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The Beautiful Ones is the years-in-the-making posthumous memoir from Prince, one of the all-time most highly regarded American musical artists. Most Prince fans have a similar experience of discovering his music, they were captivated by the funky beats and naughty lyrics, and subsequently hid their fandom from their parents, listening in secret for fear of discovery. This is perhaps why Prince’s catalog feels so personal to so many, it is something that was not shared, and served as a youth-defining moment for young adults and kids who had never heard their own desires expressed like this in the open. Prince is a figure whom many connect with, but very few understand, as throughout his career, his individuality and artistry coalesced in ways that had never been explored by artists predating him. The Beautiful Ones seeks to augment the public conception of Prince’s individuality, through his own words, the words of friends and observers, and through personal artifacts like photography and journals.
The book project began in the year prior to Prince’s death, as a collaboration between Prince and the young Paris Review editor, Dan Piepenbring, whom Prince had personally enlisted as his collaborator. In his introduction, Piepenbring writes that Prince had been sitting on the book deal for a while, and in 2016 he finally felt ready to begin creating the expansive book project that would represent his memoir. This is when the publishers began pitching possible collaborators to Prince, and Piepenbring threw his hat into the ring as a longtime Prince fan, although the publishers reminded him that he was a young editor who had never published a book before, going against some industry veterans. Prince, however, rejected the experienced candidates in favor of Piepenbring, and after their early conversations, began to trust that he could give Prince the space to manifest the book that he desired. In Piepenbring’s recollections of these conversations, they discussed a great number of possible subjects for the memoir, including Prince’s mother, his thoughts on the systemic problems of the music industry, as well as a number of possible formats. True to himself, Prince’s aims for the book were far-reaching, he wanted it to be a new galaxy, to solve racism, to contribute to his mystery, not destroy it.
The thread that runs constant through Prince’s discussion of the book is the idea of creation. In his notes he wrote, “I want to tell people to create. Just start by creating your day. Then create your life.” Inseparable to this discussion of creativity is a discussion of race, as Prince notes the obstacles that have stood in the way of black creators and artists in terms of funding and public reception. He sees the book as “a handbook for the brilliant community…a radical call for collective ownership, for black creativity.” Prince disparages tech conglomerates like Apple, whose distribution model inherently robs value and profits from artists, as well as record companies and executives who fail to properly distribute music from black artists. Piepenbring writes, “All artists should own their masters, he said, especially black artists. He saw it as a way to fight racism. Black communities would restore wealth by amassing their master recordings.” The book is essentially a love letter to black creatives, a how-to for people of color trying to make space for themselves in the culture, an extension of Prince’s career-long project to open up possibilities for black artists, including himself.
The book is structured in four parts, after the first section, which is Piepenbring’s introduction. He outlines Prince’s early conceptions of the book project and his role in it, as well as the eventual process of deciding to move forward with the book after Prince’s death, which meant examining the personal archives left in his home. The first actual part is the pages that Prince had turned in to Piepenbring when they began working on the book, which read like early chapters of the memoir that never was. Prince writes with characteristic wit and insight about his parents and their difficult relationship, as well as his early romances with women and musical performance. His voice is so clear and individual in these pages, and they offer some insight into the role that Prince’s parentage played in his art and his conception of self. The second section is a collection of Prince’s photo journal in his early years, including photos of his family and friends, as well as his drawings and handwritten lyrics to some of his early hits like “Soft n’ Wet.” The third section extends to the professional photos that were taken of him throughout his career, when he was most central in the public eye. The final section contains Prince’s early ideas for his hit film, Purple Rain, including storyboards, drawings, and a brief plot synopsis. This section is valuable in that it offers a snapshot of how Prince’s art reflected his personal life, as themes of parentage, individuality, race, class, and sexuality appear throughout so much of his work.
The book is not a career retrospective, nor any sort of comprehensive effort to nail down Prince as a man or artist, and its unique format and thematic conception seem very much in line with the book project that Prince had originally imagined. It is, of course, a must-read for any die hard Prince fan, but offers unique and thought-provoking material substantial enough for readers who are simply interested in art, music, or the creative universe.