asks Sujeet Rajan in The American Bazaar on February 9, 2015.
NEW YORK: It was the moment the Grammys came alive with a jolt on Sunday night, towards the end of an otherwise dreary show that seemed to be shrouded in deep gloom at the prospect of the death-knell of the music industry from dwindling sales: the artist Prince (or at least who was once known to be so) strode onto stage, twirling a silvery walking stick in hand, in a startling, shimmering one-piece orange suit made of latex or something like it, with the top half cut to a short kurta length, and the bottom flaring like bell-bottoms. A mala of Rudraksha beads hung from his neck.
It would be cool and appropriate to say ‘Orange is the new Purple’, or rain looks ocher-hued, as far Prince, 56, is concerned.
In one split second, Prince time-warped the entire show from 2015 to hark back to the glory disco and psychedelia days of the seventies and the eighties. As the audience came to their feet in deafening applause and hoots, Prince, class and sophistication incarnate, uttered the line of the night too: “Like books and black lives, albums still matter.”
Beck, who strode up meekly to the stage to receive his rock album Grammy for ‘Morning Phase’, seemed flabbergasted and out of his depths, and could only utter: “My Prince” looking reverentially at the superstar, who in return, just smirked dismissively, with a royal twitch of the corner of his mouth.
The twitter world has been abuzz with Prince’s choice of outfit. It’s been speculated as being inspired from the Fanta girl commercial, Beyonce in ‘Austin Powers’, Halle Berry from BAPS, and even as a walking, talking Orange highlighter.
But more than anything else, the philosophically-inspired Prince looked like a modern-day avatar of a mystic or sadhu from India, a young, sprightly version of Osho Rajneesh, inspired by fashion catwalks in Paris – a blast from the past sex guru, with a magnificent Afro, and a devilish expression.
After all, like Osho Rajneesh, who built an empire and cult following based on his sex philosophy, Prince is known for his sexually-explicit lyrics, and changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol (), which means ‘Love Symbol’.
(This story was revised, removing the list of Grammy winners).
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