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I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became An Icon (2013)

by Touré(Favorite Author)

3.3 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1476705496 (ISBN13: 9781476705491)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Atria Books

review 1: My love affair with Prince began the very moment Purple Rain danced across movie screens. I was 12 at the time, much too young to fully understand the underlying sexual message of the music. And perhaps that was the draw. Prince's music at the time was taboo. He presented as someone who was to be secretly enjoyed. You had to be open in order to see past Prince's posturing and facade to understand that really, all he ever wanted to say through his music is that it is okay. It is okay to believe in God. It is okay to be a sexually open individual. Mostly, it is okay to be completely who you are. This book does a very good job of moving past the music to scratch at the surface of who Prince the man is. Toure's writing at times is annoyingly excited; the book slid into moments... more of ecstatic fandom which at times was distracting and exhaustive. My favorite line from the book came on the last page:"Years before he became a Joehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." That sums up Prince (both man and musician) perfectly.
review 2: Probably more like one-and-a-half stars. This slim book manages to milk 150 pages out of three things you may have already known: 1) Prince came from a broken family, 2) he writes songs about sex, 3) he writes songs about religion. Toure works himself up a bit about the first point, because he's come up with a theory that divorce is to Generation X (he's one of them; Prince isn't, but he acts like he is) what Vietnam, Woodstock, the Beatles and the Kennedy assassination were to baby boomers. Once he's got that out of his system, the rest of the book (points 2 and 3) rehashes old interviews and song lyrics but doesn't tell us anything about Prince that you didn't already know twenty years ago... What this says about "why Prince became an icon" (Shouldn't that be "how"...?) is anybody's guess. less

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