WEBVTT - Prince (Pt. 2): Bodyguards, Guns, Gangs, and a Revolution 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.840 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:13.800 This is the story about a murder. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.840 It's the story of a band member with a gun 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.840 shoved in his face, a bodyguard selling his boss's story 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.120 for drug money. It's the story of an earthquake, a 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.880 cop stuck with a dirty AIDS infected needle, of a 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.720 beating with a baseball bat. It's the story of a 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.840 revolution and a Sign of the Times. It is, of course, 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.400 a story about Prince, a man who might be the 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.640 greatest pop musician of all time, a man who made 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.960 great music, some of the greatest music ever made. Unlike 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:52.559 that music, I played a few at the top of 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.560 the show that wasn't great music. That was a preset 0:00:56.600 --> 0:01:01.880 loop from my melotron called Brown Mark's Lament MK one. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.120 I played you that loop because I can't afford the 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.759 rights to live in on a Prayer by bon Jovi. 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.240 And why would I play you that specific slice of 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:16.039 slippery when wet Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.920 was the number one song in America on February eighteenth, 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.000 nineteen eighty seven, And that was the day that Prince 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.399 released the song Sign of the Times, his first single 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.319 in four years. Without his legendary band The Revolution, a 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:35.320 song from an album about death, rebirth, change, crime and 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.720 strife from one of the greatest to ever do it. 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:46.000 On this episode, Bodyguards, drug habits, guns, gangs, and oh yeah, 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.240 an ejaculating guitar and I mentioned the ejaculating guitar and 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:58.720 of course Prince, I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace slant. 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.000 As Prince stood up in the audience to accept the 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.480 first of three American Music Awards in Los Angeles. 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.440 His bodyguard, Charles. 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:34.080 Huntsbury aka Big Chick, stood up with Big Chick came 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.560 as advertised six foot eight, three hundred or maybe four 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.240 hundred something pounds, depending on who you asked. There's a 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.160 big white dude in a big white Sanda beard wearing 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.440 a big old black wife beater. He was not just 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.640 a protector, but he was an ally, the kind of 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.760 guy who, when he walked into an establishment alongside a 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.480 black member of Prince's band, would immediately clock the racist 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.400 shit heads inside say without hesitation, this is my friend 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.400 and if you little pussies have a problem with him, 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.520 then you have a problem with me. Big Chick was 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.440 Prince's big shadow and Prince, all five foot two of them, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.320 though a little taller tonight on account of those heels 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.560 he was wearing, cut a path to the stage with purpose, 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.160 where representatives of the previous generation the Beach Boys, handed 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.400 him his award. He strolled to the mic and said, simply, 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:26.960 said very much. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:31.280 No one else brought. 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.720 Their bodyguard with them to the American Music Awards that night, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.200 But there was no one else like Prince, not that night, 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.800 not any night. But on January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.640 the evening of the American Music Awards, no one could 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:51.000 do what Prince could do, which specifically was beat Michael 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.400 Jackson in his unbeatable album Thriller in the Favorite Pop 0:03:55.440 --> 0:04:00.000 Album category. Right now, Prince was no longer in the ascendant. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.680 At twenty six years old, Prince was at the mountaintop. 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.720 The album for which he won those awards, Purple Rain, 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.120 was also the soundtrack to the movie of the same name, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.520 released the year prior, a number one movie that generated 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.520 two number one singles, When Doves Cry and Let's Go Crazy. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.880 But the most impressive statistic was that now, in January 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.520 of nineteen eighty five, the album Slash soundtrack Purple Rain 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.040 had just ended its twenty four week streak at number 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.960 one on the Billboard Album Chart. Twenty four weeks, that's 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.599 six months. If you don't want to do the math, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.839 and you're not alone. Prince didn't want to do the 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.960 math either. Prince just wanted to do things the way he. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:44.520 Wanted them done. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.000 Doing it his way was how he made his first 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.880 album For You back in nineteen seventy eight, while he 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.160 was still just a teenager. He produced it, arranged it, 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:01.240 and performed everything entirely by himself. Doing it his way 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.400 was how he made his third album, Dirty Mind, at 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.440 nineteen eighty. That record's raw, funk and brazen lyrical content 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.320 was so game changing that the Village Voice rock critic 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.280 Robert chris Gau wrote, and I quote, Mick Jagger can 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.280 just fold up his penis and go home. And his 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.599 way was also the only way when it came to 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.520 training his band, The Revolution. The rehearsals went on for 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.600 hours with no interruptions. And you better learn to play 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:27.640 that bass with one hand so that if you get hungry, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.240 you can make a sandwich with the other hand and 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.560 not miss a beat. You want bathroom breaks, go ask 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.000 Bruce Springsteen if he's hiring and speaking to Bruce. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:37.360 Let's get back to. 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.520 The evening of January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, because 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.360 on this night, immediately following the awards ceremony, the Boss 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.919 and every other major artist in the room are headed 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.040 over to A and M Studios in Hollywood. There they'll 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.560 record a charity single to benefit famine in Ethiopia called 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:59.440 We Are the World but not Prince corneass supergroup charity 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.159 songs follow that under things Prince does not want to do. 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.359 What do you mean Prince isn't coming? Quincy Jones was pissed. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.360 The iconic arranger and producer had assembled a who's who 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:19.520 of talent for this song, Michael Lionel, Cindy Huey, Bobby, Billy, Tina, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.680 both Kennies. But if he didn't have Prince, the man 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.599 of the hour, the man who dominated popular culture for 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.960 the last six months, and what did he really have? 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.240 Prince's manager, Bob Cavallo could sense Q's patience wearing thin, 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.800 so we threw him a bone. Prince says he'll come 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.159 play guitar on that track. Quincy Jones was now straight 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:41.040 up offended. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.240 I don't need him to play guitar, Bob. 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:47.640 We've got fucking guitars, and Bob Cavallo panicked. He lied 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.080 and told Quincy that the real reason Prince couldn't make. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:51.320 It it was because he was sick. 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:53.560 And then he hung up and called his client Prince 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.200 and made it very clear that because of that lie, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:02.040 it was imperative that Prince lail for the evening. Prince 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.400 heard this kind of thing his whole life. Do this, 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.960 don't do that. As a kid, his father forbade him 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.840 from playing his family piano, and because his father, an 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.400 accomplished jazz musician, saw himself as the talent in the family, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:16.280 and the one with the talent was the one who 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.240 get to play. And of course Prince was not just 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.640 as good as his father, but far better. He had 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.080 that pure God given ability from an early age. But 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.640 I firmly believe that it was this gatekeeping that drove Prince, 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.320 first as an unknown and then as an award winning icon, 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.240 to prove not just to his dad but to the 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.920 whole world that he could play better than anyone on 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:44.000 any instrument. And by the time of Purple Rain, that talent, 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.800 that fame, and that power it was a potent combination 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.240 that any twenty six year old would find hard to handle. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.160 As Wendy melvoy and the Revolution's other guitarist, said, Prince 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.960 at this time was quote almost like a kid with 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.080 too much candy unquote. And Prince was and sharing his candy, 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.920 not with Quincy Jones or Kenny Rogers or Kenny Loggins 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.200 or Kenny whoever the fuck. So not only was Prince 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.760 not participating in We Are the World, he was going 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.600 to ignore the advice of his manager go hit the 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.640 town and party like it was well, you know. First 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.240 off was Carlos and Charlie's, a Mexican joint on the 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.800 Sunset step Prince and the Revolution. That's Wendy Melvoyne, along 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.640 with keyboardists Lisa Coleman and Matt doctor Fink, bassist Mark 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.319 Brown aka Brown Mark, and drummer Bobby z. They had 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.040 the run of the place and after some food, they 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:40.199 all transitioned upstairs to l Pravado, which, yes, movie Ben 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.520 was a private club where the band could be treated 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.120 like the VIP rock star as they were. But Wendy 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.960 and the rest of the Revolution weren't feeling the VIP vibe, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.400 especially while their peers were collaborating on a collective good deed. 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.360 Prince told him the chill to the victor, go the spoils. Besides, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.960 who is gonna find out. It was late when they 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.079 left the club and Prince, flanked by his shadow of 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.000 Big Chick and his other bodyguard, Wally Safford, slipped into 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.840 a car outside on the strip. As they did so, 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.600 the other rear passenger door flung open and a man 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.239 with a camera jumped inside and began snapping photos. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.199 Prince was startled. He threw up his. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.240 Hands in front of his face and then just blurted out, 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.000 get the film, get the film. 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.840 And the photographer quickly bailed. Pauling ass on foot down. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.920 Sunset bodyguard Wally Safford gave Chase and the sight of 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.520 this very capable man, a man who learned his trade 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.360 from the Nation of Islam and had paid his dues 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.160 protecting hot shot bands from the Commodore's to Parliament, funking 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.320 delic set more paparazzi running out of the shadows. Wally 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.640 didn't care about the rest of him. He just wanted 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.280 that fucker who had taken the photos of Prince in 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.400 the car. Wally closed in, and the photographer stopped, turned 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.720 around and took a swing at Wally's head with his 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.800 long lens camera. Wally's memories of hanging around Muhammad Ali 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.880 as a kid came flooding back. He ducked, then rose 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.000 and drilled a shutterbug right in his eye, knocking them 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:08.320 into some bushes. The next morning, just as manager Bob 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.360 Cavallo had predicted, and just how Wendy and the others 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.400 had feared, the story was all over the papers. Wally 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.720 Safford was arrested. Prince was disgraced, exposed as a selfish 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.880 outlier who is now being hit along with his bodyguards, 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:27.240 with a fifteen million dollar lawsuit. Big Chick freaked out. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.599 This was more than the usual crowd control bullshit he 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.440 normally dealt with. He worried the next time it would 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.080 be worse, the next time someone would really get hurt. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.359 His next move shocked Prince as much as that paparazzo 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:45.280 who jumped into his car. Big Chick quit, but he 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:46.559 wasn't out of Prince's. 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:47.439 Life just yet. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.800 Big Chick had an equally big cocaine problem, and in 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.079 order to pay for that problem, he sold a scandalous 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.080 story about his one time boss to the National Inquirer 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.480 for a quick buck, and the resulting article would play 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.160 a huge part in how the general public's perception of 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.880 Prince began to shift. But you can't really blame Big Chick. 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.640 The wheels were already in motion as early as the 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.319 night of January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, the night 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.120 of the American Music Awards and of We Are the World. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.760 The Prince may have reached the mountaintop, but that meant 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.079 that there was nowhere to go but down. And so 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.000 as a photographer nursed his wounds, as the La Times 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.200 ran the kind of headline that Bob Cavallo could have 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.640 written himself, and as the lawyers started to come for 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.360 Princess Wallet, all of it so clearly pointed to the 0:11:36.400 --> 0:12:04.360 next phase of Prince's career, the backlash. Four years earlier, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.360 in nineteen eighty one, nineteen year old Mark Brown, just 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:09.400 out of high school, had yet to flip his name 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.960 around to create the stage name Brown Mark. 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:13.760 He had also yet to. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.120 Be drafted by Prince for a role in the Revolution, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.720 but being a Minneapolis kid playing bass in a band 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.240 on the city scene, of course, Mark already knew about Prince. 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.240 Everybody in the Twin Cities knew about Prince. He was 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.800 the local prodigy, the one they called the kid, a 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.320 sonic wizard who was putting their Midwestern town on the 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.400 musical map. Prince was the success story that all other 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.240 Minneapolis funk and R and B bands measured against when 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.560 they dreamed of scoring their own big break. At the moment, however, 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.120 Mark wasn't thinking about big breaks or about Prince. He 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.200 was thinking about the gun aimed at his head, a 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.120 gun that had been pulled on him by his own bandmate. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.880 Mark was used to this sort of thing, the threat 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.520 of violence that was always bubbling under the surface, especially 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:03.800 in the north side of town, where a local disc 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.360 jockey DJ Kyle Ray have been shot dead the year prior. 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.200 But to have your own bandmate pull a gun on 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.000 you and threaten to pull the trigger all over creative 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.880 differences that was fucked up Mark with the guy would 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.719 in the argument over how to play the song or 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.960 whatever bug was up his ass. Besides, the gun was 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.640 all for show, the tool of an insecure musician who 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.320 is likely overcompensating. Mark knew then and there that it 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:33.319 was time for a change. Change was good, it was healthy, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:39.920 change was survival. And when change literally came calling, Mark answered. 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:44.679 The phone rang not at Mark's house, but in the 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.840 rehearsal space where he and his group Fantasy were in 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.719 the middle of a band practice. It was none other 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:55.840 than Prince calling for Mark. No shit, Prince asked Mark 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.480 if he would come audition for his band tomorrow night, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.760 and this required careful exit strategy to avoid another gun 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:04.680 to the face when Mark broke the news to the 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.440 rest of his band, and when it came to showing 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.640 up a Prince's place to audition, that also required another 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:15.400 kind of strategy, this one even more delicate than the last, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.600 because everybody in Minneapolis knew about Prince, and I'm not 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.600 just talking about the kid's musical talent. They'd all heard 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.280 the gossip. The Prince was a freaky motherfucker, as freaky 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.760 as they came. Just look at the cover of his 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.200 latest record, Dirty Mine Dudes, wearing a trench coat and 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:38.000 black briefs and rocking that mustache, singing songs about oral 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:42.920 sex and incest. In that falsetto rumor had it, there 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.520 was one particularly shocking and taboo initiation right the Prince 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:50.440 made all of his auditionees perform, or so one of 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.560 Mark's friends told him, and that friend further told him 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.520 that Prince's house where the audition was to be held, 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.480 was not a house, but instead a compound right by 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.920 armored tanks and German shepherds. As Mark would discover firsthand, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.440 the craziest part of Prince's house was the automatic driveway 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.400 gate opener that split the black chain link fence in two. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.640 And there were no tanks, no dogs, and no sexual favors required. 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.800 Prince was Prince, which is to say, he was just 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:25.040 cool as shit, and yes, Mark Brown aka Brown Mark, 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:30.360 passed the audition. A few years later, in nineteen eighty five, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.280 Mark was doing the thing live in the Dream, an 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.480 integral part of the Purple Rain Tour, which was, let's 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.280 be honest, more than a tour, it was a daily 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.840 grind which consisted of the following. You pull into a 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.440 new city, set up the equipment, and soundcheck for hours. 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.440 The sound check is like its own show, and often 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.520 it doesn't end until that night's audience starts to arrive. Next, 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.120 you grabbed dinner, but you don't get to savor it 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:57.680 because you got to rush back to the. 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.040 Venue where sometimes over one hundred thousand. 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.640 Pe people are waiting to see you perform. The show 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.920 is two hours long, give or taken. It's huge, as 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.160 huge as the loads. The Prince's custom made guitar shoots 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.320 over the crowd one hundred feet into the air, all 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:16.080 that white ivory, liquid, soap, ejaculate and I'm not even 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.680 fucking kidding here. This is the thing that happened. Prince 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.960 had a guitar that he could make come in a 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:22.480 jack u castor he called it. 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:23.040 Look it up. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.320 But after you know, the load is blown and all that, 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.040 the night's not over, because next you have to play 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.720 yet another full set, this time at an after party 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.120 at a club somewhere in town, and that takes you 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.280 into the wee hours of the morning, and some nights 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.920 you get lucky. Some nights Prince wants to record new 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.640 music instead, which he does in the mobile recording truck 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:43.880 that is part of the touring caravan er, maybe at 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.080 a local studio, you know, don't forget. 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.080 On many days you also have to fit into that 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:49.200 a tenerary. 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.000 Another show, a full two hour set in the afternoon, 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.960 perform for sick children because contrary to do is freaky reputation, 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.120 Contrary to all that negative press he received over the 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.560 We Are the World bullshit, Prince was as charitable as 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.440 they came. But he didn't do it for the publicity, 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.359 not like the rest of them mugging for the camera 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.520 in that video that was playing every day on MTV. 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.879 They were the ones who made a brighter day. Prince 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.800 was out here doing the work, real work for real 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.159 people who needed it, while Quincy Jones's crew was mugging 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.280 for the cameras and patting themselves on the backs. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:24.240 It didn't matter. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.240 Many were now approaching Prince with the same kind of 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.679 skepticism that Brown Mark once had, because stirring the pot 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.520 was that new National Inquirer article courtesy of the tell 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.880 all payday earned by Prince's former shadow Big Chick, who 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.439 took the three thousand dollars check you receive for spilling 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.680 his supposed guts and promptly snorted it. 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:46.280 Up his nose. 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.520 The headline of that article read, the real Prince He's 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.960 trapped in a bizarre, secret world of terror. They said, 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.440 Prince lived in an armed fortress, not with a girlfriend 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.040 or a wife, but with a food food taster who 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.280 ensured that every meal was safe for the Purple Ones consumption. 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:05.919 They said the Prince had. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.359 Walled wall portraits of Marilyn Monroe, that he talked to 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.800 them as if they were real. They said about his 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.320 erotic song Darling Nikki, you know the one that US 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.440 Senator Al Gore's wife, Tipper Dean pornographic and wanted censored 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.840 thanks to the financial backing of the Beach Boys Mike 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.520 Love The one and the same we resent to Prince 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.679 with an American Music Award in nineteen eighty five, that 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.080 little weasel. But I digress, they said the National Inquirer. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.040 They said that if you played the weird backwards section 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:38.000 of Darling Nicky in reverse, you'd hear a creepy satanic message. Prince, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.040 of course, didn't publicly reply to all of this, just 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.399 as he didn't publicly share that he performed shows on 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.919 the regular for kids in need. Instead, he let the 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.520 mystery play out, mystery being the thing that sells. Copies 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.880 of The Inquirer are sure, but mystery sells records too, like. 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:56.160 Around the world in the day. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.880 The follow up to Purple Rain, released just weeks after 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:03.840 that record breaking tour ended. It too, went right to 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.840 number one on the album chart, even as Prince's reputation 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:12.479 was taking hits on all fronts. Unlike Purple Rain, Around 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.679 the World in a Day, only held the top spot 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.960 for three weeks. So Prince tried a new tactic that fall. 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.000 He granted Rolling Stone and interview to show that he 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.159 wasn't what everyone had made him out to be, and 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.280 also to show that truth could be stranger than fiction, like, 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.359 for instance, the backwards section of Darling Nikki. That wasn't 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:38.520 some subversive satanic message. In fact, you play that part 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:43.320 in reverse and you hear a message about God. That 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:48.480 right there, that was fantasy versus reality, and reality at 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.880 that moment and all of its beautiful and ugly forms 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.560 was playing out in real time on the streets of 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.280 Prince's beloved Minneapolis. 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.840 We'll be right back after this. We're We're, We're. 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.480 John Scruggs, the self appointed leader of the Black gangster 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:22.640 Disciple Nation aka the Disciples, told Sandra White to bring 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:27.160 her twenty two revolver to tonight's meeting. It was October thirteenth, 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:31.840 nineteen eighty five, just after midnight. Sandra White did as 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.520 she was told, as any loyal disciple would do. When 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:39.200 John Scruggs spoke, If Scruggs said jump, you asked how high. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.560 So White showed up with the gun and then listened 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.440 carefully as Scruggs laid out the plan to her and. 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:46.200 The rest of the group. 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.760 Three weeks earlier, their street gang had robbed a gun 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:55.600 store in their hometown of Minneapolis. The crime was almost perfect, 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.240 but the cops managed to get their hands on sixteen 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.320 year old disciple well, Christine Krites, and Scruggs was concerned 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:07.920 that she had turned snitch. That's why Christine Kritz had 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.919 to go. Sandra White and the others would make that happen. 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.720 They were to take her out tonight with Sandra White's gun. 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.440 John Scruggs laid it all out, follow Christine Krit's home 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:26.040 and shoot her dead. This was their mission. Sandra White, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:30.480 Mary Braxton, and Grayland Williams did as John Scruggs told them, 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.679 and they followed sixteen year old Christine Kritz back to 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.560 her place, stopping just shy at her front door at 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.000 the tennis courts near Martin Luther King Junior Park in 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.080 South Minneapolis. There, Graylen Williams took hold as a twenty 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:47.119 two He thought again of John Scruggs's orders, follow her 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:48.639 home and shoot her dead. 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:50.439 This was their. 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.960 Mission, as grayln Williams did so. Sandra White and Mary 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.399 Bruxton lit a joint and try to look nonchalant, and 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.080 they didn't even notice the moment when Williams pulled the 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:08.960 gun to Christine Kritz's head and pulled the trigger. Nine 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.160 months later, in the summer of nineteen eighty six, Prince 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.200 was reading all about the murder of Christine Kritz in 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.439 the arrest of the Disciples gang and the impending trial 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:23.520 on the pages of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Kids killing Kids. 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.359 Prince thought, man, what the hell was going on? The 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:30.560 crime rate in his hometown was reaching a fever pitch, 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.359 but it was obviously just a small part of a 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.120 larger narrative happening everywhere. He turned the page to read 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.960 about ballistic nuclear missiles locked cocked and ready to fly, 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:47.240 US bombs and Libya aids, drugs and famine. Another page, 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:52.120 the ongoing investigation into the Challenger space shuttle explosion. Another page, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.919 an earthquake out West in nineteen eighty six. The fault 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.439 lines weren't just out in southern California. They lay beneath 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.359 the ranks of the Revolution, many of whom were beginning 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.560 to feel iced out by the new members Prince was 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:09.760 bringing on board, including Susannah Melvoyn, Wendy's twin sister, who 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.720 was also princess fiance at the time. Those shaky fault 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:18.720 lines were also undermining Prince's unwavering desire to change. Creatively speaking, 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:21.800 he knew this, just like Brown Mark knew it as 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:23.560 a musician on the come up with a gun in 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:24.080 his face. 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:26.199 Change was survival. 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:29.840 Just look at Miles Davis. You change your clothes, you 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:32.919 change your sound. Do you think Miles gave two shits 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.480 about what Columbia Records thought about bitches Brew. Change is 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.600 why Prince refused to repeat the playbook for Purple Rain, 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.560 moving on to psychedelia, funk and pop for Around the 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:46.960 World in the Day in the underrated Parade. But by 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:50.840 doing so it cost him first with R and B fans, 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:53.680 who accused Prince of turning his back on black music, 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.680