Earlier this year, as music fans watched one pioneering artist after another slip away, a friend and fellow DJ summed up the first few months of the young year with the following status update: “2016, you’re wack.” Month after month has robbed fans of icon after icon, the most recent blow dealt to the entertainment industry after the loss of American rock, funk and soul legend Prince. While Saturday, May 21, will mark a full month since his departure, few have experienced that loss as intimately as his fellow MN natives, tourmates and proteges, Mint Condition.
Currently headlining across the country as part of a national tour, MC took time before performing at DFW’s Verizon Theater (with the newly-reunited Floetry and soul legend El DeBarge) to express how integral Prince was to their beginnings, what he gave them as performers and how he continues to have an impact inside and outside of music.

MELODY CHARLES: What did Prince mean to you all as men and musicians?

STOKLEY WILLIAMS: “He’s a lot of the reason why we’re here in the capacity that we are, why we sound like we do. We’ve got many influences and he’s a big one that also brought the world’s attention to [the talent in] the Twin Cities. In the early days, when we were trying to find a record deal, everyone basically said to us, ‘What’s happening right now musically is back in MN, why you all out here?” So we ended up getting our deal back at home because of the musical explosion happening because of his endeavors—-Vanity, The Time, on and on. So the news was a big kick in the you-know-what.”

MC: What parts of Prince did you get to witness that fans like us may not have had access to?

LARRY WADDELL: “Prince was our original multi-media artist. Trying to contain him within the walls of being just a ‘musician’ is doing a disservice, because everything about him was his art. If he was doing the concert here tonight, there would be his artwork on the walls, incense from a scent he chose….. One day Stokley and I caught a rehearsal of his and it was almost as if he were a painter: he was controlling the colors of the lights and where they fell and even mixed from the stage. He was kind of like a big brother—not a man of many words until he was ready to talk, but he supported us and had us out [on the road] to do many shows with him. Sometimes he was so spontaneous he’d ask, “Can y’all do a show tomorrow?” and we’d have to say “We wish we could—we’re booked.” (laughs) Prince was the most enthusiastic and ambitious musician I’ve ever witnessed…..he’d do a three hour show, turn around and then play some more all night, unannounced, at another club. He was like a Picasso, a Charlie Chaplin, with some James Brown and Hendrix thrown in….he offered something to folks who strove to be different and as short as he may have been in stature, the man cast a long shadow.

“As far as his philanthropy, Prince’s humanitarian concerns focused on him being worried about the state of the world and what we were leaving behind for our children. The benefit he performed in Baltimore, his creation of Yes We Code, the other charities and organizations he donated to …..all of it spoke to his sense of humanity. It was how he and his ex-wife, Manuela Testolini, said that’s how they came together……they were starting schools and wanted to name about ten of them for him, that speaks to his humanity.”

JEFFREY ALLEN: “There was also his generosity…..Prince was so giving to us, the younger generation. We had a chance to tour with him over in Europe…..who else got to do that? Within the last ten years, he really came our of his shell and reached out to the next wave of younger artists.”

O’DELL: “Prince was a giving brother: he gave Spike Lee the gold symbol guitar and after that, I was playfully hinting around for one. So about six months later, his people called me out there [to Paisley Park] and he had a line of guitars on the wall, telling me to ‘choose what you want.’ I told him, ‘I’m not picky, any one you want me to have!’ So I got one with the clouds.”

MC: Prince’s legacy and influence, it seems like, is hard to calculate—-there’s Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Morris Day & The Time, Vanity, Sheila E.,
Andre Cymone, The Revolution, The New Power Generation…..how he’s almost single-handedly revolutionized entertainment with just “The Minneapolis Sound” is game-changing within itself.

STOKLEY: “If you listen to, us, especially on our first few albums, the falsetto, the instrumentation….that’s what was happening when we were coming up, being in a band and combining the performance and choreography—-that’s why Rick [Kinchen] moves the way he does and why I’m as energetic as I am. Prince’s spirit will never die—-he lives through us and through every other musician he’s touched around the world. He impacted us on every level and you can find a little bit of him in every song that we do.”