The Black Album Prince album

Warner Bros. Records

album

Don’t kiss the Beast, be superior at least.

Following his sessions compiling the hastily aborted Camille album, between 7 and 10 December 1986 Prince started what was intended as a mere side-project that would develop into The Black Album.

In these sessions at Sunset Sound Studios, Hollywood, Prince laid down three songs to press onto acetate for the DJ to play at a party for Sheila E to celebrate her twenty-ninth birthday. They were the instrumental 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton and the songs Bob George and Cindy C. This invitation-only event took place at a club named Vertigo in downtown LA on 11 December, Prince guested on guitar. By early 1987 the project had expanded into a collection of tracks he intended to release as a club album titled The Funk Bible in response to mounting criticism in the music press reporting his recent albums were too pop orientated and no longer funky.

With sales of his albums falling in the US since release of Parade in 1986, his imperative with The Funk Bible was to shift perception of his music. Reference to its original title remains in the lyrics of the opening track Le Grind: “So come vibe with us, welcome to The Funk Bible. The new testament.” Prince sought to turn the project into the funkiest LP anyone had ever heard, one so funky even the cover would have no picture or artwork – just black, and was so christened The Black Album. “Camille found a new colour, the colour black,” said Prince.

The album’s additional tracks were laid down at Prince’s Galpin Blvd home studio in Minneapolis, in the first months of 1987, straight after the studio sessions that completed Sign O’ The Times. The first track recorded for what would become the new album, Superfunkycalifragisexy was recorded in September 1986 at Prince’s rented warehouse on Washington Avenue in Edina, 10 miles to the west of his then home. Rockhard In A Funky Place was created by Prince and Eric Leeds for inclusion on the aborted Camille album and was recorded at Sunset Sound in October 1986. The Black Album also interestingly reveals Prince’s uneasiness with the merging genre of hip hop; in Dead On It he stabs at the ‘silly’ genre: “See the rapper’s problem usually stem from being tone deaf / pack the house then try to sing / there won’t be no one left.”

Although its tracks do not test the boundaries of hip hop, The Black Album entered music lore simply for not going on sale. Prince wanted to drop a surprise December release but he suddenly withdrew The Black Album just one week ahead of its intended commercial debut of 8 December 1987. The legend goes Prince arrived at the decision on the night of encountering the spiritual poet Ingrid Chavez at a club on 1 December. In a passage he later published in the Lovesexy Tour programme, he named that evening as Blue Tuesday, having felt profound sense of remorse for creating the work. Citing the album “evil” due to the excessive eroticism and violent undertones in its lyrics (and Warner Bros doubting its sales potential) Prince had simply gotten cold feet. The 500,000 copies of The Black Album already pressed were gathered up and destroyed at Prince’s own expense. Prince hastily compiled Warner a more enlightened substitute, Lovesexy – ready at breakneck speed in January 1988. The final song produced for The Black Album, When 2 R In Love, was recorded at Prince’s newly completed Paisley Park Studios in the autumn of 1987. An odd fit, it became the sole survivor from the album and was reconfigured into Lovesexy.

The Black Album name-checks three individuals. The first is Cindy Crawford, the supermodel who danced with Prince at a club in New York and completely captivated him enough to inspire Cindy C. The two others share Bob George; this fictional character comprises Prince’s former manager Bob Cavallo, and a journalist named Nelson George who wrote a scathing article about Prince in Billboard Magazine published on 17 November 1986. The titular character is shot dead in the song.

It was never intended to be an album. We just wanted stuff to dance to at the party.

Despite declaring he was spiritually opposed to the content of the LP, Prince performed several songs from this, albeit unobtainable, album during his Lovesexy Tour of 1988. He even teased about the LP in the Alphabet St. promo video, where the caption “Don’t buy The Black Album, I’m sorry.” is visible in a few frames scrolling in the background. On tour he lamented The Black Album was his biggest mistake and vowed never to release it. But with approximately 100 promotional copies that had slipped destruction and remained in circulation following its sudden withdrawal, The Black Album became one of the most sought-after and bootlegged albums in music history. It achieved such legendary status, in 2018 one original vinyl pressing of The Black Album sold on Discogs marketplace for $27,500 and became the most expensive sale in the website’s history. The Black Album was also the final LP worked on by Susan Rogers, having sound engineered for Prince since Purple Rain in 1983 as well as set up his various home studios. Prince would later embrace hip hop in his output, incorporating the genre prominently into 1990’s Nude Tour and NPG’s Diamonds And Pearls and Love Symbol albums.

The Black Album received its eventual official release seven years later on 22 November 1994, retitled as The Legendary Black Album – packaged accordingly to retain its forbidden mystique. With Prince still under contractual obligation to deliver Warner Bros Records four albums which remained under their 1992 deal, the label paid Prince $1 million to suede him to sanction this release. Prince was deeply unhappy for the LP to ever see light of day, but agreeing to release The Black Album meant he was halfway to fulfilling his obligation to give Warner a total output of six albums. Due to the ongoing dispute between them over that contract, Warner withdrew even this release from sale on 27 January 1995, adding further to the album’s elusiveness and allure in popular culture. It remains out of print since.

Cover story

The original 1987 artwork for The Black Album is pure black, bearing only the album’s Warner issued catalogue number 25677-1 printed in peach on the spine of the sleeve. The remainder of the packaging is black. This added considerably to the album’s mystique and one of the rarest records in music, the handful of surviving copies of the 1987 pressing demand as high as $42,298 at auction. When officially released in 1994, promotional stickers were added to the packaging bearing Prince’s credit, the title The Legendary Black Album and its new catalogue number 1-45793, with the tracklisting printed on the CD disc itself, and on the 12″ labels.

Many unofficial reissues of The Black Album list Rockhard In A Funky Place intentionally misspelled with Rockard missing its ‘h’. This is to honour the first bootleg, having erroneously published the typo in its tracklisting.

Performers

Vocals / all Instr

Prince

Saxophone

Eric Leeds

Drums

Sheila E. ^{2 Nigs United 4 West Compton}

Trumpet

Matthew Blistan "Atlanta Bliss"

Data

Producer

Prince

Label

Warner Bros. Records

Distribution

Warner Bros. Records

Cover/Design

Prince (concept), Jeff Gold (1994 labelling)

Released

31 years ago on 22 November 1994

Running Time

44:44

US Chart Peak

47

US R&B Peak

18

UK Chart Peak

36

Prince Album

#16

Orig. Formats

Tracklist

1. Le Grind [feat. Sheila E, Boni Boyer and Cat Glover] (6:44)
2. Cindy C. [rap Cat Glover] (6:15)
3. Dead On It (4:37)
4. When 2 R In Love (4:00)
5. Bob George (5:37)
6. Superfunkycalifragisexy (5:56)
7. 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton [spoken intro Cat Glover] (7:00)
8. Rockhard In A Funky Place [feat. Susannah Melvoin and Jill Jones] (4:31) ¹

¹ Cowritten with Eric Leeds.

Singles from The Black Album

The Black Album produced no singles.

The Black Album album review

This is not music, this is a trip. And it was, quite literally! Prince recorded The Black Album in 1987 after an experimentation with ecstasy then hating it when he came back down, locking the record away until Warner Brothers finally, against his wishes, set it free in 1994 when needing material which fell into short supply due to their contractual spat with Prince.

The reason for its long confinement in the vault was that it was too darn dark for the 80’s and because of this, the saintly Lovesexy was compiled to purge Prince’s sins and turned it around in a matter of seven weeks to move the whole experience swiftly along – doing Prince a huge favour in the process. Honestly The Black Album would have bombed commercially. Prince had strayed headlong into uncharted territory attempting rap (Dead On It, Bob George) and at a time many others were already doing the genre far more successfully. The playability of The Legendary Black Album is owed to the legacy it greatly benefited from, passing into lore as the most coveted bootleg in music. Its status diminished with the official release because, unlike any other Prince album, its content was dated long before its ultimate release.

There are still tracks fit for clubs, in the shape of Cindy C and Le Grind, probably Prince’s best funk since 1980’s Dirty Mind. The Black Album is refreshing if only to hear Prince poke fun at himself in Bob George, since he was a serious artist after his dizzy Purple Rain success. The rose amid this tree of thorns, When 2 R In Love is too delicate for such a naughty album. The Black Album is different and that’s why you dig it.

The Black Album is rated 3.5 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.