Prince, Welcome 2 America
Welcome 2 America is the first posthumous release of one of Prince’s previously completed albums since his death in 2016. It waxes political, addressing the issues of 2010 that still resonate with the current political and societal landscape of today. Prince critiques political messaging, the efforts and initiatives of “hope and change” without any of the work, the constant media cycle, and the prevalence of everyone striving for stardom and fame. Introduced by the spoken-word title track, America is a place for Prince “where you can fail at your job, get fired, rehired, and get a seven hundred billion dollar tip.”
Prince had gone on a Welcome 2 America tour, but none of the songs from his Welcome 2 America album were on that tour. The album was recorded in 2010 and shelved in Prince’s vault in Paisley Park for another ten years. The recording of the album took place during the first year of Obama’s presidency while Prince was reportedly “reflecting deeply on the issues affecting the Black community and the role he hoped to play in the social justice movement.”
Prince’s keyboard player and musical member of The New Power Generation, Morris Hayes, produced most of Welcome 2 America. Unlike other works of Prince’s where he would “micromanage” the musical process, Prince left this project up to Hayes, asking him to overproduce the work and telling him that he would take out any parts he didn’t like.
A lot of the artists who came in to help Prince with this project stayed at the Country Inn and Suites in Chanhassen. Shelby J. tells Andrea Swensson on the first episode of her podcast, “The Story of Welcome 2 America,” that “We basically lived there; it was like our dorm.” Does this mean the Country Inn will be a new Prince fanatic tourist destination?
Prince would rarely record a song more than once according to Tal Wilkenfeld, the bassist and guitarist who worked with Prince on this project. “He would only do something once or twice. There was only one take for most of this album,” Wilkenfeld told Swensson on “The Story of Welcome 2 America.”
As for why Prince never put out this album, Hayes said that Prince never gave him a reason and alluded to revisiting the project in the future. “I’ve never seen anybody who had that much work inside of them,” Hayes told 60 Minutes.
In episode two of Andrea Swensson’s podcast, former Prince manager Kiran Sharma says that at the time that he was creating the project, there was also a meeting with Obama in the works. They had set up times to talk twice, but both fell through due to scheduling difficulties. “As Black folks, we were all elated about President Obama and the prospect of having this first Black president,” Hayes told Swensson. “Prince had a slightly different take on it… His whole thing was ‘No, we’re not gonna give him a pass on just that.” Prince had ideas on art, the entertainment industry, and the education system he wanted to run past Obama.
Critics are calling the album prophetic and vouching for his innate ability to see into the future. Shelby Johnson, known to Prince fans as Shelby J., told Uncut that he knew this album would be needed later and that it needed to wait: “He knew we’d need it later. That blows my mind, but that’s just what geniuses do.”
Prince has always critiqued the entertainment industry and his use of technology in his music. In his song “Running Game (Son of a Slavemaster)” he alludes to the exploitation of artists, especially Black artists, in the music and entertainment industry, as he sings “Twenty-five thousand is like selling it free / Seems like a lot next to poverty / How much you really want for all them beats?”
