NPG - Goldn-gga & another shirt

This was fall of 1993. No longer top-of-the-heap Senior in Hi Skool, now I'm just another anonymous Frosh at college. I'd just begun trading tapes internationally. New to the PML. Taking my basic classes, trying not to get bored or homesick. Actually making a few friends...

The Love Symbol #2 album had been getting mad spins. I couldn't stop listening to it. An odyssey that deserves far more appreciation than it got at the time, it should have spawned a comic book, a movie, and made Diamonds and Pearls look small by comparison.

Seems it didn't turn out quite that way.

I remember going into the NPG store again, this my 3rd or 4th time, dragging my dad along behind me like a disinterested pet. But one that had been through this ritual before and understood the pattern.

I had been sustaining myself on a diet of traded tapes. On those traded tapes of Act I and Act II tour live recordings were new songs credited to the NPG.

The band was on fire playing them. "Johnny" may be 'just' another extended funny funk jam, but I can't help thinking it was just a preview of what came ahead. The next NPG album ended with an absolute marathon funk workout even longer than this track. "Deuce & A Quarter" was also smooth and funky performed live in that era.

"No Black MFs In The House" might sound like a prerequisite for a Donald Trump rally today, but back then it was a lovely farce with Prince voicing a redneck character lamenting his lack of dance skills, among other ridiculous complaints.

I can see a straight line from this to Dave Chappelle's immortal Prince skit. The humor is so nuanced it seems simple at first blush. Impressively deep when you give it a second to sink in.

The title Goldn-gga is an attempt not only to invert and redeem the term n-gga but also a backhand to the idea of a gold-digger, rather intending to be an endless source of positivity instead of needing or taking anything from anyone.

For a kid who regularly got called a "dirty", got derided and even beaten up for being poor, I found empowerment in these ideas no matter how lily white my ass still is. Ask Chuck D. for more about appealing across racial lines in ways nobody quite expected till they happened...

Anyway, knowing that "Call The Law", which had been a b-side to a D&P single was gonna be on GN? It sealed the deal. I knew I had to have a copy. I remember having my discman in my pocket. Winter coats in Minnesota are puffy, fairly thick affairs.

Earbuds around my neck, I pulled out my disc player, popped the B-sides disc of the Hits/B-sides box set out of it and put GN into the player, placing the other disc in its case.

The dude behind the register said "it's kind of like the passing of the torch, from Prince to the NPG?" and we had a good laugh. I told him "I've heard some of these new songs, and they're awesome!"

I paid my $15 or $20 and still have that first pressing copy of GN to this day. Apparently there's a Paul McCartney / Wings song referenced in one of the first tracks, and it was yanked from any pressings after that. I just know I thought it was dope. And the back cover artwork? Seeing downtown Minneapolis made me feel special, like I wasn't from nowhere.

I remembered another shirt I have in storage. It has the "We Are The New Power Generation" graphic similar to the one on the front of the store, but across the back of a maroon colored t-shirt. The front was a collage of Prince's face and the Love Symbol and swirly designs, IIRC some features of the Minneapolis skyline?!? The design on that shirt seemed thick and I didn't want to wear it or wash it too often bc I didn't want to harm the artwork.

Just trying to keep up with what flows out of my brain...