True Confessions TC Ellis album

Warner Bros. Records

album

Now this is the failure I must confess.

David “T.C.” Ellis had known Prince since junior high school – his younger sister Sue Ann Carwell was a vocalist who Prince helped to get a demo together to get her signed to Warner Bros. Those ambitions fell by the wayside when Prince split from Owen Husney’s management after the recording of his debut record For You in 1977. Carwell would later appear on the debut album of The Time as backing singer.

As a teenager Prince would come to Ellis’ home, having met through a mutual friend of Andre Cymone. Growing up in the Minneapolis-St Paul Twin Cities area, friends gave Ellis the nickname “T.C.” which stuck as his stage name since. He became an aspiring rapper on hearing Rapper’s Delight by The Sugar Hill Gang, and tried many times to convince Prince to embrace this emerging genre, without success. Ellis’ break came as Prince was creating the soundtrack for Batman. Working off intel he got from his friend Miko Weaver who was in Prince’s touring band, Ellis wrote The Batrap and released it as a single ahead of the movie. On hearing the track on local radio KMOJ, Warner asked Prince whether he knew the rapper. This prompted Prince to phone Ellis to have him come to Paisley Park Studios to work on some tracks.

As part of Prince’s effort to expand the output of Paisley Park Records in response to the growth of hip hop, Ellis was signed to the label in the summer of 1989 and began laying down his debut solo album, with Levi Seacer Jr handling its production. The record was titled True Confessions taking the initials of Ellis’ nickname. The LP includes three Prince tracks: Miss Thang which Prince wrote for Morris Day for his Corporate World album, it was re-recorded for Ellis and features Prince’s instrumentation and production in the released version; and Girl O’ My Dreams – another rerecording, is a song Prince created in 1982 at his Kiowa Trail home studio and subsequently reworked in 1985 with Lisa Melvoin and Lisa Coleman at the Washington Avenue warehouse studio. The track remained unreleased until its inclusion in True Confessions, with Levi Seacer performing all the instruments. The album’s third Prince-penned track Bambi is T.C. Ellis’ cover of the 1979 song, in this version Prince makes no instrumental involvement.

In 1990, Prince offered Ellis a part in the Graffiti Bridge movie. Ellis debuts on the accompanying soundtrack in which he incorporates his rap True Confession in New Power Generation (Part II), which he performs in the closing credits of the movie. His rap was subsequently remixed into a full version called and released in the promo EP of the single New Power Generation, titled T.C.’s Rap.

George Clinton and Eric Leeds also appear in True Confessions. The album, executive produced by Eric’s brother Alan Leeds, was completed at a production cost of $370,000 and was launched with a special performance at Glam Slam nightclub in Minneapolis. Prince is credited by name for his contributions on the album. Released by Paisley Park Records on 28 May 1991, it would become marred by the failure of the movie and the album did not chart in result. Embroiled into Prince’s fallout with Warner Brothers, Ellis’ contract was cancelled with the closure of Paisley Park Records in 1994 and True Confessions was his first and only studio album. Ellis set up his own studio in 1996, named Studio 4 Enterprises, on seeing a flood of impoverished young talent come to the studio, he established a community High School for the Recording Arts in St Paul, which was instituted in 1998.

Performers

Lead vocals: David "T.C." Ellis
All instruments: Prince ^{Miss Thang}; Leivi Seacer Jr.
Saxophone: Eric Leeds ^{For The Record}
Backing Vox: Jana Anderson ^{Miss Thang}

Data

Producer

Levi Seacer Jr

Label

Paisley Park Records

Distribution

Warner Bros. Records

Cover/Design

Tom Berthiaume and Robin Lynch

Released

35 years ago on 28 May 1991

Running Time

56:57

US Chart Peak

Did not chart

UK Chart Peak

Did not chart

Orig. Formats

Tracklist

Intro (0:10)
Dope (4:31)
Segue (0:30)
Miss Thang [Remix] [remix by Larry Robinson] (3:30) ¹
Pussycat [feat. George Clinton] (4:08)
For The Record (3:55) ²
Bustin' [feat. George Clinton]
Brothers And Sisters (3:42) ³
True Confession [feat. Rosie Gaines] (3:58) ²
Cold Thang (4:42)
Bambi (Rap) (4:33) ¹
Girl O' My Dreams (1:34) ¹
Somebody's Got To Love Her (5:43) ²
Love (4:44)
Brothers And Sisters [Reprise] (0:52)
Miss Thang [Junior Vasquez Ice Mix] (5:37) ¹

Released as a single

¹ Written by Prince.
² Co-written by TC Ellis and Levi Seacer Jr.
³ Written by Levi Seacer Jr.

True Confessions album review

Prince was a comparative latecomer to hip hop. It was not because he feared or misunderstood the genre, it was the braggard nature of it that turned Prince cold. Yet the course mainstream music took in the latter half of the 1980s was impossible to ignore. Having dabbled himself with rap, Prince wisely accepted it was better to hire others to deliver the proper hip hop edge. T.C. Ellis and Tony Mosley were two rappers that came into Prince’s focus as result. Both long-term acquaintances, first through the studio door was Ellis, his reward for persistence after years badgering Prince to embrace hip hop. Ellis was signed to Paisley Park Records in 1989 as the first in a batch of artists enlisted to update the label’s output – he would be joined by Carmen, Mosley, and an entirely new band, the NPG, to give Prince his new sound.

Prince contributes three tracks in True Confessions; the first Miss Thang displays all the signature components of a Prince produced track, albeit the album’s funkiest is Pussycat – co-produced by and featuring the great George Clinton. The two are the album’s well selected singles. What let them down was Ellis’ lackadaisical style of rap – a brand of hip hop so devoid of spirit he struggles to penetrate the music. The album reaches full flow with True Confession his showpiece rap, which wove its way also into New Power Generation EP in 1990. Everything else is neither familiar nor memorable. There is an enticing cover of Bambi which suggests great promise but falls with Ellis’ flat delivery, and that’s not even Prince you hear on guitar. Girl O’ My Dreams like others is out of place. The song brings the final but failed opportunity for True Confessions to lift off.

Ellis suffers from the many genres at play – tackling rock, blues, and swing – the album presents Ellis opportunities but the only thing that shines is his lack of versatility and, quite, non-discernable rap. He slipped into obscurity after True Confessions. Anyone who has ever decried Tony Mosley should listen to True Confessions before passing judgement. Just think how Diamonds And Pearls might have sounded had Ellis won Prince’s confidence.

True Confessions is rated 2 out of 5 by Goldies Parade.

Prince trivia