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In light of the problematic Esquire article on #Prince, I want to share a true story that happened yesterday on my birthday. As I mentioned yesterday, I went into the city. During this trip I went to get a Starbucks. Socially distanced, had to make the order at the door... 
The barista was a friendly older white guy, who got visibly excited at seeing my Love Symbol pendant. He chatted about having just listened to "Alphabet St", and how much he loved "Parade" and loved Wendy and Lisa. Cool. All good so far.
But then, he made a comment, something like "After Lovesexy, I wasn't into it...... I liked it when he made pop music".
I nodded at him from under my mask to acknowledge - not that I agreed, but just out of recognition that this is a narrative I have heard before. There was a queue forming, and it's not like he'd been deliberately offensive so I wasn't going to challenge him there and then.
But I think it's important that we recognise that there's a racial element here, and that I don't think that it's a coincidence that the narrative changed from the gatekeepers once the prominent faces in Prince's music were more black faces.
Think about it. Instead of Rolling Stone covers with Wendy and Lisa and duets with Sheena Easton, circa 90/91 Prince starts featuring his heroes like George and Mavis, and new talent like Tevin, TC, Tony, Rosie, Robin Power very prominently.
This is when the media narrative changes. They want him to still be the Purple Rain guy. Hell, they STILL want that.
The media narrative, importantly, does not prevent continued success. D&P did big numbers. Come was a number 1 album here in the UK. But, journalists won't fawn anymore. Remember how he burned that Love Symbol review on TV?
But the media narrative is insidious. Casual fans and probably even the WB suits begin to take it as gospel, and it all culminates in the fight and name change, which the media spin as "proof" that he's lost his mind.
So when you hear that "He didn't make a great album after 87" stuff, that "he was so mysterious and unknowable" stuff, coming from people who probably never listened to Emancipation, or The Truth, or The Rainbow Children...... This is what it is.
And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That barista I met yesterday is EXACTLY who that Esquire article was written for. The writer, as much as I disagree with him, knows his audience. He's exactly like that guy, but with an audience.
People who didn't like it when Prince made hip-hop, or who say TMBGITW is cheesy, who fell off in the late 80s and forgot Prince existed until.... Guess what? He got up at RNRHOF and embarrassed the white "rock gods" on a song by a Beatle.
Or when he did Superbowl, missing the excellent point made by @anildash pointing out the genius theme of performing songs by white acts that were improved by black covers (Proud Mary, Watchtower).
The frustration comes when the white Eurocentric narrative is allowed to be dominant. Because it's confusing as fuck to many of us. I didn't grow up reading the NME, I grew up on month-late imports of VIBE and The Source (shout-out to @murphdogg29!)
It would be nice if the people in that position challenged the narrative. I hope that big efforts, like the upcoming Netflix thing, challenge it in a very public way.
I started work on a Prince documentary pre-pandemic, and it's a 90s focused one. We have killer interviews with Morris Hayes, Tony M and Al Bell (Stax/Bellmark) in the bag and I'm confident y'all will love it if we can get it finished.
Needless to say, we challenge that narrative a LOT in it. Stay tuned.
