The Gold Experience, Prince’s seventeenth album, marked a pivotal inflection point in his career. This era was defined by an ideological shift, as Prince eschewed the expectations of white industry gatekeepers and audiences and publicly aligned himself with the ongoing Black freedom struggle. His name change, independent releases, protest art, and support for Black political causes signified an awakening that would shape the remainder of his career. 

Using Malcolm X’s 1965 speech “Prospects for Freedom” as a framework for analyzing Prince’s actions surrounding the album’s release, this presentation situates The Gold Experience as more than a musical triumph. It is a declaration of intent—one in which Prince is prospecting for freedom not only as an artist in pursuit of ownership and control of his art, but also as a Black man reckoning publicly with the burden of systemic racism, the illusion of progress, and the imperative need for self-determination—for himself and his people.

Kamilah Cummings is a writer, editor, and visiting senior professional lecturer at DePaul University in Chicago. Her scholarship on Prince has been featured at Purple Reign, the first academic Prince conference (University of Salford, UK), polished solid Prince symposia at New York University, Spelman College, and online, as well as The 2021 Pop Convergence (PopCon). Her work on Prince has been published in the Howard Journal of Communications, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, AMP: American Music Perspectives, and Prince and Popular Music: Critical Perspectives on an Interdisciplinary Life (Bloomsbury). She also created the course Prince: A New Breed Leader.

A House music researcher as well, she developed the course The House Chicago Built, has presented on House music at Black Portraiture[s] IV (Harvard University), and appears as a featured speaker in the documentary The Woodstock of House. She is passionate about exploring the intersections of race and identity in media and pop culture, with a particular focus on centering Blackness in the narratives of Black people.