The Gold Experience was the culmination and climax of Prince’s struggles in the Nineties, especially his contract dispute with Warner Bros., but the album also dramatizes the togetherness and innovation that lit the way forward. This presentation discusses three epiphanies: what Prince experienced, the epiphanies he dramatizes on The Gold Experience and other music of this era, and finally, the new understanding I found in this album and what came before it. As such, this presentation weaves together subjects I’ve been presenting on for the past several years, from racial capitalism and the so-called problem of abundance to Prince’s respect for history, his love for Minneapolis and the Black working class that raised him, and his never-ending desire for a higher level of knowledge. 

Robert Loss is a professor and the department head of Writing, Literature, and Philosophy at the Columbus College of Art and Design. He is the author of Nothing Has Been Done Before: Seeking the New in 21st-Century American Popular Music (Bloomsbury Academic), which includes a chapter on Prince’s later work. His essay “How the Exodus Began: Prince and the Black Working Class Imagination” appeared in a special Prince issue of Black Magnolias Literary Journal. He has presented on Prince at numerous conferences, including Prince From Minneapolis (2018), #DM40GB30 (2020), #1plus1plus1is3 (2021), Prince: 78-88 (2021), #SexyMF30 (2022), and many others. His talk from #1plus1plus1is3, “Deconstruction: Work & Racial Capitalism in The Rainbow Children,” was published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies, and his talk from #EroticCity40 will appear in JPMS soon. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and their pets.