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The Interview
Backstage at the venue formerly known as The Empire Pool, Wembley, you can smell the incense as soon as you walk in the door. A pleasant, odorous trail leads to a small man in a brown velvet coat with “slave” written on his right cheek. He is standing by the side of the stage, wearing shades. It’s so dark you can barely see where you’re going. He skips nonchalantly over a few cables, back to his dressing room. p is allowing no tape recorders in his presence. To ensure that you are not furtively wired for sound, you are frisked by a bodyguard before entering.
“Hi,” says Q.
“Hi,” says p.
His skinny body is clad in gossamer blue lace, open at the chest to flaunt liberally squiggly hair, with lots of gold hanging from his neck. In his very small dressing room there are two settees – one covered red, one purple – and a turquoise coffee table, along with a coffee machine, four coffee cups and some coffee. You will not, however, be taking refreshments with O-{-> today. Nor will you be watching his large TV. His eyes unreadable behind lethal shades, he speaks for 20 minutes mostly in anti-Warner’s monologues, occasionally in cryptic, more Prince like phrases. When he impersonates a Warner’s employee, he uses a goofy, unhip voice, like Richard Pryor taking the piss out of white people in his live videos. When it’s him talking, he goes for a streetwise motherfucker of a voice. As a plea for special artistic treatment, his rap is undeniably persuasive. Partly, this is due to his witty rhetoric – he is a funny man – and partly it’s because he seems so clued-in, so right Generous, philanthropic (at one point he appears to be offering to buy me a house) he is the archetypal millionaire pauper. Listen, he’d love to help you. It’s just a question of cash-flow… Cool air wafts from an overhead fan as we begin, displacing the smell of his incense. His pad resembles a fantastic bed-sit. On the turquoise table rests a bootleg CD of The Gold Experience. You take the purple couch. It goes nicely with your T-shirt.

I enjoyed your speech at the Brits.
“Did you? (Laughs) One of the few people who did. (Pause) Do you think people understood?”
They understood that there’s some sort of a dispute.
“There is a dispute.”
What’s it about?
“(Pause) You see, a while ago I told Warner’s I wanted to own my music. That’s what this isall about. I don’t own the masters of any’ of my records. Can you believe that? Warner’s keep them in their vaults, on software, you know?”
It’s just a thought, but have you thought of inserting a computer virus into the software before you hand it over to Warner’s?
(Thinks for a while) “Whoah, man, that’s a whole novel you got there. That’s funky.”
Is there a personal problem between you and the new Chairman at Warner’s?
“What’s happened is that the people who signed me, and the people I had a relationship with there, have moved on and been replaced by people I don’t know. And I can’t do business with those people.”
That happens a lot.
“Yeah, well. So Mo Ostin isn’t there any more. Guys like Mo Ostin, who built the industry with people like Clive Davis, Ahmet Ertegun, Berry Gordy – they’re moving out and there are guys coming in who don’t understand me, they don’t understand music. All they know is marketing. I mean, I haven’t met some of them. These are guys you never see photos of. The kids don’t know what they look like. (Laughs) Probably for a good reason.”
He is talking very, very quickly. He shoots some names of people at Warner’s, cracks jokes about them – and laughs, falling sideways on his settee, just like Des O’Connor.
“You know what one of them actually said to me? (In a stupid voice) So, uh, do you think this hip hop thing is gonna last? Hah! (Looking at imaginary watch, hails taxi) Listen, I gotta go. (Laughs) I’m really late here, man. I mean, I can’t deal with that. And these are the people trying to mess with my music.”
How are they trying to mess with his music? Roughly as follows. Aside from the bit about him being too prolific, Warner’s took a pass on an album called Exodus, credited to the New Power Generation, which O-{-> gave them last year. It was a humiliating experience, given that Paisley Park – a Prince A&R label, marketed by Warner’s – had been wound down in late 1993, after albums by Mavis Staples, Tevin Campbell and George Clinton failed to sell. O-{-> argues that they were not adequately promoted. (Along with the dissolution of Paisley Park, O-{-> also lost his place on the board at Warner’s.) Mavis Staples is a brilliant, brilliant artist,” he says heatedly, “but I don’t think anyone at Warner’s knows what to do with her. Sometimes, I think all that company does is sign people, and then gets those people to sign other people. All these people getting signed, and that’s the last you hear of them. I don’t think they even know who they got on their label.”
He also claims Warner’s wouldn’t let him donate a song to an American guitar magazine. “I have a song called Undertaker, which I wanted to give to Guitar Player, so they could give it away free with their magazine – to remind people that, hey, I’m actually a guitar player, too. (Laughs) That’s whatjtjs: really long guitar solos. But Warner’s Wouldn’t let me.” Another thing he wanted to do was record a song with Nona Gaye, daughter of Marvin, as an anti-firearms benefit single.
“I said (to Warner’s), OK, listen, there are people shooting and killing each other in the ’hood, and I think I can do something about it, and put some money in, and (ironically) maybe that would be more important than what’s in your Billboard chart this week. They said no. (Shakes his head) They can’t look beyond what’s in Billboard.”
Do Warner’s have your home phone number?
NO
It’s not that kind of relationship?
“Well, I don’t talk on the phone. I don’t have to.”
So these new people at Warner’s have basically inherited you from the old regime?
“Ha! No. They inherited Prince. They own him. All that stuff that Prince did is theirs. But Prince is dead. They don’t own me.”
Is that why you killed him?
“No, no. See, that was way before all this happened. Prince had to die because my life was going through changes. I was going through a very spiritual part of my life, and I was no longer Prince. That was my way of dealing with it. It was a great spiritual revelation, and the last time it happened was on Lovesexy and the time before that was Purple Rain. It is not the first time it’s happened.”
Does that spiritual change manifest itself to outsiders?
(Warily) “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really ask myself questions about it. I’ve learned not to question it.”
All the while he keeps looking at the CD of The Gold Experience on the turquoise table. It’s contagious. Soon you start to look at it too. “I would love to give you this,” he says. “I know you want to help me. That’s why you’re here. I could give you this and you could give me something, an example of your work. But if I give you this, I’m breaking the law, because it’s not mine to give. That’s how ridiculous all this is.”
But surely you don’t deny that you signed a contract?
(Sarcastically) “Yeah, right. Do artists know about contracts when they’re 18,19?”
But you weren’t 19 when you renegotiated it.
Same thing, though. See, when an artist starts out in the music business he needs two things: a manager and a lawyer. If you want to get into the music busi-ness, that’s what you need: a manager and a lawyer. You can’t do it without them. And I know that if I say anything about my ex-managers and lawyers, I would get letters from them saying they’re going to sue me. So (laughing) then all I can really say.”
Meanwhile you have, what, four albums left on your contract?
Well, we’ll have to see.”
You know this case won’t stand up in court?
“It isn’t a case. It’s not going to go to court. You see, George Michael… (pauses, sighs, gath-ers himself) Even mentioning his name makes me angry. One of the most brilliant songwriters, and look what they did to him. Now he can’t make music. But he went a different route to me. I told him, You don’t have to go to court, but he did, because he thought he could win.”
Court cases drag on, and meantime you can’t release anything – it happened to Bruce Springsteen in the’70s.
“Yeah, and look how many years he lost.
Do you get the feeling Warner’s think you’re out to lunch?
“Yes. I think they do. When I changed my name, a lot of people thought I was insane – oh, oh, he’s killed Prince. Now, there was a point where I was very ill and afraid for my sanity, but that was way before I changed my name, before this spiritual period of my life when I knew Prince was dead – I was sane when I did that. Everyone thinks that was when I was crazy.”
Hang on. You feared for your sanity?
(Beatifically) “Yes. Then I learned not to have fear.” Once again, he picks up the CD of The Gold Experience.
“Do you think your magazine could help me sell some copies of this?”
Sure.
(Delighted) “You see? And then everyone would be happy. Tommy (Barbarella, keyboardist in NPG) gets a cheque, Sonny (bass) gets a cheque, Mr Hayes (organ) gets a cheque, Michael B (drums) gets a cheque, Mayte (dancer) gets a cheque, I get a cheque. Maybe I could use some of that money to set you up running your own magazine. I could do that. Or you could have a new house. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I’ve got my own magazine now, of course. That’s nice. So I don’t have to talk to Rolling Stone. I had a fight with one guy, once, and they’ve never had a good word to say about me since.” (Laughs)
A house?
“Because you’ve helped me, and I can help you.”
Are you, as you’ve indicated, going to stay on tour until this dispute is resolved?
“Yeah. The guys (ie the band) are right behind me. (Laughs) You know, sometimes I think, hey, there’s five of us, let’s bum rush the Warner build-ing. Now some brothers I know, who shallremain nameless, that’s the way they do it. Haven’t seen a cheque lately? They go in and destroy the office. (Panicky white employee) ‘OK, OK, I’ll pay you your money. Just don’t break things’.”
What’s the worst that can happen, then? That you stay on the road forever?
“No, that’s the best thing that can happen. Of course. Get to play music every night and live in this nice house… (Gestures at walls of dressing room) This is my house, by the way, and I like my house. I can sit here in my house, and you can come and visit me in it. And I like being in England. People here, I think, understand more where I’m coming from. In the same way that black people in America understand where I’m coming from.”
Do these interviews mean that you’re becoming more accessible now?
“I don’t call this being accessible. I call this just a conversation I’m having with you. I can see you want to help. It just makes me wish I could give you something back.” Interview ends; next journalist ushered in. O-{-> is being very coy here. As he well knows, we journalists had to sign contracts before we were allowed to meet him; contracts that signed away our syndication rights. To lay something like that one us, and then to solicit our sympathy regarding his own contract… well, it shows some front. To be realistic and blunt, p is using the media as a mere conduit – nothing more – to ensure that his public support comes out higher than that of the widely-detested George Michael By the way, how’s your Spanish?