Prince, Musical Genre, and the Construction of Racial Identity

Legendary musician Prince (1958-2016) weaved between musical genres using various instruments and his voice. His first two albums in the 1970s utilize a mixture of up-tempo disco beats and rock guitar chords. Keyboard synthesizers on his breakthrough album, 1999 (which came out in 1982), gave it a new wave feel, while hard rock guitar and gospel and funk vocal techniques elevated 1984’s Purple Rain. R&B rhythms with a pop sound flow throughout his discography. Musician and self-proclaimed Prince fan Woodworth (popular music studies, Univ. of South Carolina Upstate) uses biographical and archival resources to argue that Prince evolved his sound to break away from the stereotypes of Black music versus white music that divided the music industry. Woodworth analyzes the compositions of specific songs in abundant detail to demonstrate how Prince cannot be boxed into any one category. Note that the book’s use of very technical music terminology might keep it from being accessible to the average reader.