Book photographs by Caitlin Abrams
Prince, "The Beautiful Ones"
Prince died before he could finish his memoir. The 57-year-old passed away from an accidental fentanyl overdose in April 2016, with grand plans for how he wanted the definitive account of his life to take shape, from his childhood to the Super Bowl.
“If I want this book to be about one overarching thing, it’s freedom. And the freedom to create autonomously. Without anyone telling you what to do or how or why,” he told Dan Piepenbring, an editor chosen by Prince to help articulate his ideas into book form.
The search for Prince's artistic identity and the freedom it gave him is the heart of the initial concept for The Beautiful Ones. Since Prince died without a will, and the book was one of the last projects he signed off, his estate got in touch with Random House to see if they could move forward with it.
Now, a different kind of book called The Beautiful Ones is here, and with it comes a bit of a moral quandary. In addition to the countless unreleased recordings filed in the mythical vault that are being released, would Prince have wanted the book to be published in its incomplete form?
Prince, The Beautiful Ones
When Piepenbring got word of Prince’s death, just months after they started working on the book, an invite to visit the archives in Chanhassen proved fruitful, and gave him the confidence to finish the version of the book that Prince envisioned. The Beautiful Ones contains the slim draft Prince was able to write while he was alive, leaving a hypothetical shadow cast over the book of what could’ve been.
Filling in the gaps are a collection of notebook scans and drawings from the vault, photographs that a 19-year-old Prince took in December 1977 to chronicle his first record deal (the album For You), and the treatment for Purple Rain. The book elaborates on Prince's thought process with asides from his conversations with Piepenbring and quotes from past interviews. Even though Prince was taken before he could tell his own story, he gave Piepenbring enough direction to see it through.
Written in his signature Princespeak–to is 2, I is 👁, you is U–the working draft is undeniably him. The material of the book is fit for his royal taste: Hefty photographic paper gives weight to every word, and the mask of gold on the cover gives it a nice shine, alongside the self-portrait of the artist as a young man. It'll steal the show on your bookshelf.
With care, the book includes scans of the original handwritten drafts Prince worked up. His meditative, thoughtful songwriting style–an ability to speak to you in his songs–was a technique born from handwritten letters. “Handwriting is a lost art in need of resurrection,” Prince wrote. “Everyone should have a pen pal 2 actually write 2 as often as possible. Having an audience who will not judge U opens the pen up 2 a more honest fluid style of songwriting.”
Prince, The Beautiful Ones
Prince's mother, Mattie Della Shaw
In broad strokes, the book outlines the contours of his childhood, posits how his relationship to his parents affected his life, and documents the awkward stages of puberty and how his craft originated from his childhood loves.
The book was meant to be a reckoning of Prince being a fusion of his parents. As Piepenbring writes in the introduction, "Their conflict lived within him. In their discord, he heard a strange harmony that inspired him to create. He was full of awe and insight about his mother and father, about the way he embodied their union and disunion."
As a kid, Prince was called Skipper. “Teachers had a problem with calling me Prince,” he says. “They thought it wasn’t fit for a name, just like King wouldn’t be.” He looked up to his father Prince Sr., a musician he fiercely admired.
One could only wonder what pain Prince was dealing with before his death. In the months preceding it, he had taken to playing his solo Piano & A Microphone series at Paisley Park, where he'd ruminate about music and what his career meant on stage.
“Many artists fall down the rabbit holes of their own imaginations & never return. There have been many who decry this is as self-destruction, but 👁 prefer the term FREE WILL," he wrote. "Life is better lived. What path one takes is what sets us apart from the rest.”
Prince, The Beautiful Ones
Alternative artwork for 1999
Prince told Piepenbring that they needed to find another word for funk. The search for that meaning is the foundation of his life. “The space in between the notes–that's the good part,” he said. "However long the space is–that's how funky it is. Or how funky it ain't."
Within that space opens infinite possibilities. Whereas rock ‘n’ roll broke the rules, funk was all about following them, using the limitations of time and space to birth new ideas. Prince bent the rules to his will, but he didn’t break them.
For Prince, the journey of an artist is the same quest as a hero would take, only the end gives birth to some sort of self-fulfilling enlightenment. But that search for freedom in identity is endless. The book is a testament to the power of individuality, and a reminder of how his life was taken too soon. His restless soul never stopped recording new music, and we’re left to speculate on how Prince would have wanted to end his career, on his own terms.
Prince was mysterious, but he wasn't magical, a word he came to despise. He worked every day of his life to perfect his craft. It's what gave him purpose.
“Just start by creating your day," he said. "Then create your life.”
