Rashad Shabazz: Prince's Minneapolis

Author and ASU Professor Rashad Shabazz presents his new book, Prince's Minneapolis: A Biography of Sound and Place.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When nineteen-year-old Prince took the stage to perform "I Wanna Be Your Lover" on American Bandstand, those who watched couldn't reconcile how Prince's funky disco-pop sounds had hailed from a place like Minneapolis. But the Minneapolis Sound, Prince's signature pop-musical fusion of funk, R&B, rock, punk, and new wave, did not emerge from a vacuum. The place and space of Minneapolis shaped the musical ecosystem that made Prince famous. And in turn, a complex array of social forces shaped the city's soundscape.
An expert on place, race, and culture, geographer Rashad Shabazz reveals the hidden history of the Minneapolis Sound, Prince, and Prince's beloved city. More than a biography of Prince, this is a biography of the city and the world of sound from which Prince emerged. Shabazz traces the history of the Minneapolis Sound alongside the city's history, from colonial contact through periods of Indigenous removal, white settlement, mass migration, industrialization, music education, suburbanization, and systemic racism. This complex history, combined with the exceptional talent cultivated in Minneapolis's small Black communities, gave rise to a groundbreaking genre, the otherworldly legend that was Prince, and music that captivated the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rashad Shabazz is associate professor of geography and African and African American studies at Arizona State University and author of Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago.
This event is at our Phoenix location at 300 West Camelback Road, steps from the uptown Light Rail stop and directly across from the Park and Ride at Third Ave and Camelback.

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