Giant public sing-along planned for Prince block party June 6
Published in Entertainment News
MINNEAPOLIS — The special guest singer at this year’s Prince Celebration Block Party in Minneapolis will be … you.
Mayor Jacob Frey and other city officials joined Prince estate representatives to announce details of the June 6 street bash at a news conference Thursday in front of the giant Prince mural near Ramp A in downtown Minneapolis, where the event will be held.
Foremost among the plans for this year’s free bash is something called the Prince Sing-a-Long, led by Twin Cities gospel and jazz bandleader Sanford Moore with a 100-member choir. Members of the public will be enlisted to help sing Prince’s many classics during the two-hour singing marathon.
No word yet if “Darling Nikki” and “Do Me, Baby” are among the songs to be sung.
“We might need to stick to the cleaner stuff,” Moore said after the news conference, adding his endorsement of the idea. “I think Prince would’ve liked the idea of us all singing together. Especially now.”
Organizers said the giant sing-along was inspired by the impromptu mass choir that formed outside the First Avenue nightclub the night of Prince’s death, April 21, 2016, when an estimated 10,000 mourners sang “Purple Rain” together on the street.
They’re hoping for even more participants at the block party’s sing-along, scheduled 4:30-6:30 p.m. after a full day of other fun in the shadow of Hiero Veiga’s 11-story Prince mural at the corner of 1st Avenue and 9th Street North (two blocks south of First Avenue the nightclub).
Remembering the big choir that converged in downtown almost 10 years ago when news of Prince’s death swept over Minneapolis, Frey said “the city came together in a beautiful way.
“There was this organic outpouring of love and music and dance,” he said. “We shut down the streets, and seemingly tens of thousands of people poured out to them to sing and meet with each other. It was one of those beautiful celebrations of life even during a time of mourning, and I think that is so classically Prince.”
Prince’s estate manager Londell McMillan, who worked as a lawyer for the late music icon, celebrated the timing of the sing-along since it not only follows the 10th anniversary of his death but also comes on the heels of ICE’s Operation Metro Surge and the turmoil it ignited around the Twin Cities this past winter.
“He would have celebrated you,” McMillan said. “He would have celebrated this community. He certainly would have celebrated them a couple of months ago when they were fighting for justice and the values and the virtues of this great American country.”
The block party is held in conjunction with the annual five-day Celebration at Paisley Park, scheduled June 3-7 at Prince’s studio-turned-museum in Chanhassen timed to the late music icon’s June 7 birthday (he’d have been 68). It’s the one part of the Celebration that doesn’t cost a royal fortune. The cost of a five-day pass to Paisley Park’s Celebration increased this year to a $900-$1,400 price range.
An initial lineup announcement for the Paisley Park Celebration was made April 14 with Chaka Khan, Miguel, Morris Day and members of Prince’s bands the Revolution and NPG among the performers, while Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Bootsy Collins will be there for speaking gigs.
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