In October of 2021, Sean McPherson had the joy of chatting with Andre Cymone. Andre Cymone is an essential part of the story of Minneapolis music, and he continues to tour and release albums, and Andre's story is inextricably linked with the story of Prince and the Minneapolis sound. We took the opportunity to connect partially because it was the 40th anniversary of the release of "Controversy," and also because Andre Cymone is a legend. Around the release of "Controversy," Andre had just left the touring group that Prince had put together. Looking back at that time gives us a fruitful way to understand the relationship between these two Minneapolis icons. Here’s our conversation.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

Sean McPherson: You're tuned into Purple Current and The Current and I'm chatting with Andre Cymone. Now Andre is an essential part of the story of Minneapolis music and he continues to tour and release albums, and Andre's story is inextricably linked with the story of Prince and the Minneapolis sound. We're talking today partially because it's the 40th anniversary of the release of "Controversy," and also because I don't need an excuse to reach out to Andre Cymone, the man is a legend. Around the release of "Controversy," Andre had just left the touring group that Prince had put together. But it's a really fertile time to understand about the relationship between these two Minneapolis icons. Andre, thank you so much for spending some time talking today.

ANDRE CYMONE: Thank you for having me. Thank you for reaching out.

I want to revisit that period 1980/1981, the album "Controversy," and when you think about the album, in retrospect, do you think about that album as an outsider who was sort of ready to move on and start your fruitful solo career? Or do you think about it as an insider who had played some of the songs live and been connected with the release--even though by the time it came out you were sort of out of Prince's camp?

Wow, that's a that's a loaded question.

I understand.

You know, I guess if I dial back in my brain, to that time period, I was writing a lot of music for myself at that time. I was doing a lot of--obviously me and Prince had been collaborating, it was first, second and third album, all that kind of stuff. We were very, very much, very involved in writing. And we always had been since our band back in the day, and all that kind of stuff. But this particular record, we definitely--obviously, I was definitely--you can hear it, if you know anything about my bass playing, and if you know anything about my history. My DNA, my bass DNA is all in it. But I will say, with this particular album, because it was midway through this album that I decided to basically take a powder. But midway through it, I was all in it, and looking forward to it, and all that other kind of stuff, and so it was a great time. What I remember about it is just, well, our attitude always was let's go rip everybody's f***ing head off. That's just, you know, and I still have that attitude. I'm sure Prince maintained that attitude, because again, when you go back to our local band, and when we used to do it, that was my attitude. That was always my attitude, that will always be my attitude. Anytime I touch a stage, anytime I pick up a guitar, if anybody's around, I want to excuse my language, but I want to f*** 'em up, I want to blow them off the stage. And if I don't do that, then I should be selling insurance or something. It's nothing against insurance, I'm sure they're wonderful. But if you're going to get into the business of music, you got to be the best, otherwise what's the point? But that was my attitude. That was the spirit, that was always the spirit of every record that I was around and participated in, as far as Prince was concerned. And "Controversy" was no different. The thing about "Controversy" was, it was controversial. I guess it makes sense that it's got controversy, because, I think, to look at it retrospectively is an interesting thing, because it's hard to go back and I've never been, in fact, I get into a lot of trouble about it--but I've never been really precious over songs that I write, because I write so many songs. It's hard to even explain, and I know, probably a lot of people say that, but I don't say that lightly, I really write way too many songs that I would ever be able to think about recording in my lifetime. So when I think about creating songs in that time period, and Prince as well, I mean, the way we wrote and created music back then, was just really special. I'm not sure how other people work, when they work together, especially if they came up in a band and did all the different things that we did from doing demo tapes and all that kind of stuff, and having the woodshed in my mom's basement and all that kind of stuff. You create a way of working, which was generally through jamming. We'd have jam sessions and we'd record them, and then we go back and listen to them, and if something came out of that we'd make it into a song, or if he had an idea he'd say, "Listen, let's jam on this," and if I had an idea we'd say, "Let's jam on that." Then we'd record it and try to see if it had some legs. And I think "Controversy" fell into that, all the records really fell into that kind of process. But "Controversy" definitely fell into it. But I think by the time we got around the "Controversy," I think the first three albums was very kind of...how do you say--innocent, because we were coming from how we used to work. But then it becomes different when there's business people, and then record executives and record deal, then it's comes out, and then it's about people getting credit for stuff and things like that. All that stuff starts to get a little bit different, and I know, for me, as it pertained to Prince, I really didn't care because this is my boy. I had his back, whatever you need, I'm there for you, so it was never an issue. But I think as certain songs surfaced, there was different conversations that started to be had, because people were bringing up things and saying, "Hey, isn't that something?" So it got to be a little interesting, and I only make reference to this as it pertains to "Controversy," because that particular album, a lot of that innocence, and those things kind of came to a head. And I was confronted with the fact that it was a different situation, for me, as a creative. As a bass player, somebody that really took pride in a bass style that I took pride in honing. I mean, my dad was a bass player, so that was something that I really took pride in creating, and everybody that knew at the time--I'd love to be able to take people back to that time period, because if you were around then and you saw Grand Central and you saw us play, you'd understand my role was a lot different than, obviously, when you become somebody's bass player people just know you as, "Oh, you're Prince's bass player." They don't know the backstory, because if you know about our band back then, the people in it, my sister who I brought in, percussionist William Dowdy who I brought in, Morris, obviously, he writes in his book, and just the clear, situation I brought him in. And me and Prince, obviously, everybody's heard the story of us meeting in high school, so I was very, very involved. So I would love to be able to one day, take people back to experience that so they can understand this process, because it's a really interesting process.

But getting back to "Controversy," first of all, I think it's a brilliant record. I've always been super proud of everything and anything Prince does, because, like I said, going back to those days I like to think we were trying to create something special, even our little local band, and it continued. Then when he did his solo thing, I still felt a part of it, because what we started was kind of what culminated in his solo thing. So I've always felt a part of it, and I always felt proud of it. It's just, at some point, you got to go and get on your own thing, especially because I never anticipated that it was going to be anything other than us being a group. I never anticipated being in his band. For the longest time, the first tour I refused to get paid, because I was like, "We were in a band together, why, now that you got this, why should I get paid?" I was doing it for free, then business people say, "But you gotta get paid." They wanted me to sign stuff, and I was like, "I don't sign contracts. This is my friend. I'm not signing." So I ended up not signing any contracts than everybody else. We're different, you know? It was a different kind of reality, and it's nothing against or anything like that. It's just a different kind of relationship. It's interesting, because again, coming back to "Controversy," I think that marks a point in Prince's career and his life, where he sort of sprouted his wings and began to fly kind of on his own. I think all of that entails is being responsible for not leaning on me to any extent, or anything that I might bring to the tables because obviously midway through it, I was gone and everybody else was just people that he'd come to know because he hired them to be part of his band or whatever. It's a different kind of thing, and I know that because a lot of those people--a lot of those folks are really good friends of mine, and I kind of helped in picking because we had auditions, and obviously, I was helping to navigate that. But I will say, a lot of those guys, all of them brought something to the table when it came to Prince and his music and this album. When I think about everything that preceded this album--The Dirty Mind album was just a raw album that we did basically in a basement, in a house that one of our managers at the time had found and got us a little 16 track studio. That was a kind of a f*** you, we don't give a s***, we don't care about anything kind of attitude. I think the pressure was a little bit on Prince to create something a little bit more acceptable. Sort of pop oriented, something more radio ready or whatever. I look at it all so different because back then, I had the absolute wrong idea of how to make records, and how you should proceed because I was coming off of a very raw, young--I knew about hit records, obviously, all that kind of stuff, because we were a cover band. Basically, we honed our craft, learning how to play everything from Earth, Wind, and Fire to Santana, to you name it, funkadelic. So it wasn't like we didn't know how to do all that stuff. But when you start to do it for yourself, it becomes different. When you're coming up, you get a budget to make a record--I mean, it wasn't maybe a month or two before that, maybe six months before that we were sitting in my mom's trying to figure out who was gonna make a cheeseburger.

So it was an interesting transition. But by the time "Controversy" rolled around, there's a lot of things that needed to get answered, because he needed to change and I think that definitely was a gateway from where he come from, to where he was going. And if you listen to the record, if you really listen, you can hear it. You can hear the DNA all over that. There's quite a few songs if you listened to the album, but then you hear other songs where it's just sort of a bass line that's kind of following the chord progression, and it kind of lets you know that there was a transition going on when you hear it, and then it set it up for 1999 and the records that he followed up with. Again, I think about those days and we just had so much fun I mean really, it was just pure creative, innocence and honesty and integrity and trying to be the best we could be. And I think the thing about Prince at that time was he had a friend in me who didn't give a s***. I wasn't trying to audition. He knew me probably better than I knew myself at that point, you know? So he knows I'm a very direct blunt kind of person, and I just say whatever I feel and if you ask me about a song I'm gonna say it sucks. If he asked me and it's great I'm gonna say that's the most amazing thing, but you need to do this--we always had that kind of relationship. You can't be in a band and not have that. He was harsh. I can think of--there was a song I wrote that he just never let me live down. It was called "You Remind Me Of Me," and this song is comedy gold. I didn't know it until he pointed it out, right? I'm singing this song, "You remind me of a beautiful day in spring, you remind me of how wonderful things can be. You remind me of the coolest guy in the world, girl you remind me of me," and he's like, "Really, really? Don't you realize?" I was completely oblivious. Obviously I was gone, but I'm not sure if he had that kind of relationship with anyone after that, that could tell him without caring one way or another. I'm sorry you don't like it but guess what? It's too bad. We used to have fun like that--dude has an amazing sense of humor. It's reflected in a lot of his music. But in "Controversy" you can hear it, like "Jack You Off". We used to actually record songs and really just see how far we could go with it. There's a recording we did of an O.J. song that is hilarious. It was "Forever Mine," or something like that. It's comedy gold.

Well all respect to Prince but you got to be pretty narcissistic if Prince is clowning you for being narcissistic, when he's like, "You Remind Me Of Me". Now you were talking a little bit about the cauldron of talent that you grew up around. I was not around for that, obviously. But I was able at Minnesota History Center to hear Spike Moss speak, and a couple other people speak about the way this spot, and that world of really communal discipline and self improvement that was shared by all these young musicians coming up. And really, I didn't understand, until Spike spoke about how professional a lot of it was. That there was real opportunities, and people were playing a lot of gigs. This obviously created a style of music that's now internationally recognized, I'm really glad you talked about the bass DNA on "Let's Work" because it's one of those songs where as a fellow bass player, I'm like, yeah, this is clearly on a different aesthetic level of quality than what you're going to hear on the majority of even great songs, you just go, "This is a hell of a line. This is a special thing." I wanted to hone in on--you sound like a person who was really comfortable, being brutally honest with somebody who maybe wasn't getting a lot of honesty in their career because if you're writing people's checks, a lot of times people aren't going to go, "That's not working, this is working," and you spoke to a higher authority, which was "I grew up with you. I'm going to keep it real with you, and the money is completely secondary." Do you feel like as things got so professional, and things were starting to ramp up towards being not only a major label act, but an iconic major label act coming up--probably the record after "Controversy" with "1999"--did it get harder to be the the guy willing to say no, and the guy willing to say, "That ain't working, this isn't a good tune," or "This isn't a good move." Did that conversation get harder to have with Prince?

For me?

Yeah.

No. [laughs] I left. Obviously I was going and making records for other folks. I was kind of off doing my own thing. But he would still call me. He'd still call me and say, "Play me stuff," or if I was in town he'd say, "You gotta listen to this," and he'd play me stuff, and then I'd give him you know, that same--I am how I am, like Popeye said, "I am what I am." I can't really get away from that. Sometimes it's not always served me well, I can understand that, but I can't help it. I call my mom and my dad, Fred Rock and Bernie Stone 'cause they're no joke. I had parents that didn't play around. I'm a product of that environment, my family--my brothers, my sisters, they're a lot like me. I was the youngest, so I had to acquiesce to a lot of--which was always hard. It's like, "You're not right, but I can't say nothing because I'll get that beat down." One of the things whenever he would see me, it was like a light switch went on, because he knew in me it's just an honesty, and this dude, I don't care how successful he got. There was this one time--a funny story that happened to Minneapolis, because I'm a pretty laid back guy, pretty humble. I'm not one of those kind of guys that, "Oh, I got to sit in the VIP section," or "I'm Andre Cymone," or whatever. I've just never been that kind of person, because I've always been humble, and I was raised that way. So I was at a club, I think Pacific Club, downtown. And I was standing in line, you know, people were giving me a hard time because I was standing in line, "You're Andre Cymone, you don't have to stand in line." And I was like, I'm just like everybody else. I'm standing in line, and blah, blah. So I'm standing in line and waiting, we finally get up to the front of the line, and the bouncer's like, "Yeah, you can't come in." And I'm like, "Why not?" "Because it's full. You have to wait for somebody to come out," and somebody's like, "That's Andre Cymone!" And they're like, "I don't care who it is, you can't come in until somebody comes out." Then Prince comes, right? And he shows up, he literally jumps on my back. And he's like, "Andre! Andre!" And I'm like, "Get off me, man. I'm trying to get in. We can't get in until other people go out," and the bouncer's eyes are huge, like, "Prince!" And they're like, "Are you with him?" I said, "Woah woah, wait a minute. Don't tell me now that he's here. You're gonna let me in." I said, "I'm leaving." So we wound up going in, but that's the kind of thing I had to deal with on that level.

I want to ask a question. I understand and I appreciate humility in all its forms and I definitely get that vibe off of you. I saw you as part of the "Controversy" symposium that happened with De Angela Duff, and I was watching another thing that you weren't involved with, but was about the "Controversy" record. Joan Morgan, a writer from New York, who wrote a great book called "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost" was talking about her posters in her freshman dorm. She said she had Prince, and she said she had Andre Cymone. I'll just tell you, to keep it 100% honest with you, Andre. Being born in 1981 it's pretty easy for me to fathom a young woman holding Prince as a big sex symbol and a person who would put a poster up. I missed a lot of the Andre wave just to be perfectly honest with you. I learned your name probably in 2002 or something like that. I go, "Okay, cool. I gotta learn about this man." There weren't a lot of posters of Dr. Fink, of Bobby Z. I love those dudes, but I just want to ask you--was your sexiness and your potential front man-ness, which you delivered--you became a major label artist, you had hits under your own name, you also produced hits for a lot of people. Do you think that there was a little bit--were you underemployed being the bass player for Prince, and then--were you threatening because you were iconic and sexy?

Phew, that's a--

Spicy meatball.

Spicy meatball! You know, let me put it this way. Honestly, I never looked at it that way. I really did not. But here's the thing, I used to wear clear pants, okay? And underneath the clear pants were just black drawers, you know? It was a thing, and girls dug it. But the management didn't dig it because they was like, "Wait a second, who's this guy?" They really started giving me a hard time. I remember one of the managers came up to me and said, "You need to tone down your makeup." And I saw the look on Prince's face because Prince knows me, and he knows that. And I was like, "Can you play bass? Can you play bass? Unless you can play bass, you don't tell me what kind of makeup I put on. And tone down my clothes? Unless you gonna go out there and play--" And so it got into a thing like that, and new management came in and they thought, "Oh, this is just a hired band. And we'll tell them what to do, what to wear." I never even understood that. But then my wardrobe started coming up missing, my bags with all my clothes in it. At first it was like, "This is weird." And I remember my mom had come out to one of the shows we did I think in Milwaukee or somewhere like that. And I was like, "I don't know what I'll wear," and my mom was like, "Well, let's go shopping!" So we went, and I remember she got me this really cool double breasted blazer, right? And I just looked like, you know, because normally I wouldn't wear something like that, but my mom picked it out. And I was like, "That's what I'm wearing." And do you know, before I got a chance to get backstage, to even put it on, I've got met with the crowd, because security is always around just Prince. And that jacket that my mom got, got ripped off. I only--I think I had a sleeve. One sleeve, the other sleeve got ripped off. And I got to the other side and said, "Sorry Mom." So to answer the question, I just never looked at it like that myself. But I think he did, and I think the management did, as I understood it later on, because then they started doing weird stuff, like moving the microphone, his microphone up mine back so that if you're further back, it looks like we're the same height and all that kind of stuff. There's a lot of weird stuff that I'm like, dude, whatever you want. If you if he would have came to me and said, "Hey, I need to really have you more in the background," or something like that, I'd have been like, "I'm gonna do this this time. But then I think we got to let you be able to mold somebody and do it that way. Part of what brought the fire and fury and all this stuff when we were first starting out and garnered a lot of the attention, because there was a couple of shows that was sold out, had a lot of celebrities there, because people had been talking about the raw nature of the shows we were doing and the performances we were giving, and it wasn't just him. But obviously it was his thing, and he was spot on. He was at a point at that time, especially during the Dirty Mind tour where he was really starting to find his performance chops. And to have somebody like me there where he could grab me by my sleeve, which, nobody else could be grabbing my sleeve, and I could grab him, or I could knock him out of the way and sing a verse or whatever, because we had that kind of relationship. I think that's what you get when you grow up in a band, and against all odds and whatever else, you become successful and you're on the world's stage. That's a rare opportunity.

I'm chatting with Andre Cymone, the occasion is the 40th anniversary of the release of "Controversy". I got two questions about the record. I want to ask one more question about, "Do Me Baby," a song that you'd been involved in as a writer--an unrecognized writer as far as the listings, but everybody's going, "Yeah, the man wrote some of the tune." But before we get to that, I want to ask you about--if you just blindfolded me, I didn't know the Prince records, and you played me all of "Dirty Mind" and you played me all "Controversy" and you said, "Which album is called Controversy?" I would probably say "Dirty Mind," right? It's naughtier. It's punkier. It's more insular, you kind of said it was our "f--- off" record. It's our we're gonna do what we want record. So I'm trying to understand, "Controversy," like you said, it's kind of more aiming for slightly more of a major label mainstream thing, not all the way--you still got a tune called "Jack You Off" on it. I'm just wondering, was "Dirty Mind" more risky? And in a sense, more controversial than the actual record "Controversy"?

As a concept, "Controversy," is a great concept. And obviously, all the things that surrounded "Controversy," because it's the record where I left, and there's reasons why which we don't need to get into, but the song "Controversy" was a song that I kind of came up with when we were jamming, and I wasn't even the one who made an issue of it. It was the band, because we had a band full of people that really didn't know the process that Prince and I had grown up doing, when we came up with songs. So, for me to jam with the band on a groove that I was grooving on, and then Prince to come in, record it and come back the next day and say, "Hey, I got this new song." It wasn't a big deal for me, right? I was like, "Great!" But the band was like, "Uhh, wait a minute. That's his," and then it became an issue. So "Controversy" was controversial, and "Do Me Baby," I don't know if you want to get into that.

Let's do it.

Well the simple part of it is--I really never bring it up, I never brought it up, I don't bring it up, it's not a big thing. To be honest with you, that was the thing that was really between Prince and myself, period, because that was a song--he knows what that song was for. I know what that song was for. There were people there, we submitted it for a specific project as that song, and me as the writer. So the people that it was submitted to--they're the ones, you know, they did interviews like, "Andre wrote that song." And I actually wrote it for a girlfriend at the time, she has a copy of it. So there's copies all over the place, so it's not a dispute for me. It was just between Prince and myself, and I had hoped that he would sort it out, because I said, "You should sort this out." And I had every reason to believe that he would. In fact, I'm credited on all streaming platforms, which, at some point, somebody decided to give me proper credit for it. Which is interesting, because just anybody can't call up and say, "You know, I think Andre should get credit for "Do Me Baby" after all these years," it has to either be the artist or the record label. I was kind of surprised when I found out that right around, I guess, 2014 2015, somewhere around there I was credited on all streaming platforms, as being co-writer. And I thought, "That's wonderful." I think Prince finally came around and did the right thing, beautiful. I just hope that he wasn't sending me breadcrumbs or anything like that, 'cause he's very cryptic like that. I think he put out a song called "Thrill You or Kill You" that I didn't--we did a group called Rebels, and we did this record. That was one of the songs that I had written and out of nowhere it came out. But at that same point, that would have been the same time where he would've decided to give me credit for "Do Me Baby," which was right around the same time, you never know, but I liked that maybe he wanted to right a wrong. Hopefully that's the case because--if it was him doing it, it's a beautiful thing.

Yeah. Well, honestly, to me, I'm just I'm glad you get a taste of the credit. That seems deserved, so that's a good thing. Have you heard the new version that's released this month? The new 1979 demo version that's come out?

You know, I have not, definitely didn't hear it. I probably heard it at some point. But I have to, 'cause I heard about it. Obviously, I woke up this morning and everybody said, they've heard it, and they said it's out. And I was gonna, scout around and pull it out and see if I can find it and take a listen. It sounds like they said it was reimagined or something like that, which is interesting, because it said it was the original, you know, it definitely is not, it can't be the original, because that would be that would be interesting. The original is a whole different approach. It was something I was coming up with at the time and I had a different sensibility when it came to how I approached it, because, you know, obviously, being a bass player was very bass-centric, and basically based around a slap bass part that is kind of--I have a couple other songs that I did around that same time that are kind of in that same spirit. But I hear that he reimagined it or something, and I'm curious to hear how he reimagined it.

Just got one more question for you Andre, and then see if there's anything else you wanted to touch on. As a person who again didn't live through this era of music, I was a little bit trying to understand how a record like "Controversy" relates to disco and the reason I ask is because besides for "Let's Work" and "Ronnie, Talk to Russia," a lot of these tunes have some kind of four on the floor thing. I guess "Jack You Off" is kind of shuffled or something like that. But you know, "Controversy," "Sexuality," "Private Joy"--a lot of these tunes have this real four on the floor thing I don't think it's a disco record, don't feel like a disco record--but disco's still in the air in a way that I could never understand because I wasn't there. So I'm curious how y'all were relating to disco as a genre, and if the four on the floor beat being pretty prevalent in the album was indicative of embracing that, or indicative of just, "Hey we just like the kick drum it doesn't have anything to do with disco."

Look, Prince and I used to go out to clubs all the time. I mean in LA, in New York, in Minneapolis we were always at the clubs. We always knew what was going on and it was just he and I because that was our thing. Studio 54--we got, I think, did we get kicked out? We might have got kicked out of there. Anyway, the Limelight, a lot of clubs in New York, and disco was a thing. But to be able to take it--because disco was, as a real musician, and you know the caliber of musician Prince was, and I like to think that I was a serious musician and disco was kind of--because we came from a different kind of--we came from the Sly and the Family Stone, Funkadelic Ohio Players, all of that. Those were musicians. Bands. Which is, to me, what's lacking right now. If I could ever get people to understand--we got to find a way to get kids back into playing instruments and learning music. That's aside, but disco was such a prevalent--it was on its way out at that point. There were still elements of it, because I think bands like Chic, even David Bowie--different people were doing different things and finding ways to use those beats because they were still working in clubs, so you can't snatch the beat out of the club, and think that somehow something's not gonna--you got to find that middle ground and I think that's what he was trying to do with with "Controversy". Trying to find that middle ground where he didn't completely strip the beat away from people on the dance floor because being at clubs you see what people respond to, and that's one of the things that was really always cool about going to these clubs. Sometimes we'd bring an acetate down there and say "Hey, can you spin this and see what the people think about it?" People didn't know who he was like that at the time, and usually it wasn't him doing it was me doing it! We'd sit back and watch to see how people responded, "Okay, we we missed on that one." But that was our barometer.

Man, what a cool story. That is incredible. If you guys did get kicked out of Studio 54 you be in good company with Chic because they had that whole tune about getting kicked out of Studio 54

Either we got kicked out or they wouldn't let us in. Because I remember the velvet rope line and the whole nine, and I was always--because I come from the other side of railroad tracks in Minneapolis so I don't have any inhibitions about saying, "Yo man listen, we get it. See this dude right here? He got a record deal, man. With Warner Brothers, right? Now he got a record out, it's called "Soft and Wet"--what do you mean? Don't take that wrong. It's good. You take that right. It's a good record!" I try to get him in there, and they'd look at Prince and they'd be like, [laughing] "Oh, come on." But I'd shoot the shot, right? Anyway, we were quite a pair.

Andre, you have put quite the smile on my face. Thank you for talking about this record, talking about your life, sharing your energy, and honestly just still being such an important ambassador of what came out of Minneapolis. We love you. We appreciate you here. Glad to have you on the air for a little bit, and frankly just thankful that you exist and that you're still doing it and still making music. We love you.

Thank you, you know, one last thing I want to say. Well, I'm kind of finishing up an album, and first time I've actually been able to do a funk album for myself. I've obviously helped other people do their thing and realize whatever--this is the first one I'm doing for myself, so I'm looking forward to it, I was gonna release it before the pandemic happened. We performed some of the songs at Paisley, New Year's Eve 2020. But I just wanted t throw that out there because I think a lot of people have been really anticipating this funk release because I've been talking about it for a minute, so I just want to let folks know that it's comin'.

Well now I got to ask a follow up--what world of funk are we talking about? Because funk's a big thing and your master of a lot of it. Is it Parliament Funkadelic world? Where we at?

It's a little of all of it, definitely Parliament Funkadelic. It's a combination of all of the things that I grew up--it's kind of like where I was at when I was maybe 15/16 I had a vision of the kind of funk that we were trying to do back when we were Grand Central. And I kind of abandoned it when I left because I was a part of Prince's whole thing. And, you know, anytime I would do something people would say I was trying to be like Prince, and they didn't understand my involvement in anything. So what I did is I completely went a little drastic the other way and made space music and decided to separate myself from stuff that I was very much a part of. So now this is kind of going back to that and reconnecting with what I did went back when I was 14/15 years old and that mindset. So it's really funky, really bass part centric, because that always comes back to that, and obviously a lot of funky guitar and just, you know, attitude, funk. Just funky. When people talk about the Minneapolis sound, a lot of people don't really understand what it really is all about. Obviously I understand what it's all about, because I was part of it.

Aw man, a funk record from Andre Cymone, my appetite is particularly wetted. Erykah Badu was in town last night, so I got to see her, so I got funk on the mind. If you get the chance to catch her, the band is sounding so good. It was such a treat. So I'm definitely in the mood for some funky music from Andre Cymone.

Definitely. Well, I can't wait to get it to you.

All right. Thank you, Andre. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day. And thank you so much for taking some time out of your day.

Thank you too. Thank you for having me.

External Links

Andre Cymone - official site

Credits

Host - Sean McPherson
Guest - Andre Cymone
Technical Director - Eric Romani
Producers - Jesse Wiza, Derrick Stevens
Podcast producer - Luke Taylor