Prince and my mentor BIG CHICK

Here’s what the late Tupac had to say about these two words:
NIGGER - a black man with a slavery chain around his neck.
NIGGA - a black man with a gold chain on his neck.

There’s an old adage that states “What you say, or allow to be said about you, is what you will become.”

In November 1988 Prince did one show in Seattle on the Lovesexy tour. I remember calling Austin, one of my best friends, to see if he wanted to come to the show.

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By: Harlan (Hucky) Austin

Dave Chappelle (Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories) tells a funny story about playing basketball with Prince and Eddy Murphy. Well, I have my own court-side tale to share when it comes to “shirts vs. blouses.”

I used to play basketball with some of my boys from the hood. We’d get a few guys together to play every Wednesday night. These games were always a lot of fun, and could get pretty colorful in terms of smack-down talk. Prince caught wind of these games, and one day asked me “how come you never invite me to play?” He asked if he could join in on a game. I was surprised, but I knew that Prince liked to play basketball, in fact his brother Duane Nelson was an All-State basketball player (Prince’s lyrics “I wish I were handsome and tall like my brother” were truthful–Duane was a towering basketball star.)

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Stage Tokyo Japan 1986

Parade was Prince’s first proper European/Japanese tour. The setlist was a little different than the American shows. The show was seen by 120,000 people. On the Japanese leg Sheila E was the opening act. The city of Yokohama, Japan was one of the last cities that Prince and The Revolution would play together. They played 4 shows from September 5-9 in 1986.

It is said that they where very emotional shows and Prince even broke multiple strings during the performance of Purple Rain. To be honest, I don’t know about guitar strings snapping. My job wasn’t so much to watch the performance, but rather observe the crowd. Nobody in Prince’s entourage knew it was going to be the Revolution’s last concert. We were all so tired and ready to go home.

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Tour bus Market Square Arena Indianapolis 4/1/1985

The Purple Rain Tour was one of the most successful tours to that point. Lasting 90 scheduled concerts, in 15,000-20,000 capacity arena’s, in 32 cities, being seen by 1.75 million people in the US and Canada and grossing approximately $30 million. The original idea was that this was going to be a world tour, but because of Prince being fed up with touring that idea was abandoned. As a replacement he broadcasted the March 30th, 1985 concert from Syracuse live in Europe, where it was seen by approximately 12-15 million people. That show was also released on video.
He also played 4 free charity concerts for handicapped children and in some cities food drives were organized. Prince also raised $500,000 for Marva Collins’ experimental Teacher Training Institute in Chicago.
Sheila E and her band played the opening act.

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