22. That Time When Rick James Almost Kicked Prince’s Ass
In his autobiography, Rick James recounted the time when he almost beat up Prince: “I chased after that little turd. I caught up with him and was about to lay him out when his manager stepped in. ‘What the hell is wrong with you, Rick?’ asked the manager. I told him Prince had dissed Mom and that I was gonna kick his scrawny ass. Prince explained that he didn’t know who Mom was. ‘Well, now you know, motherf**ker,’ I said. ‘Prince will be happy to apologize to your mother,’ said the manager, ‘and he will be happy to apologize to you.’ Prince apologized to Mom and apologized to me. I was a little disappointed ’cause I really did wanna kick his a**.”
Bootsy Collins of Parliament-Funkadelic recalled that “Rick definitely had an attitude with Prince … I remember being on shows with Rick and Prince, and they would pull plugs on each other, gettin’ ready to go to blows“. Fortunately, the feud never reached the physical violence stage, thanks to peacemakers such as Nile Rodgers of Chic: “I used to always say to Rick, ‘We all are just doing our own kind of thing. Prince is Prince, you’re you—we all have our own identity when it comes to the world of funk“.