Description
With stronger songs and sharper messages than much of the music he released during his final years, it’s strange & surprising that this album was shelved by Prince & not released before now
The latest discovery from his vaults, Welcome 2 America — a full album of fun, funky pop and R&B from 2010 — proves just how unreliable his instincts were since he inexplicably shelved it. From track one, it’s instantly more likable than much of his recorded output released between 2009 and 2014. The grooves are funkier, the sex jams are sexier, and the Curtis Mayfield homages are superflyier. Reports from his collaborators are that he loved the album when he made it. In fact, he liked the title Welcome 2 America so much that he named a tour after the record. So what happened? Whatever crisis in faith led to him abandoning the record is now forever lost to the Great Purple Beyond, but at least its release now shows where his head was at when he made it.
But even if Prince had released Welcome 2 America in 2010, it’s hard to imagine how it would have been received at that time. He had scored an unlikely hit in 2006 with 3121’s “Black Sweat,” which musically sounded like his own “Kiss” reimagined as a G-funk song, but that was his only Billboard hit since 1999.
