A Purple Pilgrimage: Remembering Prince In Minneapolis
Autumn, a season of transition, has arrived in Minneapolis. The leaves, a sea of orange, red and yellow, fall from trees onto green grass.
Some days are sunny, a warm breeze that settles in throughout the day, the waters of Lake Calhoun and Minnetonka swaying gently as the sun reflects off its waves.
Some days are cold, with winds so intense that serve as a reminder that, like fellow metropolitan midwest city Chicago, Minneapolis can also be unpleasantly windy.
Minneapolis was the home of Prince Rogers Nelson, better known throughout the world as Prince. He was born here, lived most of his life here and died here, a worldly man that remained a resident of the city up until his death on April 21, 2016.
What does a world without Prince look like? What does a Minneapolis without Prince look like? How does the city synonymous with one of music's most enigmatic, larger than life personas properly mourn a man we all thought would live forever?
Well for starters — a party.
When news was announced that an official Prince tribute would happen on October 13, what followed was a series of events that led to fans across the world wondering if the event would actually occur.
The concert moved from the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul; the lineup was released only a few weeks before the concert's scheduled date; and the last minute dropouts of headlining performers Anita Baker, Christina Aguilera and John Mayer.
To pull off a celebration of such caliber for a man that only deserved the best, it was inevitable that the tribute would endure some challenges.
But the concert served as a testament to Prince's legacy, with fans in attendance just as important as the artists that took the stage.
A lot of people present at the concert traveled from different parts of the world for the tribute. Daree from Waterloo, Iowa; Chris from Miami, who went straight to the concert after arriving in Minneapolis two hours prior; and Joel Matos from Chicago, who dressed as Purple Rain Prince and offered his best sensual scowl as people asked him for a picture.
"He was a one man machine," Matos says. "He did everything on his own — he played all the instruments, wrote all of the music. He was a purple music machine."
What Prince meant to people varies. Like Matos most fans spoke to the artist's virtuosity — how he had the ability to play almost every instrument to ever exist.
But there's one word that Chris uses to describe him that resonates with tonight's festivities — unifier.
"Who here is from Australia? France? The United States," one of the performers asked throughout the night.
The 17,000 capacity center cheered triumphantly in response, as rows and rows of people danced and sang with one another to the music of Prince.
The talent that took the stage that night was a constant rotation of Prince affiliates and special guests: Morris Day & The Time; Andre Cymoné; Doug E. Fresh; Chaka Khan; Stevie Wonder; Judith Hill; Liv Warfield; and the first and last iterations of the New Power Generation.
At times the tribute was exhaustive: a five hour long sonic adventure that could've been condensed, and still conveyed Prince's worldly influence.
But the allure of a party is spontaneity and unpredictability — that anyone can roll through at any time. That one moment fans are watching Cymoné shred on "Uptown" or Bilal croon on "The Beautiful Ones," and the next witnessing Prince's former wife Mayte Garcia offering a sword brandishing belly dance routine.
For those that never got the chance to attend one of Prince's infamous impromptu shows at Paisley Park, this was the closest to that they were ever going to get now.
The last remaining moments of the tribute were dedicated to Stevie Wonder, who started off his set by covering Donnie Hathaway's "Someday We'll All Be Free," and finished with an extended jam of "Superstition."
Wonder then returned to the stage for the encore — "Purple Rain". He swayed solemnly, trying to bring the microphone to his mouth to sing. His bottom lip quivered the closer the microphone got.
Then he started to cry.
As the band played to a vocal track of Prince singing his singular anthem the entire moment felt surreal. Wonder, one of the last musical ambassadors of a generation, shedding tears for a musical soulmate and friend gone too soon.
Everyone followed in suit, the audience's tears turned purple by lights flashing all over the arena, their gaze transfixed on Prince's love symbol that shined on a screen above the stage.
Underneath those purple lights presented an almost utopian sentiment: that we were all one in Prince's world. "I wish there was no black and white," the artist once declared on "Controversy".
I wonder what he would've thought of this moment — each and every one of us bathed in purple, singing the last seconds of "Purple Rain" together.
"We love you Prince," Wonder tearfully yells before being walked offstage. The house lights turn on and everyone makes their way outside.
Prince's love symbol shines on a screen outside of the arena, its trademark purple replaced with a glowing white shining in the St. Paul night sky.
A cultural shift occurred in Minneapolis following the rise of Prince, where whenever a person revealed they were from the city the conversation always led to this inevitable question: have you ever seen him?
But before and even after his rise Prince could be seen anywhere and everywhere: Shinders, a defunct books and magazines store in Eden Prairie; Bunkers, a bar and venue; Lunds & Byerlys, a grocery store chain; Minnesota Dance Theater and Electric Fetus, a record store chain in Minneapolis.
"He was just around," Katherine Anderson says. Anderson, who grew up in Minneapolis and is the wife of Prince collaborator and longtime friend Andre Cymoné, has her share of Prince stories: from playing "Let's Pretend We're Married" during music appreciation day at a Catholic school she attended, to watching him perform alongside famed trumpeter Miles Davis at Paisley Park as a teenager on New Years Eve in 1987.
"I think if you're from Minneapolis and were into the music scene in any aspect of it, you probably have a Prince related story," Vanessa Drews adds. Drews, who also grew up in Minneapolis, saw Prince perform an intimate show at Paisley Park for fellow superstar Madonna last year. Drews was also in charge of the Purple Essence Twitter, an unofficial Prince account that offered updates on the artist's then new band 3RDEYEGIRL, up until the creation of his own official account.
As an outsider it's hard to believe that Prince, a man immortalized in stories that spoke to his mystical, unseen and untouchable self, was surprisingly present in Minneapolis. One of Katherine's friends, David Gayman, recounts a moment where he and his girlfriend at the time, ran into Prince at a Lunds while tripping on LSD and weed back in 1986.
"He was accompanied by a brunette woman, with both of them wearing what looked like silk pajamas and viewing magazines in that section of the store," David said. "We exchanged glances and smiles before the two of them politely left. As teenagers, it only contributed to the psychedelic experience we were both having."
Prince was a fabric of Minneapolis and that ultimately grew following the release of his magnum opus — Purple Rain. He had brought Hollywood to Minneapolis, showcasing an array of spots that have since become tourist attractions for the city: the Crystal Court of the IDS Center, Lake Minnetonka and the famed First Avenue.
"After Purple Rain everybody started showing up in a ruffled shirt, Jheri curls and a demo tape," Anderson says. "They were from Kentucky, they were from Tennessee, they were from all across America. That's when we realized that this had become something bigger."
But in hearing of Prince's inevitable rise to international fame, it's nice to hear about Prince when he was still cultivating his sound and identity.
Cymoné wasn't only Prince's bassist during his formative years but basically a brother, with Cymoné's siblings adopting him when he left his home.
A friendship between Cymoné and Prince formed their shared love of music, with the two dedicating hours and hours to creating music together.
"I was in the attic and he was in the basement, and we'd go back and forth showing each other our music," Cymoné says. "I still have a lot of recordings from him on cassette: 'Whenever,' 'Sex Machine' and 'Just As Long As We're Together.'"
Through their bond the two would write songs together for one another and other artists, most notably the Minneapolis funk band 94 East. When Prince signed to Warner Bros. in the late '70s, he asked Cymoné to be a part of his touring band, where he served as the bassist up until his departure in 1981.
Cymoné doesn't disclose what led to him leaving, only citing creative differences and tensions as the reasons. He embarked on a solo career of his own but was plagued by media scrutiny, where stories attempted to pit him against Prince.
Cymoné stopped giving interviews and after releasing his last album AC in 1985, produced and wrote songs for other artists before returning nearly three decades later with The Stone.
Although Cymoné and Prince later resolved their issues, the former hadn't really engaged with the latter's music up until now. In doing the tribute Cymoné had rediscovered Prince.
"I was so proud to be able to get into his music through the other artists that performed," Cymoné says. "When I heard 'Erotic City' or 'So Blue,' I kept thinking 'I know what inspired these songs.' Through that reconnection I realized how far Prince took what he started with his music."
A few days later and I'm spending my last day in Minneapolis talking to Cymoné, who now resides in California. He shares some more stories, including a conversation he had with Morris Day at the tribute, where he asked him how he's been holding up ever since Prince's death. The question ultimately left Cymoné in tears, right as he took the stage to perform "The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker".
"We'd always say that we would get together," Cymoné says. "I regret not following up with him about that. I should've walked on up to Paisley Park and said, 'Let's cut a record, let's jam, whatever."
He talks about a new album he's working on, and how Prince was the main person he wanted to share it with. There's some hesitancy in his voice as if he, like most of us, is still trying to accept the fact that Prince is no longer with us. That his friend, brother and musical soulmate is gone.
"I didn't think he would not be here," Cymoné says.