Minneapolis, MN
Before her Minneapolis farewell concert, Tyka Nelson spills the tea on her brother Prince
Tyka Nelson is giving her retirement/farewell performance Friday at the Dakota. Retirement? She hasn’t performed in the Twin Cities since 2008 at Bunkers. She hasn’t sung in public since 2018 in Australia.
Apparently, she’s retiring from the public role of being known as Prince’s sister.
Remember, she’s the only sibling who shared the same mother and father as Prince. (They had five other half-brothers and sisters.)
“I’m getting older,” said Nelson, 64, who will be performing on what would have been Prince’s 66th birthday. “I really wasn’t a singer. I’m a writer. I just happen to be able to sing. I enjoy singing.”
Enough to record four albums. But she insists she’s a writer. Her current project is a memoir.
“We are not there yet. We’ve got a few more chapters,” said Nelson, who doesn’t have a publisher. “It’s about me and my family.”
In an hourlong phone conversation last week, she spilled some tea about the Purple One, who died in 2016, and her own life. But she was often as elusive/evasive with her answers as he famously was.
On what to expect at the Dakota
“I’m going to honor Prince and my dad,” she said. “People don’t want to hear my junk.”
Her debut, “Royal Blue,” arrived in 1988. Her fourth and final album, “Hustler,” came out in 2011. She says she has a mixtape in the works.
She will sing a few songs at the Dakota but primarily act as emcee. St. Paul Peterson will lead the band, which includes such former Prince associates as guitarist Donna Grantis, singers Shelby J. and Marva King, and saxophonists Adrian Crutchfield and BK Jackson. (Nelson worked with Peterson in Australia.)
On the Prince estate
Nelson sold all but 2% of her shares to Primary Wave, a New York music management group headed by Larry Mestel that also bought the stake of Omarr Baker, Prince’s younger brother.
“We are a little teeny corner, but it’s a big role. It’s a cool role,” she said. “I can’t even think of what I sold. We — my son President and my son Sir — us three.”
Primary Wave controls 48% of the estate while Prince Legacy LLC, headed by Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer, acquired 50% from Prince’s siblings Sharon, Norrine and the late Johnny Nelson.
Speaking of the estate, Nelson can’t remember the last time she was at Paisley Park, but she hopes to go there soon because she wants a Prince umbrella.
On the Broadway-bound musical “Purple Rain”
“As far as I know, it’s like a ‘Mamma Mia!,’” she said, referring to the ABBA jukebox musical. “Somebody came up to me: ‘Who’s gonna play Prince?’ I just shut up because that’s not what it is. People won’t be disappointed.”
On the Netflix series on Prince
Director Ezra Edelman interviewed Nelson for an authorized Netflix project that has been in the works for more than four years. She said he asked about Prince being locked in the basement by his stepfather Hayward Baker.
“I smiled and I said, ‘That’s the craziest story,’” Nelson recalled. “Hay was the nicest guy. Never raised his voice. When he’d get mad at my mom, he’d go ‘Now, now Mattie.’ Mom was the one that gave us our punishments. I don’t remember that story [from Prince]. Do you? Prince shielded himself from letting you know who he really was. Prince didn’t want people to know who he was. Didn’t he say he ate bubblegum and all that craziness?”
On the “Purple Rain” premiere
“I cried through the whole thing, from start to finish,” she said of the 1984 gala in Hollywood attended by Eddie Murphy, Stevie Nicks, Lionel Richie and others. “So, I had to go to the one here [Minneapolis] to see the movie. I’m the crier in the family if you haven’t figured that out. I was blown away. I didn’t like the sex scenes.”
When she and Prince were kids, they watched Elvis Presley movies. “He said he wanted to do that,” she said. “I wanted to be Shirley Temple. We practiced signing our autographs. I was still 5, he was 7. I didn’t know what I was doing. He knew he was going to be famous.”
On grieving
“A very small part is grieving,” she acknowledged. “It took me a long time. Because he was the last link for me to people on this earth — it was my mom, my dad and my brother.”
While grieving, Nelson realized how beloved Prince was, especially when she went to London in 2017 to promote a mini-museum organized by Paisley Park.
“I didn’t know Prince was that big,” she admitted. “They lined up to tell me stories. Women would tell me, ‘I’m going to kill myself and then I put on this [Prince] song or heard it on the radio and I didn’t want to die.’ That’s so wonderful. So now you’re going to make me cry.”
On her last conversation with Prince
He phoned her Monday, four days before he was found dead at Paisley Park on April 21, 2016.
“He kept avoiding questions. I kept getting mad. I felt like ‘talk to me for two seconds.’ He’d change the subject, make a joke and then we’d both laugh. He asked me could I find more information about our family. Prince wanted me to find Sharon’s number. I didn’t question it. It was like ‘send this picture to that person.’ OK. What for?”
On the last time she saw Prince
It was Saturday night at Paisley Park, two nights after his private plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Ill., and he was hospitalized.
“There was a lady who wanted to hug him and the protector in me stood up — the lady was taller than me — the bodyguards came over and got her. Prince looked at me, ‘What you gonna do?’ So that made us smile.
“I said, ‘Do you hear how you kick that piano? You do it just like Daddy.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ He walked like Daddy. His sense of humor was Daddy. I think he’s built like Mom, in the middle he’s longer.”
Nelson was not aware that Prince had any illnesses, though when she hugged him, she felt he had lost a little weight.
“A couple of times I said, ‘How are you really?’ He didn’t go into anything with me. That was bothering me, and he knew it was but that was all he wanted to tell me. I don’t want to go into that. You’re going to spoil the book. Don’t you want me to make money?”
On who she is
“I’m one heck of a grateful person who had wonderful people in their life. I miss their wisdom. If I could I’d travel the whole world and meet people that loved him — I’m kind of the last link to him, for some people — it’s like giving back to him. As far as I’m concerned, he stayed because they loved his music. Now you made me cry twice. Don’t do it again.”
A Night of Purple Music
Who: Tyka Nelson and friends
When: 7 p.m. Fri.
Where: the Dakota, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.
Tickets: $70 to $90, dakotacooks.com
Minneapolis, MN
Ellison, Minneapolis, St. Paul update lawsuit against Operation Metro Surge with new data
(ABC 6 News) – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis and Saint Paul updated their lawsuit over Operation Metro Surge with new survey data on economic harm.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego conducted two surveys tied to the amended lawsuit. The lawsuit says the federal operation violated the Constitution and caused lasting economic damage.
The first survey was done between February and March and included nearly 1,400 residents. It found workers lost more than $240 million in wages during the operation.
A separate newly released survey of about 900 businesses found more than $600 million in lost revenue. The updated lawsuit from Keith Ellison and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul adds that new data to its claims.
April 21, 2016.
Ten years later, that day still doesn’t seem real to me.
I was sitting in the newsroom of The Montclair Times in the early afternoon when word came that Prince had died.
I was incredulous. One of my musical heroes was gone. No way.
I was skeptical because I am a reporter. But also because it was Prince — a superstar so secretive and controlling of his music and public image that you could imagine he would have to give his permission to let the world know of his demise.
As the day passed, videos showed grieving fans standing outside his home and music studio complex, Paisley Park, not far from his beloved Minneapolis. That’s when the reality dawned on me.
Prince Rogers Nelson had gone 2 the afterworld at only 57 years old.
He was gone so young — he had so much more music in him to record, release and perform in public for an adoring audience. He died alone after collapsing in an elevator at his complex.
Those things made me sad.
But I was also annoyed at myself. For not being a better aficionado of his music — by never seeing him in person and not collecting every piece of music he ever recorded.
After a few days of listening to the radio and online to “Purple Rain” and “1999” being played ad nauseam, I also heard lesser-known cuts like the heartbreakingly melancholic and sadly appropriate “Sometimes It Snows In April.”
When I heard the depressing reports that he died due to an accidental fentanyl overdose, I resolved to pay proper tribute to The Purple One.
I would go to Minnesota on a Prince Pilgrimage.
‘Nothing Compares 2 U’
April to June 2016.
I said I would go to Minneapolis, to Prince’s home ground, to pay my respects to him. I didn’t think I would go through with booking a ticket on United Airlines from Newark for the weekend before his birthday.
I had used up most of my vacation days and had one to spare, but not another to stay through Prince’s actual born day. Just my luck.
At least I was fulfilling a commitment to an artist I adore.
I wouldn’t say I was a fanatic for his Royal Badness (one of the many nicknames he carried in his lifetime). But he’s one of the few musicians who really moved me.
I heard his music growing up in the 1980s in Jersey City as a matter of course when the radio dial was set on R&B or pop music stations like KISS-FM and Z-100.
When Prince’s sixth studio album, “Purple Rain,” was released in the summer of 1984, it was a revolution that pushed the rising star into the stratosphere.
I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the screeching guitar and chanting of Prince that provided the intro to “When Doves Cry,” or the rhythmic strumming of the guitar and the clashing electric drums that start off the album’s title song.
However, it was watching “Purple Rain,” the movie, that put me on the Prince Express. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t act to the satisfaction of critics or that the plot seemed corny. I was just absolutely enthralled by him and his band, The Revolution, tearing through numbers that were a mélange of funk, rock and new wave, while in a musical rivalry with another badass, Morris Day, and his group.
My 13-year-old self also developed a crush on the leading lady, Apollonia Kotero, for her sultry voice and because she stripped nude to purify herself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. It blew my mind then (and still blows my mind now).
Prince would remain in the background of my music listening as the years passed.
If it wasn’t his voice, it was the voice of others singing his songs, because he was as adept a songwriter as he was a performer. “I Feel for You” (Chaka Khan), “Manic Monday” (The Bangles) and “Nothing Compares 2 U” (Sinéad O’Connor) are some of the major hits that came from his pen.
The first vinyl album I ever got, in my teens was “Around the World in a Day,” his 1985 anti-commercial and purposely obscured follow-up to “Purple Rain.”
In college and afterward, whenever I had a few bucks in my pocket, I bought various albums on CD: “Diamonds and Pearls,” “The Black Album,” “The Gold Experience” and “Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic,” and “Lovesexy” on cassette. I paid for a ticket to watch what may be Spike Lee’s worst movie, “Girl 6,” in part to hear Prince’s music.
But it wasn’t just Prince’s virtuoso musicianship that made me a believer. It was also his personality, confounding and infuriating at the same time, that intrigued me.
I chatted with NYU classmates about how he slept no more than two hours a day because he worked so hard in the studio, playing all the instruments and producing every track. Yet he looked like he hadn’t aged a minute.
You would hear stories of him boosting artists that he admired by having them play on his albums and in concert. Then you would hear stories of his unkindness and controlling nature toward his bandmates and others in his inner circle.
He was a man who attained a level of stardom that demanded he bask in the spotlight at all times. Then there was the man who operated in secrecy and would alternate between the public, large-scale appearances and his surprise late-night concerts at small venues.
He was a true Gemini.
In the late spring of 2016, I was taking in all of who Prince was, as he was no longer among us mere mortals, while preparing to pay homage to him.
‘MPLS’ and ‘Uptown’
June 3 to 5, 2016.
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Alive! (And It Lives in Minneapolis)”
Prince’s 1993 song popped into my head as the United Airlines plane landed at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport around 10:30 p.m. on June 3.
In the morning, my Prince Pilgrimage was underway as I took a bus near my hotel toward downtown Minneapolis.
While on the bus, I could see out my window why he spent nearly his entire life in or near this city, and created songs like “MPLS” and “Uptown” that presented his hometown to the world.
The widest boulevards I have ever seen outside of Paris. The streets where you saw yards with no fences and many trees. The heat normally expected in late spring was tempered by the Minnesota coolness.
I had an itinerary of the stops I needed to make on a sunny Saturday.
First Avenue and 7th Street Entry was a Greyhound bus depot converted into two music venues starting in the early 1970s. On the wall outside, a giant painted gold star etched with the name PRINCE. Only fitting, as the “Purple Rain” movie was filmed inside First Avenue.
539 North Newton Ave. in the northern part of Minneapolis is where a teenage Mr. Nelson lived with his dad for a short time until he was thrown out.
When I stopped by to view the three-bedroom house, an African American couple was chatting up a man standing outside the house. After they were done, it was my turn to engage Maurice Phillips, Prince’s former bodyguard, who married his boss’ sister Tyka.
I went into reporter mode to get the inside scoop from him on my favorite recording artist.
What was Prince like? “He’s just a normal kind of guy like us. He put on his pants the same kind of way.”
Are there other thoughts about Prince you want to share? “No. But I know Prince is looking down. I got to get done with this yard work.”
Later, I made my way to the Parkway Theater in South Minneapolis for what I thought was the best way to mourn the man: “This Thing Called Life — The Prince Tribute.”
Julius Collins, on lead vocals, was backed by members of Prince’s 1990’s band, the New Power Generation, along with other singers and instrumentalists. They regaled attendees with renditions of Prince songs while photos and videos of him played on a screen behind them.
Collins’ voice boomed as he sang, “Good times were rolling/She started dancing in the streets,” (“Uptown”), “Do I believe in God?/Do I believe in me? — Controversy” (“Controversy”), and “Police ain’t got no gun/You don’t have to run” (“DMSR”).
It was the perfect end to day one of the pilgrimage. I got back to my hotel in the late evening to have a meal and prepare for day two.
I should have skipped the takeout from the nearby fast-casual joint, because the resulting heartburn had me down for the count — and nixed plans to visit the last stop on the pilgrimage: Paisley Park.
Yet I had a Plan B for the following day, so I wouldn’t let Prince down.
At 2000 Fourth Avenue South in Minneapolis is Electric Fetus, the iconic record store where Prince reportedly made his last public appearance and last music purchases five days before he died.
On my shopping list was his shopping list:
- Stevie Wonder, “Talking Book.”
- Chambers Brothers, “The Time Has Come.”
- Joni Mitchell, “Hejira.”
- The Swan Silvertones, “Inspirational Gospel Classics.”
- Missing Persons, “The Best Of Missing Persons.”
- Santana, “Santana IV.”
I got only three of those CDs, as the others were (unsurprisingly) sold out. I couldn’t have regrets, because, in a weird way, it was the closest to being there when he was there, the closest I would ever get to meeting him.
His famous opening line to “Let’s Go Crazy” also came to mind: “Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to get through this thing called ‘life.’”
RIP Prince (June 7, 1958-April 21, 2016).
Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration, and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com
Twitter/X: @ricardokaul
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