy was a writer actually was a story that her got circulated a bit in the fan community after I loved which I hadn't even known about from Erica which was she was a writer and she When I believe in style magazine interviewed Prince she got to the interview but she was a freelancer a stringer and she was like why I'm I've been brought in for this. I wasn't the editor doing it and they said well We you know we agreed to do the interview and Prince said he wanted a black woman to do the interview And we don't have any black women on the masthead right and you're in the loop and we'd like you to do it which You know essentially kick started her career. That's an old life like it opened a door for her that had not been open at a major magazine And it's extraordinary and then the craziest part and she told me this at the time like shortly after it was like Prince kept chatting with her On a lot any was you know single at the time and uh, you know, I think that was probably fact or two Erica was beautiful. Um, and it's just like, you know, this sort of normal flirty, you know, here's what's going on and also like here's the music I'm working on Um, and very human and like there are a lot of stories like that I mean even the guys at basic park, you know that we're like doing a lot of his digital stuff We're saying like, you know, yeah, like he was reluctant to get Iowa at first, but like once we told him like, you know, there's ladies there You know, it's like a club.
He was like kind of into it and they were like he stayed a fan long after it was cool too Like he was really like all about the aim chat, you know, and I think like that connection was so Unfiltered, but also let him preserve what he wanted to share versus not in the way that we all manicure our presence on social media We all sort of like our Instagram is all delicious food and big smiles and none of the you know, the things we don't want to share Um, and I think that was the perfect balance for him and what people You know, like people who we sort of only know the big hits are like kind of assesses like me and a lot of my friends Didn't get that like, you know, the last album covers for for hit and run and and one and two and even on the last tour We had this sort of like it still has avatar on his twitter account these great illustrations Yeah, um, I'm forgetting the guy's name. It'll come to me a bit But um, there's a fan who did these illustrations and got circulated in the fan community and then Prince reached out and licensed the artwork, you know And that was not he did that a lot. I have been to me. Yeah.
Yeah, I did a little sketch of him at the Dakota Yeah, and that was kind of the beginning of my relationship with him And there was so many you know, some takes a photo and he wants to use it and he would reach out and it was a two-way creation and the one that uh Oh, it gets me to even just think about it now The one that got me was the night after his last show in Atlanta a fan had tweeted at him her review of the show And it was you know, she's like I'm still in the cloud, you know floating over this and uh, and the end of her You know, the kind of tweet-length review was I am transformed And you know, as he was want to do he would sort of quote tweet people in a way that was not at all how Twitter tweeting is Exerp things he did it to me a number of times and I was just like, okay, you can do that That's fine But he split her her quote in the two tweets and the one on its own said I am transformed Yeah, and so many people retweeted that after he passed as you know, sort of a eulogy to him And I thought that the words people remembered him by were him Amplifying the words of a fan in response to his art I think exemplified what his use of these technologies to connect really was about That it was very mutual and very two-way and not the mystique and not a manufactured pop star persona But somebody who really genuinely connected with hundreds of people all over the world over decades of time Yeah, and that we all love the respect to him enough to also keep that confidence, you know, just sort of saying that's fine That's for us and I don't need to sort of shout it out to the world And he of course preserved that by you know deleting the tweets and those kinds of things and and I don't think people thought of it And he did all the time like I remember last when he was october so he did it like who's your favorite drummer? You know and people were like you and you know she and you know whatever their answers are and um being a nerd I sent him a picture of the Lin Lm1 drum machine because like that's the drum machine he used for all his signature songs and I just I was funny And he took the picture and he retweeted it and he just said me too, you know like number two And I was just like that just like it made my like it still makes me so happy to think about it And I mean I I hope we're able you know, he would delete the tweets always right after he put them up And I'm being a geek and knowing folks at twitter and hoping we can get a collection of some of them I started archiving them the end of last year, but it was really only the last maybe four months of his life But um there was so much there and so human aside Uh that you know obviously, you know folks will document and record all of the music I you know, I hope the estate is resolved in a way that that lets all of the you know the vault be released in a thoughtful and respectful way I don't doubt that it will happen because everybody in the world wants to hear those dozens of albums that are still in there and um and so like the The things we think of us the creative work will be there But that more human side of just how personally like, you know, no disrespect to Madonna or Michael Jackson I love them, but like they were not on the fan forums And recognizing names. I mean, Maya who hosted the last she'd been a photographer came shot the cover photo Oh, yeah, artificial age and then hosted that yahoo web chat was like she didn't do a great job But she had a really tough gig to do a lot of great. Yeah.
Yeah, and it was um, I'm very empathetic to her I mean, I think it's with her people in the deep end a lot that stuff and she was there You know, she said that um she would help him with like video streaming These live streams of rehearsals that he would do, you know, like I remember what I would be like I have a kid I shouldn't be up at two in the night watching this web stream But I'm gonna watch this because it's cool And she said he recognized the names of fans that were chatting in the chat room During those video streams like he would look over at the computer while they were playing and know the people Wow, and there is nobody nobody who was in the rockerville hall of fan who's sold 100 million records Who is toward the world who is a you know a global icon who? Casually knew the names of the people and had real conversations with them over the course of decades There was nobody else who did that there's nobody who was that far ahead of their time Say this is what this medium is for and that this is what I can rely on when I don't have a record label anymore And when I don't have an infrastructure supporting where they will stand by me and I think that um You know the only way you could break the back of the century of black artists being exploited Is with the ultimate confidence to say they're gonna be there for me Yeah, fans are gonna be there for me and I think he had that much faith in it and that much foresight And that is like to me as inspiring as meaningful as all the music that's been the soundtrack to my life It's beautiful. I have two short stories to tell you that I feel like you'll appreciate So one of the times that I was at paisley park He invited a bunch of press there like basically every publication here in town and he called us all back to his studio And I'd been back there before but this was the first time that there was a door open on the way to the studio So I'm walking down the hall and I just looked to my left and it's this enormous room With two desks equally spaced in the middle and two men at computers and nothing else. Yeah.
Yeah It just looks so stark the tweet back to yeah And like the there's like clean room bunny so it's like yeah, like they're just like don't yeah everything's disinfected Don't touch this is where the tweets happen. Yeah, yeah And then another time the time when I really got to speak with him one-on-one extensively He had this musician that he had flown up from Australia to come hang out And this young kid he was like 19 And he and I were talking and he was talking about how in the mornings he was staying at paisley park And in the mornings they would get up and go on Twitter together Yeah And just sit at the computer and prince would tweet out links to his soundcloud or youtube or something And then just read the responses. Yeah, and that was like a big part of there's a guy and I know at the end Trevor guy would help me gain some of the Twitter accounts and stuff and so like there were other people maintaining the account But what you know when I say like he would tweet stuff like I am He'd put up for yourself when I want to cut I think one of his last really great songs. I loved that song and um And there's a vote quarter part the end.
That's not you who was that? You know like I just and I would sort of try to tweet at him like this is just a person that I know on the internet Um even though obviously, you know, there's this You know exalted place that he held um and I got a direct message from him and it was like oh, you know, you know, she's on the base It was the whole credits, you know, and it was like here's who you know here's played the keys and here's you know the vocals and I was just like Uh, okay, you know, I was like what just happened and I don't know and that could have been Trevor, you know, whatever But like I don't think it was you know, it was an all caps like he had super idiosyncratic way of tweeting You know, there was the like there were a couple forms There was like one big capital word and then a link and then another big capital word and it would be like okay That's not a way that people tweet links, but that's one thing and there would be the retweets where he would copy and paste something including somebody's name And I was like doing that and late really I think maybe in the late 2015 early 2016 he had this instagram where I mean It was still like he had there was this part where I was like, this is still a middle age dude You know in some ways like a normal middle-western middle-aged dude because he had like the visualizations of the windows media player Music player still on and I was like who in 2015 is still rocking the windows media player like who's doing that and has like that's crazy Like little like geometric patterns going and his instagram. He's like trying to you know, he's playing presumably some song It was recorded an hour earlier for a new song, but he's like showing his windows desktop and it's like del pc And I was like this is the least cool thing I've ever seen friends do in my life because like his desktop is just covered in icons Right, but it's friends. So every icon is a link to himself like it's like a photo of me another photo of me I like to my Twitter account link to my other Twitter account I was just like it was the most like simultaneously awesome and like also like Man like you probably get the little like there's like a little nag screen in the bottom like update your nought and antivirus You know like it was a very human amazing vision of like, you know, prince at pace a car in the middle of the night Like saying like here's my windows desktop by the way, listen to this song.
I just recorded and I loved that that was like such a It was like a revelation to me because it was like he didn't like he wasn't trying to preserve his coolness I did this talk Actually using Kim to town's we were talking IO festival to get arts and design festival and they they talk a lot about sort of like The cultural impacts of like technology that we create And I hope in the talk because I like I wanted to sort of explain this idea at princess gee and I open the talk with a clip from graffiti bridge And it's the opening credits. So this is the thing is like I was like trying to set it up I'm like I can't offer that much setup because it's literally in the first two minutes of the movie and For me, but stronger film efforts I you know, I can watch it, but I wouldn't recommend it to non fans And there's the you know the one story is like more say in the time we're trying to take over all the clubs in town And then the the other thing is like you know, Prince sort of reckoning with his muse and and so the scene is Prince is in bed with beautiful woman Jill Jones and his muse strikes and he hops out of bed, right and because like he here's an angel and What happens is Prince gets out of bed with Jill Jones who was beautiful and he's like supposed to be naked like he wrapped a sheet around himself And he sits down at and give him on this movie. He wrote directed performing everything himself This is a character where he wrote himself he sits down at a Mac 2 se computer That's in his bedroom and starts clicking around It's like eight inch black and white screen with a giant track ball like the nerdiest input device It's every credit looks like I mean he looks like like a like a NASA engineer I mean, it's the least cool thing and he still has like a full prince hair like like circa 99 like the big long mane and whatever and you know And Jill Jones comes up and it's kind of like yeah, I think I'm gonna go dance at Morris's club Like it's this like, you know, very Prince thing going on in the background and his song is playing and he's like, you know Theoretically composing can't stop his feeling I got on this old Macintosh And it's simultaneous and he's got a keyboard plugged into the Mac and all this stuff like a music keyboard Typing keyboard and it's this like Awesome and really nerdy and very cool and the crazy thing about it is to me like he might this is filmed in 89 Yeah, so like there are still revenge with the nerds sequels being made at that point Jamie like computers were not cool. Bill Gates was not cool There was not you know like Steve Jobs was not back at Apple This was not a moment when you were like just me hanging out on my Mac clicking around on my trackball Like that was not a thing and it's the front of the movie like there's a naked woman and Betty Hopps have to get on the computer And I just like and I hadn't I don't watch your video british a lot So I hadn't revisited until I was like, I know there's a computer in that movie somewhere I had not conceived of it being opening in the film That's amazing And and it just on rewatching was like in epiphany because I was like He did not see it a separate from his life.
He did not see it as different than picking up his guitar He did not see it as different than sitting down at a piano You know he did not seeing this more off putting to a beautiful woman to sit down at the computer than to pick up his guitar Like it was all of a piece Right And the closing credits of your feed bridge is him at the same Mac like the end of the story after like the bad guys are defeated and grits Wayans and love triumphs He's like let me click around this Mac and look at some other songs I wrote And I just am like, you know, I mean there's a million times during the production of your feed bridge Somebody should sort of pull them aside and be like, hey boss I we gotta have a conversation. This isn't this isn't your best work But that of all the things that he was like, yes, this is my vision when I have total artistic control This is what I can create is like I just want the world to know I'm kicking out on this computer right now Yeah, I liked what you said You were talking about the tweets that you sent out the day that he passed I actually read pretty much everything that day much later because I was just overwhelmed But yeah, I really liked what you said about how he was innovative with technology in the same way that he was with his music That it's just all part of his he was just a very curious kind of restless mind And the more I think about, you know, from the Lindrum machine up to Twitter Like that is absolutely true that he was always just looking for ways to take advantage of the technology and integrate it into what he was trying to do And as part of his art It's a straight line if you go back to when he was working the Christmas moon at moon sound They had an automated recording council and it was one of the first in twin cities And so he's learning cutting edge technology so that he can produce everything himself and have control Yeah, one is in teenager in high school, right? And that that sort of stays through is the through line of like this is gonna help me be self-sufficient This is gonna help me not get exploited like black artists usually do This is gonna help me have control and of course is gonna help me follow my muse You know, there's all of a piece for him and and then the Lindrum He has one of the first ones and he's an early adopter and part of it was At a technical level the Lindrum So before that drum machines were generally a digital device that had analog samples or playing recording of a drum sound and the Lind actually was a digital capture It sounds so you could distort it and this is why you know in 1999 when I was crying whatever It sounds different than any drums before because Prince was programming a computer You know and he was able to do that and he taught himself to do that and he taught himself to do it first because he was an early adopter of the hardware Yeah, and he had this device first and we see this were like Instagram is the most popular photo app on iPhones Not because there aren't better photo apps because it was first Early doctrine you use the platform. Well first you get an advantage Just as Stevie won her had the first clavonet C keyboard and you know Jimi Hendrix had to work with Robert Mayer to invent the pedals that were his signature sound Like when you hear those notes on superstition that Stevie being an early adopter hardware and Prince was the same thing through the Lindrum Through the Oberheim synth, you know, in 1999 and so many songs and albums on through the Fairlight sequencer So when you say you know July 15th, 1986 is a sundae and Prince's down and records and writes sign of the times all in one day Some of that is about this is the mode.
I mean in the moment I mean in some of it's like I had this new piece of hardware and it can make sounds that nobody's heard before Yeah, and I want the world to hear that thing that's in my head that nobody's heard before and then You know, if the goal is I want to change the sound of pop music by by 1990 by the time the graffiti bridge comes out And he's like sitting at that Mac. It's done. It's it's it's Inarguably done everything sounds like Prince. Yeah, right from the moment he sets out in 1980 to the moment he sort of steps back in 1990 Everything goes from sounding like anything else to sounding like him, right?
So he turns the course and then at that point of course the only other question is well What can I do with my sort of magical superpowers of of expression and performance and technology now and then the only other? Goal as ambitious sort of as worthy of that kind of genius as well What if I can actually get free? What if I actually control my art because so many had tried, you know, read the front Go start a record label back in the 70s. Yeah, you know, George Clinton had 15 different names of artists They were trying to put acts out, you know, the music under so he could put out on the market like people were hacking at this For a long time, but you know the labels were never gonna let them do it and you had to play a really long game You know, it took 20 years basically from the start of the battle to when Prince actually owns his masters Right and it took mastering all of these technologies and every single one whether it was CD rhymes or the internet, you know To do digital downloads in 96 there was a full page explanation on the dawn.com on the website saying here Like you can buy things on the internet this concept exists.
You'll have to type your credit card in here's why that's not a terrible idea Yeah, you know, it was a really long like today You just like this form secure and there's a little formula type of your credit card number But it was like introducing the idea of what we call e-commerce because people didn't know it existed And that I mean it was that far had in 97 to do a crowd funded album and say we're gonna hundred thousand orders We'll ship it, you know, is the Kickstarter model exactly but 20 years earlier and so exactly that like it shipped later production problems advanced You know really angry about it exactly as they do today, right? You know, it's like note for note like you predicted the future and like now if you're like, oh, I ordered this album I kick started but it shipped really late and it ended up in the record store before I could buy it from the artist You'd be like, yeah, that's what happens. But back then it was like how dare he you know, I'm sorry, I'm shocked Um, and it was great and you know, he actually he would send he sent out. Thank you like apology They were also not really well mentioned like he included the truth album with it because it shipped late And in some fans if their orders were screwed up He sent them the lore that sort of 45 minute long song that he had done on CD as thank you said like these like kind of makeup gifts And it's because as his you know, web books told me later like he saw the responses he read prince.org the fansite Um later on when um quest love and a lot of the the risk-rude launched okay player prince was on there all the time Yeah, you know, and um, you know, he was lurking I don't think he was posting but like he was he knew what people were saying and he responded to it And you know, there were so many bits of proof one of which was the song my computer on emancipation Where you know what?
He does what keep questions a great song it opens with the welcome you've got mail It's got the a well sound at the beginning and uh and the hook right at the top of the song is it was Sunday night So they didn't want to usually do I scan my computer looking for a site somebody to talk to funny and bright And he said straight up on Sunday nights. I go into a chat on a well, you know, it wasn't it wasn't subtle and we were just like that That's us. He's talking about us. I think he means us And you know, you didn't even want to believe it because it was like it was so crazy Yeah, it was like maybe it's some other son You know, there may be some other a well like it was like and you know the song ends like goodbye Well, it was uh it was stunning and there were so many examples He had a mostly instrumental collection during the mpg music club era called c-note And it was um songs from different cities even to six um Copenhagen, Nagoya I'm not going to maul if I out the staka tokyo and then the last song was empty room So c-note c-n-o-t-e um but what had been the biggest conversation amongst fans at the time music clubs music club cost $100 a year And they're like, I'm not getting anything for my hundred dollars So so here's an album and it's called c-note And it was you know, this sort of like poking the eye like here take that and you know, he did the number time to get a song called I think it was called funk, but it was spelled p-f-u-n-k Um, but the p-f-u was capitalized because just a few weeks earlier he started suing fan sites over stripping bootleks and things and the fans pushed back He made a site called Prince fans united p-f-u So he wrote a song called p-f-u-n-k p-f-n-k And he put it out so there was a dialogue for decades between fans where he was like, no, this is why I'm doing it Now great that he never said that.
Black artists get exploited. That's why I don't trust putting my music up on youtube because they don't want to you know Have fair terms for me. So like a lot of things shy of that a lot of fans would be like, oh, everybody else is doing it. You should do it Yeah, um, but the dialogue was there and it was irrefutable I mean, there were so many times in the tranci- there's no way a guy of this stature is so reclusive Actually sees what we're saying is responding to it But after the 10th time that it happens, you're just like, he's right there and we're not crazy.
He's watching us The thing that jumped out to me, um, there's a woman coming back, Connie Beite who was in um In the AWL chats back in the day was a huge fan when he had the one of the first celebrations she was here Um, I couldn't make that was broke. I couldn't plan to make it and um, he did manic Monday and he called her on stage to do it with her To do it with her to do it. Just as a fan she gets a sing Um, manic Monday with him, which I can't even value them, you know how that felt and was so happy for her And um, and so we stayed in touch and I follow her on twitter and after he passed she's reading a book actually by friend of mine by Cory doctoral And she tweeted and she was not being self-conscious about it, but it just stuck with me so much She just said oh, I miss prince so much. I wanted to tell him about this book I wanted to tell him to read this book And it was amazing because I was like gosh me too.
I totally get it and I I sent the tweet to my friend because he'd written the book I was like, oh, Cory, you should see this thing in a fan of yours really like the book And I realized he's gonna think that sounds insane. Right. You know what I mean? He's gonna think like what do you mean?
I wish I could have recommended this book to prince But we totally could take that for granted for for this few dozen few hundred of us that were around in that community forever That we knew he knew that we interacted with him over decades online It was not at all out of character for him to say to somebody who we'd had on stage We'd been the phase of multiple times to be like you should check out this book and expect that he might look at it Yeah, you know, yeah, um and that You know if anything I wish that could be clear to people about that was as much a part of his creativity And what he nurtured and wanted to build as you know in the later years as the music was I mean he spent as much time on it and as much effort on it and learned about it in a way that There are people I know in the tech industry who don't get it that well. Wow That's beautiful. Benil, thank you so much for attacking me. This has been so fascinating I could just listen to you talk about prince for hours and same goes for you.
I appreciate the chance to get to do it I mean these stories obviously mean a lot to me, but I think there's so much incredible legacy that you're preserving that Is so much broader than just you know, that was a song I played at my wedding which that happens too and it matters But that what this man and all the people he worked with meant to culture and to changing You know business practices to changing the norms around how we see art and artists. Um, I think it can't be overstated Yeah, I think we share an interest in bringing out the humanity of prince too. I really appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you