The Apocalypse of Prince
Prince’s hit song “1999” is a song about partying at the end of the world. In its prophetic vision, the Artist bears witness, telling us that the sky was all purple, there were people runnin' everywhere, tryin' to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care. In this talk I ask a simple question... why? My answer invites us to listen differently to the Artist, to take seriously his vision of American endism and its relevance to our contemporary conditions of near-apocalypse. In this presentation, based on a book-in-progress, I count down.
“10...” An origin of the song; a history of counting down;
“...9...” A meditation on purple; a discussion of the song;
“...8...” An account of Nostradamus, apocalypse, millenarianism, and revolutionary eschatology;
“...7...” A revolutionary journey from Chiapas to Seattle back to Chiapas; a thought about R/revolution;
“...6...” A reboot of Y2K; a dialectic of apocalyptic futurity;
“...5...” An anthem of the Green Scare; a thought about sonic warfare;
“...4...” A discussion of nuclear power and nuclear families;
“...3...” A meditation on Black apocalypse, slavery, and abolitionary millenarianism;
“...2...” An explanation of Prince’s heresy of non-dualism;
“...1...” A eulogy for the deaths of princes;
“...0.” A semi-autobiographical account of staring at a poster of Prince in a room in Minneapolis during a polar vortex; a thought on nothingness.