Black Milk's Music From The Color Purple

Prince (born Prince Rogers Nelson) is one of an exremely select number of artists who manage to express both the sacred and profane simultaneously in their artistry. Even beginning a dialogue about the level of his craftsmanship and ability on all instruments and in terms of sheer production is essentially pointless. His countless number 1 hits speak for themselves including those made famous by artists like Sinead O'Connor and Alicia Keys (amongst the hundreds of songs he has written under his own name with rumour that he has written hundreds more under pseudonyms). These compositions and recordings exclude the hundreds of unreleased songs in his Vault at his Paisley Park recording studio and mansion in Chanhassen, Minnesota about a half hour west of Minneapolis. The Vault also includes hundreds of hours of live jams with undoubtedly every musician who has ever been asked to visit and undoubtedly play at his home. When Detroit based producer Black Milk was allowed to cut up Prince's material into an instrumental hip hop project Music From The Color Purple he had a horde to work with. That he was allowed at all by Prince - who vociferously protects his copyright (honourably), on all form of social media, file sharing and streaming functions- is undoubtedly the highest form of praise. The resulting series of beat tapes is more melodic and harmonic than for instance Dangermouse's Black White Album which became known as The Grey Album. Although Dangermouse it should be noted initially circulated his project to a very limited pool of producer types who would essentially appreciate how incredibly complex what he'd accomplished was given the source material, it was only later that, with the acquiescence of EMI, uniform critical praise and global file sharing that The Grey Album attained the stature it has. The comparison while apt is perhaps unfair given the nature of the respective producers and their source material. Music From The Color Purple shares with The Grey Album that most of the source material is so mashed as to be unrecognizable except to the true Prince purist. On for instance The Grey Album, Jay Z's vocal track What More Can I Say is firmly recognizable as (largely/partly?) layed over While My Guitar Gently Weeps, likewise on Color Purple track 7 retains the hook from If I Was Your Girlfriend and track 11 retains Erotic City but much of the rest washes out into a burbling flow of beats waiting to be rapped over. Black Milk made Music From The Color Purple free for download in the building anticipation to his then upcoming release Tronic.