MJ vs. Prince


  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member

Odd thing about this era is on one hand prince got big burly Male dancers to look more masculine and macho. Otoh they're lifting his body and piling on top of him. So a bit of prince for the rap Era and a bit of old fey prince anyway.
 

catalog

Well-known member
birds too.
as hes said himself, "i like em fat, i like em proud"
"you gotta have a momma for me now move your big ass round this way so i can work on that zipper baby"
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
With prince after getting bored and investigating fan groups on Facebook last year i realised a lot of male fans love the idea of being prince (female fans just want him to seduce them). Not unique to prince but theres the fantasy of imagining you could be that talented, bed that many women, play guitar like that. Whereas with mj you dont have much of that at all. Unless you want to live in a theme park and own a chimp.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Arthur Jafa had some interesting things to say about mj, specifically he makes the claim that he moved away from blackness as a value form. He ditched improvisation, focused on selling records.

 

catalog

Well-known member
it's specifically "Bad" that he identifies as the start of the decline.

you might be better watching the video, and the next one about self-loathing, it's hard for me to explain it. jafa's position seems to be very critical and basically seems to amount to "sell out" but as always with jafa, there's more nuance than that. like in the other video, he talks about mj as a shape-shifter and how this is a recurring black motif.

but worth noting that the videos are from 12 years ago and well before he (jafa) became famous. so he's a bit rawer i suppose is what i'm saying.

check the thread i did on arthur jafa https://www.dissensus.com/index.php?threads/15585/ he's worth looking into. sort of like kodwo but american and more personal storyteller.
 
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