[UA] Re: Feminist subcultures

[Peter Kisner]

>  ----- Message from Shawn Isenhart <isen0011 at umn.edu> on Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:21:53 -0500 -----
>
> To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
>
> Subject: Re: [UA] UA Inspiration
> This made me think about the musician Prince during his symbol years.
>  For a while there everyone was trying to figure out what to call him -
>  "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince", "Tafka" (the artist formerly
>  known as), "His Symbolness", and I think he finally decided on "The
>  Artist".  What the heck was he up to?  Giving up trying to ascend as the
>  True King of the music scene, and instead trying to switch that mojo
>  into a different archetype?  Or was he trying to power up that "Love
>  Symbol" of his?  He also had a bit of the Mystic Hermaphrodite going for
>  him - and the symbol is definitely a mix of both male and female, with a
>  wacky crossbar thing in the middle.
>
>  -Shawn
>
> I had my own pet theory about that, how he tried to ascend as "The Artist", but since he was pretty cluless, things got muddled up for him and he ended up as a low-level MH instead.
>


I heard an interview with him on NPR after he changed his name back:
Apparently Prince had made some deals with record labels early on in
his career that he came to regret later.  Something to the effect that
they owned his name for the purposes of music sales and distribution
and he'd have to play by their rules if he wanted to sell anything.

But Prince either wanted to do some more experimental stuff the labels
didn't approve of, or he just wanted to stop being raked over the
coals on profits.  So he changed his name to some bizarre symbol as a
form of protest.  In theory since his music from now on would now
legally be linked to this symbol instead of the name "Prince" he'd
circumvented whatever restrictions they'd placed on him.  When he'd
overcome whatever legal hassles were causing trouble he eventually
changed his name back.

Of course I assume it would have worked just to change is name to
anything to get around the problems, but from what I understand he was
trying to go to some ridiculous extreme to attract attention and prove
a point.

Maybe not the exciting occult explanation you were hoping for but there it is.

- Peter K.