If he’d said he needed me to dance on the video, I would have gone through the roof. That was something I knew I could do well. This I wasn’t quite so sure about, until he said that. Something I would learn about him over the years: He had a way of speaking things into being. He’d say, “You know what would be cool…” in a way that made people believe they could do it—whatever it was. He saw potential in people before they saw it themselves, and not very many people I ever saw had the will—or the lack of will—to say no when he challenged them this way.
Randee St. Nicholas is a good example. She’s a photographer first and foremost, but he loved her creative eye and started asking her to direct music videos and shoot hundreds of hours of footage. When he first saw Sheila E in concert with her father in the 1970s, he told her that he and his bassist were fighting over which one of them would marry her, but more important, he vowed that she was going to be in his band someday. Over the years, their creative chemistry had a huge impact on his work and hers. He told me more than once how much he admired Wendy and Lisa because he could lay down some kind of foundation—or even an idea—go watch a movie, and come back to find that they’d spun it out into a song that had string arrangements and chords and different colors.
He sent me tapes so I could learn the music for “However Much U Want,” and I sang in the shower and in my car and in my head. The rest of the time, I was busy dancing at restaurants like Pamukkale and Taverna Aspendos and at various events. I was also preparing for an exam I would have to take in order to receive a certificate that would allow me to continue dancing professionally in Germany after I graduated. My plan was to get a work visa so I could maintain a home base with Mama and Daddy in Germany between my contracts in Cairo, but this exam was no joke. I would have to perform a classical piece, a modern piece, and a folkloric piece in front of a panel of judges. In my head, I saw them sitting, bored and frowning, behind a stark wooden table like the panel of judges in Flashdance.
I made videotapes of myself practicing in the cafeteria at school so I could critique myself, and then I sent the tapes on to Prince, because he always asked to see what I was doing. He began sampling the music from these tapes and incorporating them into various ideas he was working on. FedEx-ing things to him from Germany took two days and was hideously expensive, but at that time, I still had the money to spare, and he was spending a lot more than that sending cassette tapes and letters to me.
I turned seventeen in November 1990, just before the opening of Prince’s movie Graffiti Bridge, a hyper-stylized sequel to Purple Rain, in which The Kid makes a bet with Morris Day: whoever writes the better song gets the deed to the other guy’s nightclub. The Kid’s place is called Glam Slam, and Morris’s club is called Pandemonium, and somehow Mavis Staples is in there, and her club is called Melody Cool. Sometimes you’ll see on the Internet that I was considered for the role of Aura, but that’s not true. The movie was made the year before we met. Prince told me that he originally wanted Kim Basinger, but she turned it down, and after much discussion, he cast Ingrid Chavez, a waifishly lovely unknown. When he first told me about all this, I said, “It sounds cool.”
General H. H. Arnold High had homecoming, just like any high school in the States, but it was a Friday night, so I was booked, of course. The only part of the festivities I was available for was a midnight movie. They were showing Graffiti Bridge. The anticipation level was high, because we had all grown up adoring Purple Rain.
“I’ll get to see it!” I told my dear friend on the phone. “I’m super excited.”
I like Graffiti Bridge. The visuals are dark and saturated with color, and there’s some good music in it. Mavis Staples kills—kills—a throaty version of “Melody Cool.” George Clinton, Tevin Campbell, and Rosie Gaines are incredible. I see the avant-garde intentions, and I love the sentimental message about romance and art and la vie Bohème. I’ve watched it with Gia a few times, and we enjoy every campy, over-the-top minute, especially the tragic climax where Aura gets flattened by a big red Jeep Cherokee.
Critics universally panned Graffiti Bridge. Even today, most audience reaction ranges from “WTF?” to outrage that their beloved Purple Rain now had this stupid sequel attached to it. Back then, I would have loved it no matter what. I would have loved it if he’d stood there reciting his ABCs; he was my friend. At the midnight showing on homecoming night, I found myself sinking deeper into my seat, as all my classmates laughed and jeered with loud homecoming pep rally spirit. It broke my heart, because I knew what he was hearing back in the States must be this magnified a million times over.
When Prince asked me if I’d seen it, I tried to be as diplomatic as possible.