CHAPTER EIGHT: EMANCIPATION - FREE AT LAST

Emancipation started out as New World
While wrapping up work on a group project, the New Power Generation: Exodus album in early 1995, O(+> recorded some new songs on his own. From December 1994 to February 1995, O(+> recorded Good Pussy and D.J. with Eric Leeds adding horns to both on 16 January 1995, as well as Feelgood and 2020. He also recorded his own version of the NPG: Exodus outtake Slave from 1994, changing it from rock to R&B, as well as recording the new song Slowly Candle Burns that would later inherit the Slave title. The title track for the Spike Lee movie Girl 6 was probably also recorded at this time.

Most of these songs were included on a new album configuration entitled New World after the song New World which had originally been titled Love 4 One Another when it had been planned as a B-side to The Most Beautiful Girl In The World in early 1994. The album was inspired by the New Age beliefs he shared with his dancer Mayte.

O)+>: New World (January 1995)
1. Synasthesia
2. New World (3:42)
3. Candle Burns (5:10)
4. Empty Room (3:22)
5. Feel Good (4:06)
6. D.J. (4:47)
7. 2020 (2:05)
8. Funky Design (3:47)
9. The Same December (3:24)
10. Goodbye (4:30)

Nothing is known about the track Synasthesia, but Funky Design was Prince reclaiming the track after it had been included on a December 1994 configuration of the New Power Generation: Exodus album. Goodbye was originally entitled (Excuse Me Is This) Goodbye and was recorded during sessions for the O(+> album in December 1991. Clare Fischer had done orchestra overdubs on the track in December 1994. Empty Room and The Same December were probably lifted from the October 1994 The Vault Volume II collection after getting the video treatment for showcasing on the European Gold Experience Tour 3-31 March 1995.

On the Gold Experience tour, O(+> performed Feelgood at an aftershow in Amsterdam 26 March and at an aftershow in London 22 March that also featured a guest appearance by singer Stacy Francis. She would come to visit O(+> at Paisley Park in June 1995 where they recorded a version of Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart together.

New World becomes Love4OneAnother
Back at Paisley Park from the European tour, O(+> had recorded Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart on his own. Another new song recorded around this time was Die which reportedly included the lyrics "U got 2 die before U meet the Father, say hello 2 the Son" and a repeated phrase of "like the drummer said, U got 2 die."

When O(+>’s dancer Mayte was interviewed by Uptown in July 1995, the interviewer told her that he had heard that O(+> was “working on this “New World” album – kind of a techno album,” to which Mayte said “oh,yeah” before admitting that she had “no idea of what he has planned.” Probably because after the European Gold Experience Tour, New World morphed into a Love4OneAnother album. The album title assumably came from the song New World.

O(+>: Love4OneAnother (1995)
Track list unknown, but album in transition between New World and Emancipation

On 19 May 1995, O(+> aired another new song, Good Dick And A Job, at a small party at Paisley
Park, and on 7 June 1995, the new song PoomPoom was played at The NPG Store in London. It is possible they were included on Love4OneAnother.

She Gave Her Angels was probably recorded in June, as the lyrics mention that month. The track featured musical similarities to the unreleased 1985 Prince And The Revolution song Empty Room for which a video had just been showcased on O(+>'s Gold Experience Tour and that had been included on the New World album. When an edited version of She Gave Her Angels got released on the 1998 Crystal Ball collection, O(+> said it was a true story about his dancer Mayte.

Love4OneAnother becomes Emancipation
By July 1995, O(+> had recorded the new songs Right Back Here In My Arms and Emancipation and he reworked the Love4OneAnother album into an Emancipation album and in the booklet for the 1996 Emancipation album he said that Right Back Here In My Arms had been the first song he recorded with Emancipation in mind. The first configuration of Emancipation had the following track list:

O(+>: Emancipation (July 1995)
1. Right Back Here In My Arms
2. Slave
3. Slowly Candle Burns
4. New World
5. 2020
6. Feelgood
7. Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart
8. D.J.
9. Emancipation

O(+> had also kept himself busy by creating songs around lyrics written by former The Family Stand member Sandra St. Victor whom he arranged to meet with once at a Warner Bros. conference room in Los Angeles. Their subsequent long-distance collaboration of her sending him lyrics to turn into songs spawned the songs Livin’ 2 Die (originally titled How We Livin'), I’ll Never B Another Fool (originally titled I'll Never Open My Legs Again), Stone (also known as Nothing Left 2 Give and Heart Of Stone), Soul Sanctuary (originally titled simply Sanctuary) and Van Gogh (originally titled Love Is), all recorded with O(+> on vocals. Sandra St. Victor later told Alex Hahn for his 2004 biography Possessed - The Rise And Fall Of Prince that her collaboration with O(+> ended when she expressed that she was disappointed that their collaboration didn't involve them actually working face to face.

A new configuration of Emancipation got bootlegged in its entirety. It contained the same tracks as the first configuration, but in a different playing order with the addition of Goodbye from the New World album. Right Back Here In My Arms was edited for length.

O(+>: Emancipation (1995)
1. Slave (3:05)
2. New World (3:42)
3. Slowly Candle Burns (5:10)
4. 2020 (2:05)
5. Feelgood (4:06)
6. Right Back Here In My Arms (4:33)
7. Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart (4:15)
8. D.J. (4:47)
9. Goodbye (4:31)
10. Emancipation (4:31)

A third configuration also exists. It consists of the same tracks as the second configuration but in a different playing order. O(+> basically moved a couple of the strongest tracks up front.

O(+>: Emancipation (1995)
1. Emancipation (4:30)
2. Right Back Here In My Arms (4:32)
3. Slave (3:05)
4. Slowly Candle Burns (5:09)
5. 2020 (2:05)
6. New World (3:41)
7. Feelgood (4:05)
8. Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart (4:14)
9. D.J. (4:47)
10. Goodbye (4:30)

Right Back Here In My Arms was intended to be released as the first single from the album backed with Journey 2 The Center Of Your Arms which meant no non-album track as a B-side. Also, Journey 2 The Center Of Your Arms seemed like a strong contender for its own single, so this must have been intended as a double A-side release. Either way, the single didn’t get released and the cover photo would get used on the Eye Hate U single from The Gold Experience instead.

O(+>: Right Back Here In My Arms single (1995)
1. Right Back Here In My Arms (4:32)*
2. Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart (4:14)*

Playtime by Versace

When O(+> made The Versace Experience (Prelude 2 Gold) in July 1995, it featured samples from the three albums he wanted released at the time, The Gold Experience, The NPG: Exodus and Madhouse: 24. The collection was used as a “soundtrack” to a Versace fashion show during Paris Fashion Days 8-10 July 1995. But O(+> also made a collection of full songs around this time. It was called Playtime by Versace and was a gift for Gianni and Donatello Versace. It featured four of the songs created to lyrics by Sandra St. Victor (Soul Sanctuary, Stone, I'll Never B Another Fool and Van Gogh), a couple of recent remixes (The Good Life and 18 And Over), a live version of Poor Goo from The Undertaker and a couple of tracks that would end up on Chaos And Disorder (I Like It There and Dinner With Delores) among others.

O(+>: Playtime by Versace (1995)

1. Playtime (3:54)

2. Good Life - Big City Mix (5:05)

3. Soul Sanctuary (4:43)

4. 18 And Over (6:22)

5. Stone (3:05)

6. I Like It There (3:14)

7. Da Bang (3:19)

8. I'll Never B Another Fool (3:15)

9. Van Gogh (5:07)

10. Poor Goo (Live at The Emporium, London, 23 March 1995) (4:49)

11. Dinner With Delores (2:49)

Both I'll Never B Another Fool and Playtime were written from a female perspective. Playtime had O(+> singing "see if U can handle a girl like me, when I'm in the mood U got 2 B my dirty dude." The song was re-recorded with Marva King on lead vocal in 1997 but remains unreleased. The other new song, Da Bang, got released on the 1998 Crystal Ball collection where O(+> said in the booklet that it came about from boredom while in Los Angeles. Soul Sanctuary, Stone and Van Gogh would get incorporated into the Emancipation project.

At Ritz Hotel, New York. Photo by Nicole Nodland

A brand-new Emancipation concept

When an interview with O(+> was published in the Autumn 1995 issue of Esquire Gentleman, it was revealed that Emancipation had now replaced the acoustic album Heart as his intended first album when he was free of his Warner Bros. contract, and that it would contain maybe fifty new songs. O(+> stated that his heart and perhaps his best work were in Emancipation.

“We were sitting in Prince’s office and he was listening to HIStory by Michael Jackson,” drummer Michael Bland recalled about the genesis of the idea for Emancipation to become a triple CD in a 2018 Tidal Read. “And he read that Michael Jackson had gotten double the credit for sales, because HIStory had been a two-disc set. So, when he moved a million units, it showed up on Soundscan as two million units. Prince couldn’t believe it! So that had more than a little to do with why Emancipation ended up being so much material.”

On 25 July 1995, O(+> and Mayte got engaged over the phone while Mayte was on a promotional tour for The Gold Experience with The NPG in Barcelona and O(+> had gone to Los Angeles. After a phone conversation, he called her back up and popped the question, Mayte revealed in her 2017 book My Life With Prince. In October, she got an engagement ring and then showed it off on her Child Of The Sun promotional trip to Europe in the Fall of 1995.

On 9 September 1995 a pink sheet with a poem entitled Emancipation that was different from the song Emancipation was handed out to the audience at a Paisley Park concert:

Emancipation

Is it reality or just a dream?

2 your spirit eye say eye love U in spite of my slavery

We’re both 2 blame 4 this lesson in life

‘cuz this is the path we choose

Eye’m sure eye knew U long ago

Look into your soul – it knows

And eye would never claim more righteous

Dare Napoleon and Hitler see

It depends on who U ask my friend

Eye love U, do U love me?

How will history sing, my brother

What song will our children teach?

The Emancipation Proclamation is well within our reach

Tear down the walls that make us bicker

4 many years eye fought your war

One stroke of your pen could conquer

Every sin our actions bore

Eye implore the goodness that’s in all of us

An example we now must set

4 when this life is over

What U be is what U get

The Dawn is coming!

The Dawn is coming!

Acknowledge and save us all

Free my people 2 bring the message

Heed the call! Heed the call!

And this song from every mountain top

Every child will surely teach

The Emancipation Proclamation

Is well within our reach

Eye love U, eye love U – Do U love me?

Prince and Sandra Berhard at the 1995 Isaac Mizrahi Fall fashion show.
Photo by Andrea Renault.

Something old, something borrowed, something new

On 20 September 1995, O(+> told the audience at a Paisley Park concert that Dallas Austin, who co-wrote and produced the number one hits Creep for TLC and Secret for Madonna in 1994 and co-produced the George Clinton track Hollywood on O(+>'s 1-800-NEW-FUNK compilation, would co-produce his next album: “It’s called Emancipation. 52 songs. 80 dollars. Save your money.”

Although Dallas Austin was present at the concert, no O(+> tracks crediting him ever appeared. Instead, Kirk A. Johnson of The Game Boyz ended up getting a credit as Associate Producer on Emancipation. In 1994, he had done a remix of Get Wild and some remixes of four Prince songs that O(+> liked. They were used on The Purple Medley single released 14 March 1995.

Following the release of The Gold Experience on 26 September 1995, O(+> recorded the song Face Down for Emancipation. "We did this record, The Gold Experience, and for the most part we had really good reviews, but we got this one scathing review," O(+>'s keyboard player Morris Hayes recalled to GQ in 2016. "Usually it didn't bother him, but for whatever reason, this particular one kinda bothered him. He showed it to me and - I was the funny guy - I said, "You know what, Prince - they can kiss my ass. As a matter of fact, when we die they can bury us facedown and they can kiss our ass on the way out." I said all of this stuff, I went on a cussing tirade, and he just died laughing. And two days later he plays me this song, Face Down, and it's everything I said to him about that review. It was a crazy song. There was some pretty rough language in it."

O(+> re-recorded a couple of old tracks in October, Starfish And Coffee and 5 Women, and recorded a couple of covers in November, Betcha By Golly Wow! by The Stylistics, and One Of Us by Joan Osborne of which a rehearsal version that was recorded before the NPG was disbanded on 8 March 1996 made the album.

"He rarely recorded a cover and then we did like four," O(+>'s keyboard player Morris Hayes recalled in a 2017 YouTube interview with Truth In Rhythm. "The song One Of Us, I remember him telling me about this song. He said: "Man, I really love this song. Joan Osborne. (...) It's like the song I would have written if I wasn't afraid to write it." He said she was really courageous to write this. (...) It really appealed to him. (...) He just kinda changed the lyrics a little bit, but it was a very powerful song. (...) He loved playing it."

O(+> also recorded the song 2morrow which didn't get included on Emancipation, but was released on the 1998 Crystal Ball collection. O(+> wrote in the liner notes that it was inspired by a girl that a member of the NPG had a crush on. Morris Hayes recalled the creation of the track in a 2018 interview with The Current: “He basically left me in the studio and said, "What key is Most Beautiful Girl In The World in?" And I told him, and he kind of looked around and said, "Okay, those vocal samples work on this. It's just that they're in - just flip them to this. The tempo should be about the same. What's the relative minor?" He'd ask the key, and then he would know. His relative pitch was so good, he'd know like if it's in Bb, that can work in G, and so he's like, “That's great.” And I'd be like, "Crap, it works!" He just knew.”

Betcha By Golly Wow! was aired prior to a Paisley Park concert on 11 November 1995 and was subsequently played on Minneapolis radio, as was Right Back Here In My Arms on 16 November 1995. It was a longer version than the version that got released. On 25 November 1995, New World was also aired on Minneapolis radio.

Breaking up with Nona Gaye

Nona Gaye, who had recorded on and off with O(+> since 1993, was invited to watch him lip-synch a performance at the VH-1 Fashion And Music Awards in New York on 3 December 1995. She told Essence magazine in May 2003 that she had been with Prince since she was 18 years old and that he was "not really stable. And I wasn't either. I was still into drugs big time. I never really knew him, and I never let him really know me. I tried to be this woman I thought he wanted, very passive, just letting him lead. He was 16 years older than me. He told a friend of mine he was going to marry me and take care of me. I knew I wouldn't get anything better than that from him, so I believed it. But after that we were in New York, and he asked me to come see his show. Mayte, one of his dancers, flashed the engagement ring he'd given her from the stage. When I asked him about it afterward, he was very evasive and defensive. I haven't spoken to him since. He did marry Mayte. And it upsets me that we ended things that way, because at one point he was really, really important to me."

On 21 May 2017, Nona Gaye posted a clip on her YouTube channel of Vernon Reid from the rock band Living Colour telling: "I was there the night he broke up with her. (...) I was at the Palladium. After the show, I'm about to go into the afterparty area (...) I saw Nona in a corner by herself (...) It was not a happy moment."

Vernon Reid may have been confused about what he witnessed, though, as the event he describes was most likely following the 14 July 1994 concert at The Palladium in New York where both he and Nona Gaye guested on stage with O(+>. Although Nona Gaye and O(+>’s relationship seemed to cool off after the summer of 1994, she was occasionally spotted with O(+> afterwards. He recorded the video for her cover of her father’s song Inner City Blues for his Love 4 One Another TV-movie at Paisley Park while Mayte was off flashing her engagement ring on a promotional trip to Europe. Then Nona saw Mayte flashing the ring at the VH-1 awards and that was it and the O(+> penned songs she recorded remain unreleased.

On 9 December 1995, One Of Us was aired prior to a Paisley Park concert, where cassettes containing Slowly Candle Burns - now retitled Slave - and New World were handed out for free to the audience. At this point, the drum effect that was originally used on the previous Slave-titled song had been moved to the chorus of the new Slave-titled song instead. It had also been used on the Mayte song Ain’t No Place Like U that was released on her Child Of The Sun album 27 November 1995.

O(+>: Slave cassette (December 1995)
1. Slave (4:51)
2. New World (3:43)

Photos: Randee St. Nicholas

Feeling threatened
After the show at Paisley Park, journalist Jim Walsh was called into O(+>’s office. O(+> said: “I’m going to Japan and I just wanted you to know that I have reason to be concerned and if anything happens to me… I just wanted you to know. That’s all.”

"He was done talking," Walsh recalled in his 2017 book Gold Experience - Following Prince In The 90s. "I said: "Okay, to be clear, are you telling me that someone or the music industry might rub you out while you’re on tour?" He raised one eyebrow and cocked his head into a question mark. I told him that if anything happened to him, I would report our conversation to the world and look into it."

"He would take everything that was happening, like with Warner Brothers, like the fights, like all of that stuff - I’d walk into his office and he’d be standing up in his chair yelling at Mo Ostin or whatever he was doing - he just would channel all of that into the music and really talk about Exodus and talk about the relationship with the labels and how they look at artists and all of those types of things," O(+>'s keyboard player Morris Hayes recalled in the 2017 YouTube interview with Truth In Rhythm "All of that went into his music 'cause that's what he was feeling and he would project all of that out. So definitely there was a lot of warring going on between him and the label. (...) He told me, "I’m not scared of none of these dudes, man." He told me, "If you find me floating in a river – go look for this dude over here." He told me, "Go look for him" - I’m not going to call no names. "That’s who you look for first," he said, "because I’m not scared of none of these cats.""

On 22 December 1995, Paisley Park issued a press release that read as follows: “O(+> has officially given notice to Warner Bros. Records (WBR) of his desire to terminate his recording agreement with the company. (…) The Artist is prepared to deliver the three (3) remaining albums under his former name Prince which will fulfil his contractual to WBR. Currently, the albums are titled: Prince: The Vault – Volumes I, II and III. O(+> will release a new recording entitled Emancipation once he is free from all ties with Time Warner.”

Inspired by marriage

On 22 January 1996, O(+>’s Love 4 One Another TV-movie premiered on VH-1. In it, he said that he had found his soul mate and implied that it was Mayte.

O(+> recorded a few songs in secret in preparation of his wedding to Mayte on Valentine’s Day, 14 February 1996. While on tour in Japan in January 1996, he wrote Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife and Let’s Have A Baby. One Kiss At A Time was probably also recorded at this time as it mentions Valentine in the lyrics.

On 16 February 1996, a new press release announced: “Inspired by his love and complete adoration for his wife, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince composed a song entitled, Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife. The lyrics of love were unveiled to bride Mayte for the first time, as her groom escorted her onto the dance floor for their first dance as man and wife. This song can not be released to the public because of contractual restrictions between Warner Bros. Records and The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.”

“After the reception, she took one look at the crib, and he pushed the button marked play,” O(+> said nine months later about Let’s Have A Baby in the cover for Emancipation.

“Once I got married, the phone stopped ringing,” O(+> said on Oprah later in the year, and he wasn’t necessarily happy about that. “For those who know the number and don’t call, fuck all y’all,” he said in the song Face Down.

In February, O(+> also stated: “I look forward to the release of Emancipation in the near future. It will be The Dawn of the next phase of my life as a musician. It will represent my freedom from the past and it will be a continuum of what I have started here today.”

Assembling a 33-track configuration

When assembling a new configuration of Emancipation - now containing 3 CDs with 11 songs each - O(+> left out 2020, D.J. and the original Slave-titled song.

“Before starting the CD, there was a blueprint of three CDs with each containing 12 songs and exactly 60 minutes,” O(+> told TV Week in November 1996. “I started the album with the songs Slave and Emancipation, but as I got started, the direction became more bright and uplifting. This new album is about happiness and being free. Each CD was a big challenge for me to not go over 60 minutes.”

O(+> pulled some tracks out of his Vault for inclusion: Extraordinary from 1992, Courtin' Time featuring The NPG Hornz from 1993, O(+>'s own version of the 1994 NPG: Exodus outtake Funky Design, as well as the instrumental track Coincidence Or Fate? from the 1994 Kamasutra album that would get released in 1997.

The album also included a new recording of A Thousand Hugs And Kisses - a track previously recorded as A 1,000 Hugs And Kisses with lead vocal by Rosie Gaines in 1992 and with Nona Gaye in 1993.

O(+> told about the recording of the new song The Holy River to TV Week: “I first came up with the chorus part. I played the piano with a drum machine. When I played the piano, I was looking at the sky and reading lyrics. My friend, who played the drum machine, knew what I was leading to. And we played around for hours. Since the words were tragic, I needed some tragic piano. The arrangement of the song was already there, done in my head, so I just stayed true to myself.”

Other brand-new material on the album included Get Yo Groove On, Saviour (recorded with The New Power Generation) and three songs of which nothing is known but the titles: (If It Ain't) Gutbucket, Heart In My Hand and With God As My Witness.

He also included the two new songs Da, Da, Da and Mr. Happy that probably didn't feature rapper Scrap D. yet, as well as three songs, Eye Will, Into The Light and Dig U Better Dead that probably didn't feature backup vocals by Rosie Gaines yet, either.

O(+>: Emancipation (Early 1996)
Disc One:
1. Slave
2. New World
3. Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart
4. Right Back Here In My Arms
5. Feelgood
6. Courtin' Time
7. Betcha By Golly Wow
8. Get Yo Groove On
9. Da, Da, Da
10. She Gave Her Angels
11. Emancipation
Disc Two:
1. One Kiss At A Time
2. Soul Sanctuary (4:29)
3. Extraordinary (2:28)
4. Coincidence Or Fate? (3:24)
5. Van Gogh (4:58)
6. Let's Have A Baby
7. A Thousand Hugs And Kisses
8. (If It Ain't) Gutbucket
9. Eye Will
10. Saviour
11. Goodbye
Disc Three:
1. Into The Light
2. Dig U Better Dead
3. Face Down
4. Stone (3:02)
5. Heart In My Hand
6. One Of Us
7. Mr. Happy
8. The Holy River
9. With God As My Witness
10. Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife
11. Funky Design (3:47)

Disc 2 of Emancipation was entirely made up of love songs - a concept that would be carried on to subsequent configurations. Goodbye got released on the 1998 Crystal Ball collection where O(+> stated that it was replaced on Emancipation by The Holy River, although both songs appear on this configuration. A Thousand Hugs And Kisses didn't get released until many years later as 1000 X's & O's on the 2015 HitNRun Phase One album. Funky Design was released as a download to members of Prince's online NPG Music Club in 2001.

Image: Steve Parke

Inspired by conception

In late February 1996, O(+> recorded Damned If Eye Do with the NPG Hornz and moved some songs from Emancipation to two contract-filler albums he worked on for Warner Bros. in March. Eye Will, Into The Light and Dig U Better Dead went to Chaos And Disorder and Extraordinary went to The Vault... Old Friends 4 Sale.

On 1 April 1996, it was announced that Mayte was pregnant and that the baby was expected in November. To celebrate, O(+> and Mayte started to develop a multimedia package of children’s stories containing a read-along cassette, book and CD entitled Happy Tears. Three short stories and eight songs were said to be in the works. The CD included re-recordings of old songs like I Would Die 4 U, Starfish And Coffee and Walk Don’t Walk. New songs included the title track and She Gave Her Angels from Emancipation. The project was quickly abandoned, however, and She Gave Her Angels went back to Emancipation.

O(+> probably recorded Conception around this time, as it was inspired by Mayte becoming pregnant. “I tried to write a song about how a sperm feels on his way in to the egg,” O(+> later revealed in an interview with the Dutch Oor magazine. “But then I got part of the way into it, writing about everything a sperm has to go through, and I was like, “Whoa… That’s way too heavy for me.””

In late April 1996, O(+> attended a meeting with Warner Bros. in Los Angeles where an agreement was finally reached to release him from his contract.

Some black Americans had felt offended by O(+> writing “slave” on his cheek and O(+>'s lawyer, L. Londell McMillan, was among them. “The reference is traumatic to African-Americans” McMillan told Q in a 1998 interview. “In one of my first conversations with him I said: “Take the “Slave” off your face.” He said: “Get me free of this contract and I will.” It became clear that he was a desperate man. And I was there with him the day the document came through with the countersignature from Warner and it was all over. I asked him if he was ready to go to the bathroom and wipe that thing off and he did it. He closed the chapter.”

Inspired by death

In May 1996, Eric Leeds was hired to play horns instead of The NPG Hornz and O(+> recorded a new version of Van Gogh which Eric then added saxophone to. At some point, O(+> also remixed Soul Sanctuary and possibly also Somebody’s Somebody, which had been recorded with Derek Hughes on lead vocal in late 1994, but O(+>’s own version might actually have been recorded in November 1993 as it was co-written by Brenda Lee Eager and Hilliard Wilson, who also co-wrote Hide The Bone back then.

O(+> hired a new bass player, Rhonda Smith, in June 1996 and she played on the previously recorded Get Yo Groove On and a cover of Eye Can’t Make U Love Me by Bonnie Raitt. Eric Leeds also played on those tracks.

Meanwhile, O(+>’s last collection of original material recorded for Warner Bros., Chaos And Disorder, was released on 9 July 1996. In their review, Rolling Stone Online wondered: “Maybe he was just saving the good stuff for his new three-disc set, Emancipation?”

While in New York to promote Chaos And Disorder in early July 1996, O(+> recorded a couple of tracks with Me’Shell Ndegeocello at Battery Studios: Emale and an untitled composition.

On 12 July 1996, Jonathan Melvoin was found dead from a heroin overdose in a New York hotel room. He was the brother of Wendy Melvoin from Prince And The Revolution and Susannah Melvoin, Prince’s ex-fiancée. The news probably inspired O(+> to record In This Bed Eye Scream about Wendy, Susannah and Lisa Coleman.

“In This Bed is experimental,” O(+> told Musician in a 1997 interview. “As we were working on it, I put a guitar on the ground and just let it start feeding back. After a while I hit this button and let the feedback pattern repeat.”

“We laid a guitar down on the floor of the studio and just recorded it,” O(+> told St. Paul Pioneer Press in a 1996 interview. “There was electricity in the room, and sound. It just depends on the energy coming out of the speakers, and the feedback. And we just let the groove take it and built the song around the harmonics.”

When Wendy and Lisa were asked about In This Bed Eye Scream in an interview at geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge in 1997, Wendy said: “He had sent that song to us to see if we wanted to work on it. We gave him some suggestions about it, and he sounded like he was into it, but we never heard from him again on the subject.”

The creative process revealed

In July 1996, Hans-Martin Buff became the main engineer on Emancipation, replacing Steve Durkee who had left on unfriendly terms. Buff was presented with a song sequence for Emancipation that was a work-in-progress as O(+> was updating tracks he didn't like, taking songs out and working on the album's structure. "Unlike other musicians, Prince continuously works on whatever he works on and doesn't just listen to the one song he's working on but tries to always assemblage as a sequence right away," Buff told Prince biography writer Matt Thorne in 2012. "He always has segues of the current project, and usually at the end of the project he sees the direction and starts writing songs for the project."

Buff revealed that the Kate Bush collaboration My Computer had been recorded when he came onboard and that Jam Of The Year had been started but not finished. He also revealed that "the first day I worked for him we started five new songs." Those five songs were a re-recording of Emale with horns by Eric Leeds and Brian Lynch, Dreamin' About U featuring Rhonda Smith and Eric Leeds, a song against drug abuse called The Love We Make that was probably also inspired by the death of Jonathan Melvoin, Sleep Around and the ballad The Divine. Buff revealed in a 2018 YouTube interview with The Violet Reality that The Divine sounded "kind of like We March only a bit more Gospel."

Rhonda Smith and Eric Leeds also played on We Gets Up and a new version of Conception, now titled Sex In The Summer, which Hans-Martin Buff also had strong memories of. He also recalled the recording of Curious Child which was about “an old friend” according to the Emancipation booklet.

Although the process of collaboration "would be on Prince's terms," Associate Producer Kirk Johnson "would do the rhythmic basis for every one of those songs. He would supervise a lot of the recordings," Buff revealed to Matt Thorne. "We would start something, then get Kirk in and either Kirk would offer some of the beats he had created or Prince would say, "I want something in a particular tempo." And it wouldn't be programmed like you usually would where you'd program the verse and then the chorus, it would be the same eight or ten sounds all the way through and we'd record that to tape for about eight minutes and then Prince would usually record some melodic instrument on top - usually a guitar or a keyboard - and pretty much straight away write a song around it or if he'd already written it, do it just with vocals and embellish it with other arrangement bits and FX. And then he would take the ten rhythmic sounds that he did in the beginning and just erase them."

"Prince does a lot himself, especially vocals," Buff continued. "Of all the many, many times - I think it was about two hundred songs I was involved in (before leaving in 1999) - he was present for two lead vocals. Usually, he has the microphone over the console and does it himself. When he's done recording it and when he wants to mix it or needs assistance, he calls people over the intercom."

"We had a huge sound library called Sound Ideas," Buff added. "And I would get called in and Prince would say, "I need a clock." And there was a huge index and we'd come up with some clocks."

Saving the better track

On 6 August 1996, Eric Leeds added horn overdubs to The Divine and the new tracks Moneyappolis and Muhammad Ali. None of them made Emancipation. “I wrote a song for “Dawn”,” O(+> revealed to Rolling Stone in August. “It was so much better than what I’m doing now that I thought, “I’m gonna have to wait to put this out.” I worry about that. I worry whether people are going to be ready for what I do.”

So while O(+> was working on Emancipation, he saved some of the recordings for a projected The Dawn album that never appeared, however.

On 27 September 2008, The Divine turned up as a subject in an interview with USA Today. Prince was playing the journalist some tracks from his upcoming Lotusflow3r album but declined to play The Divine, a song so “mind-blowing” he doubted he'd ever release it. “The minute the harmonies hit, I put it away,” he said.

O(+> also told Rolling Stone that Emancipation was based on his studies “of the Egyptians, the building of the pyramids and how the pyramids were related to the constellations. They were a message from the Egyptians about how civilization really started.”

He revealed that Emancipation would be made up of three CDs, each exactly an hour long, “To the minute,” indicating that an early configuration existed at this point. Tracks mentioned for inclusion were Betcha By Golly Wow!, Sex In The Summer, Damned If Eye Do and Eye Can’t Make U Love Me. In August, O(+> was also interviewed for Oor, where he additionally talked about She Gave Her Angels and Let’s Have A Baby.

In late August 1996, songs from Emancipation were aired at Paisley Park parties on 24, 25 and 31 August. Besides Somebody’s Somebody, Betcha By Golly Wow!, Get Yo Groove On, Sex In The Summer and Mr. Happy, a cover of The Delfonic’s La, La, La Means Eye Love U were also aired, indicating that these tracks were also on the August 1996 Emancipation configuration.

O(+>: Emancipation (August 1996)
Track list unknown, but triple album including She Gave Her Angels, Let’s Have A Baby, Sex In The Summer, Betcha By Golly Wow!, Damned If Eye Do, Eye Can’t Make U Love Me, Somebody’s Somebody, Get Yo Groove On, Mr. Happy and La, La, La Means Eye Love U.

Mr. Happy now featured a rap by Scrap D., who had rapped on the Chaos And Disorder track I Rock, Therefore I Am in March 1996, so it is likely that the other Emancipation tracks that he appeared on, Da, Da, Da and Style, had also been finished at this point. By the same token, Style also featured horns by Walter Chancellor, Jr. and Eric Leeds, indicating that Jam Of The Year, which featured the duo, had also been finished at this time.

The fate of She Gave Her Angels

The shooting of the Muppets Tonight episode featuring O(+> that was shown on TV around the world beginning in May 1997 supposedly took place in September 1996. O(+> performed the 1995 re-recording of Starfish And Coffee and an edit of She Gave Her Angels.

“I think one of the great losses of Emancipation was She Gave Her Angels which ended up on Crystal Ball,” Hans-Martin Buff said in a 2022 Funkatopia interview. “And the reason why it ended up there was that it was on the Muppet Show so it should be released, but that was like the center point of the second disc until The Holy River took over. That would have been a huge Bohemian Rhapsody size song sonically and in terms of content.”

Hans-Martin Buff revealed in the book Prince by Matt Thorne that O(+> had brought in R&B singer R. Kelly's engineer Peter Mokran to see what he could do with the song Sleep Around and that Mokran mixed Sleep Around for three days, but O(+> didn't like the result. The released version was recorded in spring 1996 and featured additional programming by Cesar Sogbe and Joe Galdo, as did The Human Body which was aired at a Paisley Park party on 5 October 1996. Sleep Around also featured The NPG Hornz. They were brought back in after Eric Leeds had quit over a payment dispute.

Photos by Daniela Federici

Ready for release

When O(+> assembled the final Emancipation album configuration, it included the song White Mansion. It is unknown when in 1996 he recorded it. A ballad entitled Love (Never Has 2 Say Goodbye) written by Vinnie Barrett that would have fit perfectly amongst the other love songs on Emancipation disc 2 didn't make the album.

According to Hans-Martin Buff, The Plan was written towards the end of the Emancipation sessions and Joint 2 Joint was the last song recorded for the album. Then Buff spent an all-night session with O(+> ensuring each disc lasted exactly sixty minutes. " We edited it if it was over, we put some stuff in - like in Saviour, we had guitar distortion and the sound of doors opening," Buff told biographer Matt Thorne. "We made segues and made little things here and there, it was a big deal."

By 10 October 1996, Emancipation was done and O(+> previewed the album for the record company EMI-Capitol’s top-level executives. A deal was made for them to print, distribute and promote Emancipation. Five days later, an Emancipation listening party was held at Paisley Park for a few Minneapolis journalists, EMI executives and retail representatives.

Happy with his freedom from Warner Bros., O(+> talked about the EMI deal and his impending fatherhood in an interview with Rolling Stone. The pregnant Mayte was present for the interview.

“Recently I thought about my whole career, my whole life leading up to this point - having a child helps you do that - and I thought about what would be the perfect album for me to do,” O(+> said. “Sign O' The Times was originally called Crystal Ball and was supposed to be three albums. “You'll overwhelm the market,” I was told. “You can't do that.” Then people say I'm a crazy fool for writing on my face, but if I can't do what I want to do, what am I? When you stop a man from dreaming, he becomes a slave. That's where I was. I don't own Prince's music. If you don't own your masters, your master owns you.”

It was revealed that each of the three CDs making up Emancipation would contain 12 songs, adding up to 36 songs, which was a CD and 14-16 songs less than the 50-52 songs he had initially announced.

Discussing how he had been affected by the prospect of fatherhood, O(+> said, “You'll definitely hear it in my music.”

Tragedy strikes

O(+> and Mayte’s baby Amiir was born on 16 October 1996. Unfortunately, the child suffered from Pfeiffer’s Syndrome and a week later, it was decided to turn off the life-support machine and allow the boy to die. The body was cremated the same day.

The promotional activities for the release of Emancipation had already been planned and O(+> decided not to postpone them. Two days later, he gave a concert at Paisley Park, playing Jam Of The Year, Get Yo Groove On, Face Down and One Of Us from Emancipation.

On 26 October 1996, O(+> and EMI hosted a press conference at Paisley Park for music industry and media people from the US. O(+> aired selections from Emancipation before answering questions. Then he performed a short set that included Get Yo Groove On and Jam Of The Year. A few hours later, he performed a 30-minute set at Paisley Park for about 100 fans. O(+> asked the audience “where are you gonna go after you die?” before playing One Of Us. He concluded the show by stating “freedom is a truly beautiful thing.”

Following a promotional trip to Japan from 30 October to 3 November 1996, O(+> was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for her Oprah talk show on 4 November. The image that O(+> had planned to associate with Emancipation was that of a family man, celebrating his marriage to Mayte and the birth of their child. Despite the death of the baby, O(+> decided to go through with promoting that image, showing Oprah the playroom he had prepared for the baby at Paisley Park. He talked about how the song Sex In The Summer featured the ultrasound heartbeat of the child and that they wanted more children. He answered, “Well, our family exists. We're just beginning it. And we've got many kids to have, a long way to go,” when asked about the rumors about the baby being born with health problems. “It's all good. Never mind what you hear.”

Mayte reluctantly participated in the interview. "In retrospect, this would have been a good way to share the truth in a dignified way," she said in her 2017 book My Life With Prince, but "I'd been instructed by my husband: "Say nothing about Amiir."

Instead, O(+> and Mayte talked to Oprah about their love for each other, but following the interview Mayte felt so bad, she seriously considered swallowing a bottle of Vicodin. Her cat intervened by demanding her attention. "Mia saved my life," she wrote in her book. "If Mia hadn't been there, I wouldn't have been there the next day or the day after that. Or months later, when I finally started to feel like myself again."

Mayte's struggle

Meanwhile, O(+> wanted to shoot a video for Betcha By Golly Wow! that also celebrated his love for Mayte and the birth of their child. Mayte was to be in it, acting pregnant. She revealed in her 2017 memoirs that she got upset when O(+> told her about his vision for the video: "When he told me about his idea and said he wanted to shoot the scenes at the hospital where Amiir had recently died, I wanted to shake him. I wanted to slap him and say, "Are you serious right now?" (...) But he was so earnest about this vision. He wanted to return to a moment when he felt complete joy, complete faith, complete love, and he wanted to take me with him."

"I can look at it now and see the sweetness of it, but for a long time, I couldn't look at it at all," she continued. "I did it for the same reason I did Oprah: I didn't know what else I could do to help him. (...) This man was my family now, and I was his. If he'd asked me to drive off a cliff with him, I would have done it."

On 11-16 November 1996, O(+> gave a series of interviews at Paisley Park. “Mayte and I decided it's cool to talk about ourselves but not about our children,” O(+> told USA Today. “There is a rumor out that my baby died. My skin is so thick now. I care much more about my child than about what anyone says or writes.”

“My child will have so much fun, all the fun I never had as a child,” O(+> added to MSN Music Central.

"We believed he was going to come back, that souls come back. We didn't want to acknowledge he was gone, it was our way of grieving," Mayte told Daily Mail Online in 2006. “We had to show people that we were strong, that we had faith, and that we would try again,” Mayte added in an interview with Mirror in 2015. “But I didn’t really want to speak to anybody. I was physically distraught. When you miscarry your body is freaking out, like "Why can’t I feed the baby?" so those were the things I went through. Every day was a struggle even to breathe."

Emancipation arrives

“This is the most exciting time of my life,” O(+> told USA Today. “There was nothing in the way when I recorded (Emancipation). Nobody looked over my shoulder. Nothing was remixed, censored, chopped down or edited. (…) This is my debut. My name represents this body of work, not what came before.”

On 12 November 1996, O(+> performed a TV-transmitted 25-minute show at Paisley Park in celebration of his freedom from Warner Bros. and the upcoming release of Emancipation. Only O(+>’s lead vocal and guitar were live, though. The rest of the music was pre-recorded and included Jam Of The Year, Get Yo Groove On and One Of Us. The NPG Hornz (now called The Hornheads) and a group of dancers led by choreographer Jamie King guested on stage. A 15-minute press conference followed for about 100 reporters.

Betcha By Golly Wow! was released as the first single on 13 November 1996. It contained a new edit of Right Back Here In My Arms that was also the album version.

O(+>: Betcha By Golly Wow! (November 1996)

1. Betcha By Golly Wow! (3:31) – by Thomas R. Bell & Linda Creed

2. Right Back Here In My Arms (4:43)

The single only reached number 32 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay Chart, but peaked at number 10 on the Hot R&B Airplay chart. An alternative video for Betcha By Golly Wow! was shown on Top Of The Pops on 15 November 1996. It featured the full close-up performance by O(+> of which exceprts had been used in the previous video.

The day after that, O(+> gave another concert at Paisley Park, performing Face Down, Jam Of The Year, Get Yo Groove On and Sleep Around.

Then, on 19 November 1996, Emancipation was finally released, only four months after Chaos And Disorder. It contained an edit of the title track, as well as an edit of the instrumental track The Plan. The full version of The Plan would get released on The NPG Orchestra: Kamasutra in 1997.

O(+>: Emancipation (November 1996)

Disc 1:

1. Jam Of The Year (6:10)

2. Right Back Here In My Arms (4:43)

3. Somebody’s Somebody (4:43)

4. Get Yo Groove On (6:31)

5. Courtin’ Time (2:46)

6. Betcha By Golly Wow! (3:31) – by Thomas R. Bell & Linda Creed

7. We Gets Up (4:18)

8. White Mansion (4:47)

9. Damned If Eye Do (5:21)

10. Eye Can’t Make U Love Me (6:37) – by James A. Shamblin & Michael B. Reid

11. Mr. Happy (4:46)

12. In This Bed Eye Scream (5:40)

Disc 2:

1. Sex In The Summer (5:57)

2. One Kiss At A Time (4:41)

3. Soul Sanctuary (4:41)

4. Emale (3:38)

5. Curious Child (2:57)

6. Dreamin’ About U (3:52)

7. Joint 2 Joint (7:52)

8. The Holy River (6:55)

9. Let’s Have A Baby (4:07)

10. Saviour (5:48)

11. The Plan (1:47)

12. Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife (7:37)

Disc 3:

1. Slave (4:51)

2. New World (3:43)

3. The Human Body (5:42)

4. Face Down (3:17)

5. La, La, La Means Eye Love U (3:59) – by Thomas R. Bell & William Hart

6. Style (6:40)

7. Sleep Around (7:42)

8. Da, Da, Da (5:15)

9. My Computer (4:37)

10. One Of Us (5:19) – by Eric M. Bazilian

11. The Love We Make (4:39)

12. Emancipation (4:12)

Fan reaction

A two-page spread in the Emancipation CD booklet perpetuated O(+>’s family man image with pictures of his and Mayte’s parents and him and Mayte about to give birth. Disc 2 was full of love songs and the accompanying artwork included a picture of the baby crib O(+> had presented to Mayte on their wedding night.

The lyrics for The Love We Make offered an explanation for O(+> and Mayte’s public attitude about the death of their child. They believed that: “Happy is the way 2 meet your burdens, no matter how heavy or dark the day. Pity on those with no hope 4 2morrow. It’s never as bad as it seems until we say.”

O(+>’s name-change, public feud with Warner Bros. and lack-luster album releases like Come and Chaos And Disorder had tarnished his public image, so the pressure was on for O(+> to redeem himself now that he was finally free. Had The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (TAFKAP) really saved the best tracks for Emancipation during the last years at Warner Bros.? The answer was “no.”

Although Emancipation was not as exciting as O(+>’s 1993-1994 productions, still no one could deny that there were some good songs on the album. But there were no songs that really stood out, screaming “hit single.” Apparently, not having a record company to make demands (for radio friendly music) may have been liberating for O(+> as an artist, but it also meant that there was no one to push him to make that extra effort (to produce a hit).

Usually, fans wanted more, making up their own personal “ultimate” editions of albums that included B-sides and bootlegged outtakes. With Emancipation, they typically wanted less, instead paring the three discs down to one, creating their own personal “ultimate” best of.

Some of the reviewers agreed with the fans’ assessment. “Emancipation is plagued with a lot of filler. In the end there are just too many middling songs,” Christopher John Farley wrote in Time. “Still, listeners can indulge in a little emancipation of their own and make one great album out of this three-CD set.”

“This three-hour, triple-CD set is somewhat less than the wall-to-wall tour de force our man no doubt envisioned. Which isn't to say that there's not easily, oh, an hour's worth of top shelf material here,” Tom Sinclair agreed in Entertainment Weekly. “There's at least one-and-a-bit excellent TAFKAP albums to be uncovered here,” Mark Beaumont concluded in NME.

Critical reaction

As always with a new O(+> album, some reviewers concluded that it was his best album since Sign ‘O’ The Times. This included Brian McCollum of Detroit Free Press and Stuart Maconie of Q, the latter giving it four stars and concluding: “Not since Diamonds And Pearls has TAFKAP made such a consistently successful album and not since Sign O' The Times has he given his fecund, unknowable intelligence such free reign.”

Edna Gundersen also gave the album four stars in USA Today and wrote: “Astounding in both its stylistic breadth and disciplined focus.”

Jim Farber of New York Daily News was probably the most impressed by Emancipation: “It's crammed with some of the most scorching grooves and fleet melodies of TAFKAP's career.”

“It is the most cohesive, satisfying work in years,” Amy Linden agreed in People Weekly and noticed the new family man image: “The virtuoso formerly known as Prince Rogers Nelson, 38, expands his lyrical content beyond his usual twin obsessions of sex and salvation to examine commitment and fatherhood.”

“His marriage to beautiful and talented dancer Mayte Garcia and the birth of the couple's first child (…) are recurrent themes on Emancipation, and as much keys to its celebratory nature as his exodus from Warner Bros.,” noted Steven Batten of Scene Magazine.

“I think Emancipation is, without a doubt, the best album of my whole career,” O(+> commented in an interview with Hello. “People seem to like it. The critics haven't always been kind in the past, but reviews for this have been better. Some have said that it's too long or that certain songs were too long - but what should I have taken out? It's a question of balance and harmony. Harmony is important and I don't like people who criticize music when they're not musicians.”

Regardless of O(+>’s feelings and eager promotion of the album, Emancipation only sold around 570.000 copies in the US which was only 40.000 more than what The Gold Experience had sold and those sales had been considered disastrous. Still, it reached number 11 on Billboard’s Pop Chart and number six on the R&B Chart which was impressive for a three-CD set and in worldwide sales it did almost sell 1,5 million copies.

Hans-Martin Buff’s assessment
O(+>’s engineer at the final stages of the recordings for the Emancipation album gave a pretty good evaluation of it in a 2022 interview with Funkatopia: “I think it is a great record to this day. It’s overwhelming, but it’s meant to be. Certain albums work because they are so much. The way I’m looking at it now as a listener is somebody who is looking at the whole picture. It’s kind of the culmination of that period that started after Graffiti Bridge up to then - it’s focused on that album. I feel that in that album is both Gold and Come and Diamonds And Pearls in terms of style but he kind of put it into a narrative that worked in a row, you know. I feel it’s about life and love and then liberty or emancipation or whatever you want to call it. And you don’t have to do the whole thing. You can just enjoy it and take it at face value – however you want to look at it.”

 
“I am a big fan of grown-up records. As a Beatles fan, let me say as an example maybe Double Fantasy by John Lennon or shortly thereafter Tug Of War with Paul McCartney which is the one with Ebony And Ivory and many much better songs. They’re not their most adventurous. You don’t have the passion of youth that you have in, let’s say in Prince’s case Sign O’ The Times and stuff like that, but you have somebody at their peak of what they’ve learned through their musical life in a life position where they have something to say. It’s not as exciting as ‘oh, I ‘m on drugs’ or ‘I’m so lonely’ or ‘bitch left me’ or whatever it is you write albums about that are intense, but they’re solid and they just shine. They’re never the most popular because they’re just so at peace with themselves, but they’re great. I like them. And I think Emancipation is that for him. It was kind of the peak - you know the solidness of his insights up until that point.”

Hans-Martin Buff

Live Emancipation

The day after the album release, on 20 November 1996, O(+> was in Chicago where he taped a live performance for use on Oprah that included a lip-synched performance of Sleep Around. Afterwards, he gave a concert in Chicago, playing Jam Of The Year, Get Yo Groove On, One Of Us and Sleep Around. The Oprah interview was broadcast on 21 November 1996.

On 7 December 1996, O(+> aired a live recording of Dreamin’ About U at a Paisley Park party. Then, on 19 December 1996, O(+> gave his first-ever live TV interview on NBC’s The Today Show. He brought his wife along for the occasion, talking about them being soul mates from a previous life in Egypt. For the first time they no longer tried to deny the stories that had hit all the gossip magazine covers following the Oprah interview about the death of their child although “anything that happens we accept and move on” was all O(+> would say on the subject.

O(+> also revealed that he saw Emancipation as a two or three-year project with “at least 18 singles.”

O(+> gave two concerts at Paisley Park on 27 and 28 December 1996, playing Somebody’s Somebody and Face Down at the first and Jam Of The Year, Face Down and Sleep Around at the second.

On 7 January 1997, O(+> performed Somebody’s Somebody and The Holy River on the Rosie O’Donnell Show in New York before kicking off his Love 4 One Another Charities tour the same day. The tour lasted until 28 June 1997. The set-list only included six of the 36 Emancipation songs: Jam Of The Year, Get Yo Groove On, Face Down, One Of Us, Mr. Happy and Sleep Around. Somebody’s Somebody made a rare appearance and snatches from We Gets Up were occasionally added to Sleep Around. Halfway through the tour, O(+> began to occasionally play The Holy River, too.

The Holy River was released as the second single from Emancipation on 13 January 1997. Two different editions of the single became available. Both contained edits of The Holy River and Somebody’s Somebody while one contained two remixes of Somebody’s Somebody and the other On Sale Now! which was a short advertisement for O(+>’s 1-800 NEW FUNK mail order store.

O(+>: The Holy River (January 1997)

1. The Holy River (Radio Edit) (4:00)

2. Somebody’s Somebody (Edit) (4:30)

3. Somebody’s Somebody (Livestudio Mix) (3:47)

4. Somebody’s Somebody (Ultrafantasy Edit) (3:45)

O(+>: The Holy River (January 1997)

1. The Holy River (Radio Edit) (4:00)

2. The Most Beautiful Girl In The World (Mustang Mix) (6:19)

3. Somebody’s Somebody (Edit) (4:30)

4. On Sale Now! (0:48)

The Holy River peaked at number 65 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay Chart. A couple of weeks later, a video was released for the B-side, Somebody’s Somebody. It showed O(+> longing for Mayte while on tour.

On 31 January 1997, a cassette featuring two live tracks from the Love 4 One Another Charities tour became available from 1-800 NEW FUNK.

O(+>: NYC Live 1/11/97 cassette (January 1997)

1. Jam Of The Year (5:22)

2. Face Down (8:35)

O(+> = Prince?

On 7 February 1997, Girl 6 director Spike Lee interviewed O(+> for Interview and started out by asking if O(+> would ever say anything about his child. O(+> replied: “I have written a song that says if you ever lose someone dear to you, never say the words “they're gone” and they'll come back,” referring to Comeback on his next album The Truth. “What people have to realize is that if one has a firm belief in God and the spirit, then one does not make statements that are negative and untrue. I would have been lying to myself and the spirit of the child.”

“To be honest, I thought I had emptied the gun with this one (Emancipation) and I wouldn't have to record for awhile,” he continued, “but some new things came up that are all acoustic,” referring to The Truth again. He also hinted at his O(+> name being a temporary thing: “If there is a pronunciation to my name in the future, I hope it will be “Prince.” That's my dream.”

Later in the day, O(+> lip-synched to Face Down from the NYC Live cassette on The Chris Rock Show. The next day, he lip-synched to a live version of Emancipation at the 28^th Annual NAACP Image Awards where he received a Special Achievement Award.

O(+> appeared on the Brit Awards 1997 on 24 February, performing Emancipation again. 

O(+> appeared on the Brit Awards 1997 on 24 February, performing Emancipation again. Two days later, he taped a live performance of The Holy River for Top Of The Pops which was broadcast 28 February 1997.

On that day, O(+> was back in the US, attending EMI-Capitol head Charles Koppelman’s party celebrating Emancipation’s double-platinum sales with guests including Marilyn Manson, Sheryl Crow, Spike Lee, Kevin Spacey, Quincy Jones and Joan Osborne. The actual Emancipation record sales were only 448.000 in the US at this time but they were counted triple because it was a three-CD set. “We got seriously paid on that,” O(+> boasted in a 1999 interview with Philadelphia Inquirer. Under his old contract, he would have had to sell 500.000 copies just to break even, but now his higher percentage of copies sold had netted him an estimated $5 million.

On 24 March 1997, a video for The Holy River (Radio Edit) was finally released. Still going with the family man image, it featured O(+> showing off his wedding ring as well as clips of Mayte taken from the unreleased video to Empty Room. O(+> then performed The Holy River at the VH-1 Honors show on 10 April 1997 which was broadcast the next day.

Emancipation: A gospel album?
In April, an interview with O(+> was published in Musician in which he talked about The Holy River: “Religion as a subject is taboo in pop music. People think that the records they release have got to be hip, but what I need to do is to tell the truth. I had to take some other songs, like A Thousand Hugs And Kisses and She Gave Her Angels, off the Warner albums because they were all about the same subject. But now I can write a song that says, “If u ask God 2 love u longer, every breath u take will make u stronger, keepin’ u happy and proud 2 call His name: Jesus” and not have to worry about what Billboard magazine will say.”

The issue of spirituality in his music also came up in an interview with Newark Star-Ledger published 16 September 1997. In a fax, O(+> replied to the question if he would ever release a gospel album and if he found that “the booty and the Bible” could co-exist?

“Everything on earth is compatible in one form or another, and spirituality and sexuality can be one in the same. depending on your outlook,” he replied.  “2 me, Emancipation is a gospel record! God is in everything! The Love We Make is about the acceptance of the divine plan. ’The only love there is - is the love we make.’”

“Saviour is about being born again. The day that every living thing accepts that fact that God can and does exist - outside of religion - is the day when all will begin 2 welcome the dawn. The awakening will occur among those who beckon it and the new kingdom we’ve heard so much about will become apparent. Needless 2 say - we will have 2 build it, but 1st it must be born in our hearts.”

Prince’s funeral
Also in April 1997, EMI-Capitol was closed by its parent company, the EMD entertainment conglomerate which was unhappy with the label’s American business. This left O(+> without a record company to print and distribute his next single off Emancipation, Face Down. It included five new mixes of Face Down with clean language, two remixes of The Holy River, an edit of Eye Can’t Make U Love Me and a medley of Emancipation songs. It remains unreleased.

O(+>: Face Down EP (April 1997)

1. Clean Album Version (3:17)

2. X-tended Rap Money Mix (4:51)

3. 1-800 Newfunkhouse Mix

4. Instrumental Money Mix (4:02)

5. Acapella Face (2:21)

6. Eye Can’t Make You Love Me (Edit) - written by James Allen Shamblin II & Michael Barry Reid

7. The Holy River Remix (5:03)

8. The Holy River Dirtyhousemix

9. Emancipation Medley

Instead, the US store chain Borders Books and Music sponsored a The Holy River cassette single that was given away with any purchase made in the stores beginning in early May 1997.

O(+>: The Holy River cassette (May 1997)

1. The Holy River (Radio Edit) (4:00)

2. Welcome 2 The Dawn (Acoustic Version) (3:17)

Welcome 2 The Dawn was a song from O(+>’s next album The Truth that got released as part of the Crystal Ball collection in 1998.

On 5 May 1997, two remixes each of Face Down and The Holy River from the Face Down EP was aired at a party at Paisley Park. At another Paisley Park party on 24 May 1997, a remix of Face Down was also aired.

A video for Face Down was released to TV stations on 5 June 1997. It featured O(+> attending the funeral of Prince. A promo single was sent to radio stations.

O(+>: Face Down promo (May 1997)

1. Album Version (3:16)

2. X-tended Rap Money Mix (4:56)

3. Instrumental Money Mix (3:58)

O(+>: Face Down promo 12” single (May 1997)

Side A:

1. X-tended Rap Money Mix (4:56)

2. Instrumental Money Mix (3:58)

Side B:

1. I Can’t Make You Love Me (Album Version) (6:38)

2. Face Down (A Cappella) (2:21)

The final Emancipation tracks

From 22 July 1997 to 22 January 1998, O(+> embarked upon a Jam Of The Year tour of the US. He only played five songs from Emancipation: Jam Of The Year, Get Yo Groove On, Face Down, One Of Us and Sleep Around.

A piano medley would sometimes include Somebody’s Somebody. Mr. Happy was performed two times on the tour. Sleep Around was abandoned after the first leg of the tour concluded and Get Yo Groove On and One Of Us were dropped from the set after the second leg, leaving only Jam Of The Year and Face Down from Emancipation with Dreamin’ About U added as a band introduction number with Marva King providing vocals.

In between the first and second leg of the tour, O(+> gave two concerts at Paisley Park, 7 and 10 September 1997, performing Face Down and Sleep Around.

On the first leg of the tour, 22 July to 23 August 1997, O(+> performed Mr. Happy, Face Down and Somebody’s Somebody at aftershows. A bit of The Holy River was played once. On the second leg of the tour, 13 September to 9 November 1997, O(+> only performed Face Down and then only at one aftershow. On the third leg of the tour, 8 December 1997 to 22 January 1998, no Emancipation tracks were played at aftershows.

On 14 August, 20 September and 31 October 1997, a remix of Jam Of The Year was played from CD prior to aftershows. It remains unreleased. PoomPoom was aired 20 and 21 September, Goodbye was aired on 31 October and Da Bang on 30 December 1997 and 1 January 1998. Those three tracks were then released on the Crystal Ball collection in February 1998 along with 2morrow and She Gave Her Angels.

In March 1998, O(+> gave the song Van Gogh to a band appropriately called Van Gogh. They re-recorded the song and released it on their self-titled fourth album on 6 November 1998.

Before then, on 29 September 1998 Chaka Khan’s Come 2 My House album was released on NPG Records. It featured two more Emancipation era tracks, Journey 2 The Center Of Your Heart and Eye’ll Never B Another Fool. Also, O(+> reused some of the music from Feelgood on her song Reconsider (U Betta).

Finally, O(+>’s second version of Van Gogh from May 1996 was released as a download for members of the online NPG Music Club on 7 July 2001.

Epilogue

Feelgood, Good Pussy, Eye Am The DJ, Slave, 2020, Good Dick And A Job, Die, Livin’ 2 Die, Stone, (If It Ain't) Gutbucket, Heart In My Hand, With God As My Witness, Moneyappolis, Muhammad Ali and The Divine remain unreleased. Added to the tracks released on Crystal Ball and the songs he gave to Chaka Khan and Van Gogh, O(+> certainly had enough material for a fourth Emancipation disc had he decided to go through with the 52 initially announced tracks.

In 2015, Mayte revealed in an interview with Mirror that she had a miscarriage not long after the death of Amiir: "To lose two babies is really scary... it really caught on me emotionally, physically, everything. It took me at least 15 years to get over it and still, to this day, I miss my son. I believe a child dying between a couple either makes you stronger or it doesn’t. For me, it was very, very hard to move forward and for us as a couple I think it probably broke us.”

While on the Jam Of The Year tour, O(+> met and befriended bassist Larry Graham on 23 August 1997, leading to Larry’s band Graham Central Station becoming the opening act on the second leg of the tour. Larry and his family then moved into a house next to O(+> and Mayte in Minneapolis and over time converted O(+> to the Jehova’s Witnesses faith.

Corey Tollefson, a Minneapolis-based fan, was quoted in a 2016 GQ feature saying: "In the mid-’90s there was a lot of "Pussy Control" and "Billy Jack Bitch" and all these songs, and suddenly it turned into "Everyday People" and, you know, basically Larry Graham. They were handing out New Testament Bibles onstage sometimes, back in the ’98, ’99 era."

With O(+> abandoning the spiritual new age beliefs he had shared with his wife Mayte, the couple divorced in May 2000. When all contractual ties to Warner Bros. ceased in 1999, O(+> then also abandoned his “heathen” symbol name in May 2000, going back to using his old name Prince and then he officially joined the Witnesses in 2001.

The unreleased 1993 and 1994 configurations of Come and Gold were the last truly great O(+>/Prince material for many years. Some of his subsequent album releases were marred by the re-christened Prince’s lyrics dealing more and more openly with his Jehova beliefs, making Larry Graham disliked by a lot of Prince fans for having converted him. However, Prince remained an ever-popular live-artist, playing all of his old hits – those of them that didn’t have lyrics that went against his Jehova beliefs, anyway. And he surprised with the occasional great album like The Chocolate Invasion in 2004, 3121 in 2006 and Art Official Age in 2014 before his death in 2016.