Earlier this month, Donald J. Trump hosted a rally in South Haven, Mississippi, during which the President used Prince‘s classic tune “Purple Rain”. However, recently, the Prince Estate has issued a request to President 45 to stop playing Prince’s music at his political rallies, joining a number of other high-profile artists like Neil Young and Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler who have publicly denounced Trump using their songs at rallies.
Notes the Star Tribune, after footage of the rally surfaced on Fox News and CNN with the song being played in the background, the Prince Estate issued the following via Twitter: “The Prince Estate has never given permission to President Trump or the White House to use Prince’s songs and have requested that they cease all use immediately.”
However, unlike Neil Young and Steven Tyler’s public requests for Donald Trump to abstain from using their music, the Prince Estate’s request seems less likely to be explicitly political. Before Prince’s untimely death in 2016, the famed guitarist and singer was notorious for protecting his music’s rights and for aggressively shutting down any unauthorized use of his music. In that vein, Prince was also selective about what he chose to address politically, frequently avoiding taking sides politically.
This is not to say that Prince was non-political; rather, the famed pop icon was very intentional about how and why his music was used. For example, a year before his death, Prince released a protest song with soul singer Eryn Allen Kane that addressed the Freddie Gray’s death at the hands of Baltimore City police officers and the community’s tumultuous response, which has since been renamed the Baltimore Uprising or the Baltimore Riots.
[Video: Eryn Allen Kane]
[H/T Consequence Of Sound]