There is no question that Prince (born under the name Prince Rogers Nelson) has been a major influence to several musicians since his debut in 1978.  The Purple one’s influence is more obvious in some Hip Hop artists more than others. (Ahem…Andre 3000, I’m looking in your direction).  One of the most influential pieces of work that Prince has done is his 1984 film “Purple Rain” and the soundtrack of the same name.  Prince would show new artists how to truly express yourself, and how life experiences can add to the music. Some of this music can be discovered, like Prince in this movie, by looking through their parent’s music. When Nas says in his song Bridging the Gap; “Born in the game, discovered my father’s music Like Prince searchin’ through boxes of Purple Rain” that hit home for me and a lot of Hip Hop heads.   Much of the Hip Hop generation, like me, shares the same experience of diggin’ in the crates of old wax for samples and beats, while discovering that we really like this old stuff.  With the death of vinyl, and a decline of sampling old records in Hip Hop, where have all the diggers gone?  Can the legacy of music discovery for the next generation be continued to find “new” old music like we did it? How can they? Well, it is happening today, “…and I’m here to tell ya, there’s something else….”   the game done changed since the days of Purple Rain.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am an avid fan of Hip Hop music and its culture and a big fan of Prince too.  I am more so a fan of the movie and soundtrack of “Purple Rain.” My obsession for the movie has gone so far that I would base past relationships on how well my new love interest knew the movie! (Really, I would.)  If a girl told me that she did not know the movie or was too young to have seen it, or just plainly didn’t like the movie, I would tell her… “Yo, I don’t think that this is gonna work out.”  (I’m not so rigid nowadays.) It could have been because the movie is quite nostalgic for me. Growing up in the early 1980’s when VCR’s first came out, that was one of the few tapes my family and I would watch. I have also grown to see there are a lot of Hip Hop parallels in the film.  A lot of the old schoolers can relate to the scene where young Prince, refered to as “the Kid” in the movie, wrecks his basement room after his father shoots himself in the head.  While Prince is ripping up his room he comes across his father’s old music sheets. As the Kid wipes away his tears he notices a groove on the sheets that his dad had made, and the music ”the Kid” found, ended up being the song “Purple Rain,” (in a whimpering voice) it so beautiful. *sob, sniffle*.

That is similar to when Hip Hoppers from everywhere realized that their parent’s records could hold a wealth of samples that can make new music! That was the tah-dah moment I felt along with millions of others. But sadly, now that vinyl has seen a sharp decline in recent Hip Hop sales. (For some reason all the Rock craze nowadays is to put your latest release on vinyl, whoddah thunk it.)  Rap fans and their next generation cannot make that discovery, mainly because there is no vinyl or any tangible media for them to discover.  Rap is now subjected to exist mostly in the virtual world of computer files. Vinyl has been very important to Hip Hop since its inception, and has been the glue that has helped bind the Hip Hop generation to many eras that have preceded it.

While I attended college at Temple University I once had a professor that asked our class; “why is it the today’s generation was so into music of the past?”  My theory was then, which I still hold some weight to today, is the medium of vinyl was hard to ignore. Records were big, obtrusive, and did not get destroyed easily. Even after some neglect and some abuse, records were still able to play, unlike many other formats of music.  Vinyl’s full 12 square inches of cover art drew children closer to this forgotten world. I also felt that all music lovers and their kids may have had a Purple Rain moment of their own because of vinyl records. I felt that Rap, or any music that had a non record format was doomed, especially cassette tapes. Tapes were lost, the tape would snap, they would get recorded over, and they were easily stolen by your friends (I bet this is one of the reasons that Nas’ Illmatic went platinum, it must have been stolen and re-bought over and over again.  I bought that tape like 3 times!)  This is why past generation’s music was not embraced as well.  The 78 records and 8 tracks were obsolete, we couldn’t play them, but vinyl 33 1/3 records were there for a while.  I was worried, that the Hip Hop I grew up on, in the early 90’s, the tape generation, would be forgotten forever. I don’t even have all of my tapes I bought, mainly because of aforementioned reasons.  Much of the music is just gone!

Because we are very deep into the computer generation, I thought kids would forget much about my “tape era” Hip Hop, the opposite ended up happening.  Kids today hear about some of the stuff that their parents were into when they were kids and quickly dial it up on YouTube. (If you haven’t tried watching old school hip hop videos there, I suggest you do. It’s amazing, I love it!)  Kids are finding things that interest them.  Today young Hip Hop lovers check for their favorite rappers and end up finding stuff like early Jay Z clips and videos. The idea of best rappers of all time always comes up, and when kids Google to see who has M.C. supremacy they see names like KRS, or Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and they end up doing some research of their own.  Many young people are finding a lot of the beats, lyrics and videos of the past because of YouTube.  This site allows our kids to have the Purple Rain moments of their own through this website.   Students can find old stuff that moves them and make it their own. I am a teacher in a middle/high school in Philadelphia Pa, and I run an afterschool Hip Hop club, along with organizing youth in the “Hip Hop Lives Now” program, and I see kids get put on with real Hip Hop first hand.  Because of YouTube I can show old stuff from artists they like and artists they think are new (Like Jay-Z, Twista, E-40 etc.)

At least for now music lovers and the generation that follow them still have a common place, and a way to share each other’s music. All music except for Prince.  Although YouTube has allowed many young people have had a moment just like “the Kid”, ironically there are virtually no Prince videos on YouTube. I guess he, or someone in his camp, has ordered them to be taken off of the site. When I have kids I’ll show them all the music I love via YouTube except for Prince’s music. Hopefully he’ll hear this and post some stuff, and let Hip Hop producers legally sample his music so future generations can find Prince for themselves. Until then I’ll be having girlfriends dip in Lake Minnetonka, and showing all my students and future children my favorite film until they “Go Crazy!”

PURPLE TRACK 3 by HipHopLivesNow
This is “Purple Track 3” track from the “Music from the color purple”  release by the brother Black Milk..This was on a compilation of all beats made of Prince Samples. This was put out for free because Prince does not allow folks to sample his music too much; Black would have gotten sued pretty bad.  There are only a few tracks I can think of that have used Prince samples.  Beepers by Sir Mix-A-Lot (Sample Prince’s “Batdance”) Public Enemy’s “Brothers Gonna Work it Out. “ (Samples “Let’s Go Crazy!”) “Young Luv” by Mobb Deep, and the outro of “Ain’t Got Nuttin” off Terminator X’s Valley of the jeep beets album shares the same Prince sample. (Samples If “I Was Your Girlfriend”)  “Purple Track 3” is a doap track, and Black Milk freaks the Prince Sample. Enjoy.

-mighty FlipSide Esq.-

Tags: Hip Hop, Hip Hop kids, Nas, Prince, Purple Rain, Purple Tag, Vinyl, wax, YouTube

Comments (19) | October 26th, 2009