Prince
Was a Champion for Working People
The world lost a musical icon. You can read about his impact as
a musician and an entertainer elsewhere, but let's take a second to look at
Prince's career-spanning fights on behalf of working people.
For more than 40 years,
Prince was a union member, a long-standing member of both the Twin Cities
Musicians Local 30-73 of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and SAG-AFTRA.
Beginning with "Ronnie Talk to Russia" in 1981 on
through hits like "Sign o' the Times" and later works like "We
March" and "Baltimore," Prince's music often reflected the
dreams, struggles, fears and hopes of working people.
And he wasn't limited to words, his Baltimore concert in the
wake of Freddie Gray's death raised funds to help the city recover. I got to sit
on the right side of the stage, high in the rafters, to watch joyously.
Few of America's artists have so well captured the plight of
working Americans as Prince, putting him in the line of artists like Woody
Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen as working-class heroes.
Ray Hair, president of
AFM, spoke of Prince's importance:
"We are devastated about the loss of Prince, a member of our union for over 40 years. Prince was not only a talented and innovative musician, but also a true champion of musicians’ rights. Musicians—and fans throughout the world—will miss him. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and fans grieving right now."
And this is a key part of
his legacy. Prince was deeply talented and could have easily made his success
without much help from others. And yet he was a massive supporter of other
artists, from writing and producing songs for artists as diverse as Chaka
Khan, the Bangles, Sinéad O'Connor, Vanity, Morris Day and the Time and
Tevin Campbell (among many others) to his mentoring and elevating of women in music, to the time where he put
his own career on the line in defense of the rights of artists.
Every musician that came after owes him a debt of gratitude.
The music industry has a
deeply troubled past, with stories of corporations exploiting musicians,
especially African American musicians, being plentiful enough to fill
libraries.
At the height of his popularity, Prince decided that he would
fight back. He was set, financially and career-wise, and had nothing to gain
from taking on the onerous contracts that artists were saddled with when they
were young, inexperienced and hungry.
If he lost everything by taking on the industry, he still had
money and fame to rely on. But he knew this wasn't true for many other
musicians, and Prince was always a fan of music, and he knew that taking on
this battle would help others. So he took on the recording industry on behalf
of music. On behalf of the industry's working people — the musicians
themselves.
It cost him his name and
his fame.
In the ensuing battle, Prince famously renounced
his birth name and began performing under an unpronounceable symbol instead of
a name.
He fought the company at every turn, even writing the word
"slave" on his face in protest of the conditions he worked under.
He said:
"People think I'm a crazy fool for writing 'slave' on my face. But if I
can't do what I want to do, what am I?"
For the rest of his career, which never recovered to his early
heights, he continually fought to change the way that record companies treated
artists, explored new ways to distribute music to fans and battled to give
artists more control and more revenue for the art they create.
In a still-changing musical landscape, Prince was one of a
handful of artists who helped shape a future where musicians, working people,
get the fruits of their labor.
In honor of Prince's
passing, check out his performance, an all-time
great, at the country's largest annual event brought to you by union workers,
the Super Bowl.