That summer, I saw the movie City Slickers and fell in love with Billy Crystal’s rescued calf, Norman. I announced to my dad and everyone else, “I’m not eating beef ever again. I’m going to be a vegetarian.”
“What if I make beef?” said Daddy.
“Make it. I’m not eating it.”
I felt myself taking ownership of my life in big and small ways. When it came time for my regular visit to Madame Abla, I told Prince, “I think I’ll stay in Cairo for three months or so. I need to gain some weight and improve my Arabic and get my next contract hooked up.”
“Wait a second,” he said. “You’re going to Egypt? Can I send a film crew with you?”
Without asking questions, I said, “Sure.” I didn’t know it at the time, but he was already envisioning a compilation of music videos that would become 3 Chains o’ Gold—his operatic answer to “Bohemian Rhapsody”—and all he really knew about it himself was that it had something to do with me and what I was doing as a dancer and the story all this was beginning to tell inside his head. All this time, he’d been sampling from the tapes I sent, beginning with me as a little girl with a sword on my head on That’s Incredible! He didn’t know exactly what would happen if he sent Randee St. Nicholas and a well-equipped crew of a dozen or so people with me, but he knew it would be something beautiful.
“Just do what you do,” he told us, and that turned out to be the most brilliant direction he could have given.
Randee went everywhere with me, asking a million questions about the people and the pyramids and the art of belly dancing. We hired someone from the hotel to take us out of the city, but the guy turned out to be a bit shady and made off with the passports of everyone on the crew. As they followed me around Egypt—my Egypt, not the one you get from the double-decker tour bus—Randee picked up on how this place had always fed my soul, even before I understood what that meant.
She put me in a little black jumper Prince had bought for me that day on Melrose, added a sheer white veil, and had me dance on the pyramids when no one was around. (That footage ended up in “Damn U.”) She asked an old man to come over and talk to me, and before she started shooting, she said, “Pretend he’s telling you something that breaks your heart.” The moment I heard his voice, tears started coursing down my cheeks. We just kept creating these moments and images and sending them to Prince, who was completely open to whatever we sent. He’d already sent me early versions of “7,” but for the most part, we didn’t know what our work was inspiring on his end. We had as much faith in him as he had in us.
We’d been hearing disturbing rumors about someone breaking into the hotel rooms of American women, robbing and raping them. One night, I was getting ready for bed, and a man walked into my room. I was seriously shaken up about this later, but in the moment, I felt only a rush of adrenaline—oh hell no!—and I whipped out my sword. The astonished guy took off running, and I went after him. Someone from the crew opened her door when she heard the noise. “I just remember you chasing him down the hall,” she said to me recently, and she sounded kind of astonished by it herself.
If you listen closely to “7,” you hear the swooping sound of a sword cutting the air, and you see me in the video, brandishing my sword with both hands on the hilt. I love that stance in contrast to the way I am when the sword is balanced on my head, turned by just the tip of my finger. It’s a fitting symbol of a woman’s great power, I think. There’s the posture, the balancing act, but there’s also a sharp blade of badass when needed.
In November 1992, I turned eighteen. I was officially my own woman, and it felt good. Prince was working hard to prepare the Diamonds and Pearls show, trying not to be distracted by the Arabic vibe and Egyptian imagery that seemed to be speaking to him.
“My heart’s already there,” he told me, “but my head has to do this thing right now.”