Beef: Prince Vs his fans.

Nov. 11, 2007, 4:42 PM EST
by Elizabeth Bromstein

Prince releases track dissing his biggest fans. They love him anyway.

The latest music beef is between Prince and his fans and the proof is in the diss track. No, really.

Last week, the Guardian UK reported that Prince's lawyers had "forced his three biggest Internet fansites to remove all photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything linked to the artist's likeness." A legal letter asked the fansites to "provide 'substantive details of the means by which you propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Entertainment Group, NPG Records and AEG] for damages.'" Seriously.

A coalition calling itself Prince Fans United, representing Housequake.com, Princefans.com and Prince.org, was formed by the website organizers to fight back. The Guardian says, "They said they would contest the action on the basis that it was an attempt 'to stifle all critical commentary about Prince.'" Adding that the "'cease and desist' notices went as far as calling for the removal of pictures taken by fans of their Prince tattoos and their vehicles carrying Prince-inspired licence plates."

Now Rolling Stone reports that in response, Prince has registered the Web domain name Princefamsunited.com and posted a seven-minute funk jam targeting the PFU called "PFUnk."

"The only reason you say my name is to get your fifteen seconds of fame, nobody's even sure what you do," Prince sings. "I don't care what people may say, I ain't gonna let it ruin my day." He warns people not to "mess with" him and calls out someone named "Weemolicious," threatening "Look here Weemolicious, you and your boyfriend, lemme tell you somethin' right now, you run up on me again with words or otherwise, I'mma knock both you punks out." Oh yeah. Puttin' the 'diss' and 'funk' in dysfunctional. (God, I'm clever.)

Weirdly, the PFU are lauding the track. According to Rolling Stone, one poster on Housequake.com said, "echoing the general response, 'It really is head and shoulders above anything on [Planet Earth] or 3121.'"

That may be true but it still sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks noodling out glorified bar funk -- I'm as much of an early Prince fan as anyone else but his recent catalogue is pretty dismal and so is this.

Why is the purple one doing this? Copyright issues? Image control? Some contend he is attempting to stifle all negative commentary about himself. At this point it's anyone's guess really.

In spite of it all, Karen Avera, spokesperson for the PFU, told Rolling Stone, "With everything that's going on, we continue to listen to his music. We'll continue to buy his music, because we appreciate his music."

Wow. It's hard to tell who's crazier. Also, couldn't George Clinton sue Prince over the track title if he wanted to?

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This article is courtesy of http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca

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