I was running late to work as usual, on the morning April 21st. Jumped in the car and started the engine. The radio got on and frustration suddenly rushed into my mind. “Stupid radio, Just be quiet” My hand was right on the switch to turn it off and suddenly I heard:”Prince was found dead in his house…” Everything went blank in front of my eyes. “Which Prince? The singer Prince? The real Prince? God! Prince?” And yes! Hard to believe, Prince was dead!
Going to work in a full depression of mind and body, I could hear every one talking about him. On the floors, in the lunch room, locker room, washrooms and the stair ways. “God! Prince is dead?”
I started getting to know Prince as an Iranian teenager in 1994. In fact I owe this to my parents. We lived in Iran and not a lot of people were attracted to western music those days, specially Prince with all those funky strange flamboyant style and open sexual genre. However He was all over our kitchen 24/7 with his attractive voice along with his funk music, mixed with Rock n Roll, he was the first reason mom and dad started loving each other through the equality of opinion, and no jokes, he was the one never died in our memories, like he had his spot on the eastern side of the world, which was our house in Iran.
Dad knew the biography by heart, seemed like Prince was the champion of his life, or his closest friend. And mom once told us that she would marry him if she had the chance- like every other women!
All I heard about him from dad, I used to talk about at school. Friends knew that I had all his posters on my bedroom’s walls and I would do anything to collect his albums. One of my friends asked me once: “why Prince?” And I answered: ” cause he ‘s cool as heaven.”
At lunch times I used to teach my friends in a serious way, that his name was “Prince James Nelson” and he was kind of a king of rock, pop, R&b, funk and some more. I could say he was a pattern for me in my teenage hood by 99 percent. I tried to imitate him; the way he danced, sang, acted, dressed up and made up, and I tried my best to collect all his albums including “For you”, “Prince went platinum”, “Dirty mind”, “Controversy”, and “1999” which were the ones dad had on cassettes and I listened to, all the time with my old walkman.
But this African American boy is dead now, and there’s a huge explosion on the news. Everyone wants to know what happened to Prince. Some say he had an over dose, some say he had HIV+, and others say that he had a simple flu and was not so lucky. But however this happened, regardless of what people say or believe, I just want him to know that all my family and I, grew up and lived with him for a long long time, eventually I want to say: “thank you James. You are always in our hearts, and I assure you that like my gorgeous mom, I would marry you if I had the chance.”
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