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Prince Rogers Nelson — More Than Just A Pop/Rock Icon: His Spiritual And Humanitarian Side [Video]

By Dee Sharp
Published on: 09:56 PST, Apr 23, 2016

Prince Rogers Nelson died on April 21, 2016, at his home in Paisley Park, Minnesota. The internet erupted in tributes and honors for the “artist known as the artist formerly known as Prince” and the world mourned his passing. I particularly mourned the passing of Prince as he was a major influence in my music in my younger days, Purple Rain was one of my favorite films of all time, and I counted myself blessed to have gone to one of Prince’s Purple Rain Tour concerts in Dallas, Texas. That concert was the first concert I ever attended and Prince’s performance was surreal, to say the least.

His personality while he was performing was electric, and he was playful and engaging. When I saw him accepting awards for Purple Rain, he seemed so shy and spoke few words. Most guys I knew during that time made fun of Prince because of the way he dressed, but I thought the frilly shirts Prince wore were so romantic, like the men on the cover of romance novels. It didn’t matter that Prince wore ruffly shirts and high heels, females of all races and ages adored Prince. In Purple Rain, the love scenes between Prince and Apollonia took our breath away.

Before Purple Rain, Prince was deemed a “bad boy” because of his raunchy lyrics. In fact, Prince was the reason those black and white Parental Advisory stickers started showing up on albums — “Darling Nikki” from the album Purple Rain spurred the decision for albums like that to be labeled as such. Prince however, was very young at this time, his first album was produced by Warner Bros. in 1978 when Prince was only 17-years-old. Maturity might have had a lot to do with those lyrics, because the older Prince got, the more mature his music became.

After the success of Purple Rain, Prince released Around the World in A Day, which was full of songs that seemed to be in line with Purple Rain, it had the jazzy pop sound from Purple Rain in songs like “Raspberry Beret,” and none of the songs had the raunchy lyrics Prince was famous for, except maybe “Temptation.” But in that song, it seemed that Prince was becoming more mature, from the last verse of the song.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be good, this time I promise – Love is more important than sex – Now I understand, I have to go now – I don’t know when I’ll return, goodbye”

Was Prince saying goodbye to his raunchy alter-ego? Perhaps, but over the years Prince went back and forth with songs that were still raunchy and even X-rated. It was like Prince had a war going on inside his head. He literally had two personas, the raunchy bad boy and the philosophical dreamer, fortunately (for me) more of his songs were philosophical than raunchy.

That brings me to the purpose of this article, not that Prince was a good influence or a bad influence, however I believe he was more good than bad. Prince was obviously a spiritual person and the majority of his songs showed his spiritual side. Prince obviously had a very caring heart, and as evidenced from what his friend Van Jones said about him, Prince was a true humanitarian who did not seek to gain credit or glory for what he did to help people. Prince was a devout Jehovah’s Witness and believed in God, he told Jones “to go to Jerusalem and pray for two weeks” before deciding what he wanted to do and he told Jones he would help him realize his dreams. Van Jones said Prince did not want people to know how much he helped those in need. That, to me, is a true humanitarian.

No matter what you think about Prince, whether or not he was a good or bad influence, Prince was a man who struggled daily like all of us with an internal battle. Aside from the raunchy lyrics many people liken Prince to, he wrote spiritual songs as well, (“God,” “The Cross”) giving us a view of who he really was.

Lyrics to “God”

In the beginning, there was God
He made the earth, and the heavens
He gave us light to rule the day
And another light to rule the night

The Lord, thy God
Made, He made the seas
He made the fruit upon the trees
When He saw, when He saw that it was good

He made a man, made a man
Only He could, only He could
God made you
God made me too
He made us all
Made us all equally

Now you say
God made you
God made me
He made us all equally

Rest in peace, Prince Rogers Nelson, and thank you for the lasting impression you had on all of us, and for your wonderful giving heart.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NAACP Image Awards]

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