'Purple Rain' superstar Prince, 57, dies at US studio complex

April 22, 2016

Apr 22: Prince, the innovative pop superstar whose songwriting and eccentric stage presence electrified fans around the world with hits including "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry," died on Thursday in Minnesota. He was 57.

Purple RainHis influential, genre-defying music blended jazz, funk, R&B, disco and rock, winning seven Grammy Awards and an Oscar.

Prince was found unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park Studios compound, which included his home, in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen, according to the Carver County Sheriff's Office. Emergency workers tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead a short time later.

The sheriff's office said it was investigating the circumstances. The local medical examiner's office said in a tweet that an autopsy had been scheduled for Friday.

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger hailed his fellow singer and musician as "revolutionary" and one of the most unique and exciting artists of the last 30 years. Prince was an original lyricist and a "startling" guitar player, he added. "His talent was limitless," Jagger wrote on Twitter.

President Barack Obama called Prince "one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time," and said few had influenced"the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly."

Distraught devotees gathered outside the Paisley Park compound in mourning. "His music made the hair on your arms stand up," said one, Kristina Dudziak, 44. "It felt like he was making love to his guitar. ... It's a sad day," she added, starting to sob.

Sheila E., a singer and percussionist who worked closely with Prince in the 1980s, wrote on Twitter: "My heart is broken. There are no words. I love you!" The performer's death was the most notable passing of a music giant since rock star David Bowie died of cancer at 69 on Jan. 10.

INVENTIVE AND ECCENTRIC

Prince, whose hit songs also included "Let's Go Crazy," "I Would Die 4 U," "Raspberry Beret," "Little Red Corvette" and"Kiss," was on a U.S. tour as recently as last week.

Last Friday, he was briefly hospitalized with the flu after his plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois, celebrity news website TMZ said.

A representative said Prince had performed in Atlanta despite not feeling well and felt worse after boarding the plane back to Minnesota, the website reported.

But over the weekend, the musician hosted a party at Paisley Park. One attendee, 26-year-old Jamie Reimann, said Prince appeared after midnight Saturday and played two tunes on a piano in what would turn out to be his final performance.

"It was just five or six minutes. He introduced his doctor ... and asked fans to give him a round of applause and said the doctor was helping him feel better," Reimann said.

"He (Prince) looked fine, but his voice sounded like he might have had a cold or something. He didn't look sickly." Prince first found fame in the late 1970s. Over the next three decades, he became known as one of the most inventive and eccentric forces in American pop music.

Often making a statement with bold fashion choices, the diminutive, 5-feet 2-inch-tall (1.57-meter) star sometimes appeared on stage sporting ruffled shirts and tight pants or elaborate costumes, including chain mail covering his face, a shimmery orange tunic with a cane, or bikini briefs.

"He was a legend," said another fan, Karen Menardy, 45, weeping outside New York City's storied Apollo Theater, where some passers-by danced in the street as Prince songs played on a portable speaker.

Outside the First Avenue nightclub in downtown Minneapolis, devotees placed photographs of the artist, a guitar and at least two dozen bouquets of flowers, many of them purple. "We love you Prince!" read a sign attached to one of the bouquets.

Calling Prince a "once-in-a-lifetime artist," music TV channel MTV changed its logo to purple in his honor, and Twitter lit up with reaction from stunned friends and fans.

He was regarded as a perfectionist who from 1993 to 2000 changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in an apparent protest against his record label at the time. For a while, he was dubbed "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince."

'PRIVATE PERSON'

An intensely private person, Prince sold more than 100 million records. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and his most recent album, "HITnRUN: Phase Two"was released in December 2015.

Prince became a Jehovah's Witness about 15 years ago, and was a strict vegan. In 2009, he told PBS television about being born an epileptic and suffering seizures as a child.

He also said he was teased in school, and that "early in my career I tried to compensate by being as flashy as I could and as noisy as I could." Prince's Oscar was for best original song score for "Purple Rain," the 1984 movie in which he also starred. In 2007, he played the Super Bowl in one of the most celebrated such performances.

While he was more accustomed to sold-out arenas, two years ago Prince played perhaps his most intimate gig in the living room of British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas' London home with his band, 3rdeyegirl, Billboard said. "We'll work our way up, if people like us, to bigger venues," Prince quipped then.

His music was marked by sexually charged lyrics and explosive live performances, while his private life was marked by a string of romances linking him with the likes of Madonna and actresses Kim Basinger and Carmen Electra.

Prince was married twice: to his backup singer, Mayte Garcia, in 1996 and then to Manuela Testolini in 2001. Both marriages ended in divorce, and a son he had with Garcia died a week after birth in October 1996.

"I loved him then, I love him now and will love him eternally," Garcia told People magazine.

"He's with our son now." Born in Minneapolis as Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958, he is said to have written his first song at age 7. As well as singing and writing, he played multiple instruments, including guitar, keyboards and drums.

In a 1998 interview with Reuters' Franklin Paul, Prince chuckled as he said he ignored the critics and that he had no expectations for his then-current album. He said expectations take away from the quest for great music. "I don't expect anything," Prince said. "I just do what I feel I'm supposed to do."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
June 4,2020

Mumbai, Jun 4: Casting director Krish Kapur, who had worked on films like Mahesh Bhatt's Jalebi and Kriti Kharbanda-starrer Veere Ki Wedding, passed away at the age of 28 due to brain hemorrhage, his family said.

There was speculation that Kapur died in a road accident but his maternal uncle, Sunil Bhalla, dismissed the reports, saying that the casting director fainted at his home in suburban Mira Road here and suffered brain hemorrhage.

According to Bhalla, Kapur breathed his last on May 31.

"He had no medical history. He was healthy and doing absolutely fine. On May 31, he just collapsed and started to bleed. He died of brain hemorrhage," Bhalla said on Wednesday.

Kapur is survived by his mother, wife and seven-year-old child.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 10,2020

Feb 10: Bong Joon-ho’s film “Parasite” starts in a dingy, half-basement apartment with a family of four barely able to scratch out a life. There must be no place to go but up, right? Yes and no. There’s nothing predictable when the South Korean director is on his game.

This dark, socially conscious film about the intertwining of two families is an intricately plotted, adult thriller. We can go up, for sure, but Bong can also take us deeper down. There’s always an extra floor somewhere in this masterpiece.

It tells the story of the impoverished four-person Kim family who, one by one, and with careful and devious planning, all get employed by the four-person affluent Park family — as a tutor, an art teacher, a driver and a housekeeper. They are imposters stunned by the way wealth can make things easier: “Money is an iron. It smooths out all the creases,” says the Park patriarch with wonder.

Bong, who directed and wrote the story for “Parasite,” has picked his title carefully, of course. Naturally, he’s alluding to the sycophantic relationship by a clan of scammers to the clueless rich who have unwittingly opened the doors of their home on a hill. But it’s not that simple. The rich family seem incapable of doing anything — from dishes to sex — without help. Who’s scamming who?

Bong’s previous films play with film genres and never hide their social commentary — think of the environmentalist pig-caper “Okja” and the dystopian sci-fi global warming scream “Snowpiercer.” But this time, Bong’s canvas is a thousand times smaller and his focus light-years more intense. There are no CGI train chases on mountains or car chases through cities. (There is also, thankfully, 100% less Tilda Swinton, a frequent, over-the-top Bong collaborator.

The two Korean families first make contact when a friend of the Kim’s son asks him to take over English lessons for the Park daughter. Soon the son (a dreamy Choi Woo-sik) convinces them to hire his sister (the excellent Park So-dam) as an art teacher, but doesn’t reveal it’s his sis. She forges her diploma and spews arty nonsense she learned on the internet, impressing the polite but firm Park matriarch (a superb Jo Yeo-jeong.)

The Park’s regular chauffer is soon let go and replaced by the Kim patriarch (a steely Lee Sun-kyun). Ditto the housemaid, who is dumped in favor of the Kims’ mother (a feisty Jang Hye-jin.) All eight people seem happy with the new arrangement until Bong reveals a twist: There are more parasites than you imagined. The clean, impeccably furnished Park home will have some blood splashing about.

Bong’s trademark slapstick is still here but the rough edges of his often too-loud lessons are shaved down nicely and his actors step forward. “Keep it focused,” the Kim’s son counsels his father at one point. Bong has followed that advice.

There are typically dazzling Bong touches throughout. Just look for all the insect references — stink bugs at the beginning to flies at the end, and a preoccupation with odor across the frames. And there’s a scene in which the rich matriarch skillfully winds noodles in a bowl while, in another room, duct tape is being wrapped around a victim and classical music plays.

Bong could have been more strident in his social critique but hasn’t. There are no villains in “Parasite” — and also no heroes. Both families are forever broken after chafing against each other, a bleak message about the classes ever really co-existing (Take that, “Downton Abbey”).

“Parasite” is a worthy winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the first South Korean movie to win the prestigious top prize. The director has called it an “unstoppably fierce tragicomedy.” We just call it brilliant.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
July 14,2020

New Delhi, Jul 14: Going down the memory lane, late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's close friend and actor Rhea Chakraborty recalled her memories with the departed actor as Rajput's untimely demise completed one month on Tuesday.

This marks the 'Jalebi' actor's first social media post dedicated to Rajput after his demise.

Chakraborty took to Instagram to post two pictures of herself with the 'Kai Po Che!' actor and complimented the post with a long emotional note.

She began the note by stating how she is "still struggling" to face her emotions and said that she will never come to terms with the actor's demise.

"Still struggling to face my emotions.. an irreparable numbness in my heart. You are the one who made me believe in love, the power of it," she wrote.

"You taught me how a simple mathematical equation can decipher the meaning of life and I promise you that I learnt from you every day. I will never come to terms with you not being here anymore," she added.

Terming Rajput as the "greatest physicist," the 'Mere Dad Ki Maruti' actor then recalled Rajput's passion for astrophysics.

"I know you're in a much more peaceful place now. The moon, the stars, the galaxies would've welcomed "the greatest physicist "with open arms," Chakraborty wrote.

Full of empathy and joy, you could lighten up a shooting star - now, you are one. I will wait for you my shooting star and make a wish to bring you back to me," she added.

Remembering the bond that she shared with him, Rhea wrote, "You were everything a beautiful person could be, the greatest wonder that the world has seen. My words are incapable of expressing the love we have and I guess you truly meant it when you said it is beyond both of us."

"You loved everything with an open heart, and now you've shown me that our love is indeed exponential," she added.

The 28-year-old actor ended the note by stating how she will love Rajput for a "lifetime."

"Be in peace Sushi. 30 days of losing you but a lifetime of loving you....Eternally connected. To infinity and beyond," she wrote.

Chakraborty and Rajput were close friends and were also set to share the screen space in the film 'Happy Anniversary.'

Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his Mumbai residence on June 14. The investigation in the case related to Rajput's demise is currently underway for which Chakraborty was also interrogated by Mumbai Police.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.