An overly-eager artist being welcomed into the industry is taken on a bumpy ride as she learns life does not have as many sunny days as she thought. Within the process, she comes to learn that her tour guide is a lot more important to her than she e...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
May 18, 1985 Minneapolis, Minnesota
With my luggage in my hand? Yeah, I think I walked with my luggage in my hand. Aaliyah followed behind me with her own suitcase. Finally, I was coming to a halt in a place where physical peace was a concept practiced. I was off to a great start when I arrived. My recognization level leaped from where I was last year. It was almost strange to watch people stare at me like the public figure I hadn't realized I was. I wasn't smoothly sliding through the airport anymore. I got a couple 'Hey, you're Lyric!' moments. I was asked to sign about maybe six objects and not all from one person. Finally, my buzz was coming! I was over the moon with my excitement.
I made the executive decision not to call Prince. I imagined him sending someone to pick us up rather than coming himself because that was how busy he'd become in a year. I caught us a cab, something Aaliyah couldn't do, and we made our way to Ginger Street. It was the same fancy ass hotel that I stayed in on tour. Well, actually visited because I really was at Prince's house. I wish I recalled the name of the hotel but after your second tour, they all start to blur together and names slowly fade away.
"So Prince lives here?" Aaliyah asked, looking out the window of our room.
I scratched my eyebrow as I paced around the room, checking that everything was set up to my liking. "Sort of," I told her, "He lives in a suburb a couple minutes away." Sitting on the bed, I watched her look around in amazement. "How long you wanna stay?"
"How ever long you want, I guess. You've been here like a billion times!"
I stopped moving in my seat, my legs no longer swinging off of the bed and eyed her. My head dropped lowly, a deep glare arising. "Only three..." I'd grown insecure of how my friendship with Prince was painted to the outside world after dealing with Crystal. I wanted complete transparency and careful wording to be used.
"More than twice," she dismissed. "What we doing first?"
I thought about her question. I was not really sure what we were doing first. It hit me. Maybe I should call the Prince of Uptown to get suggestions. "Hold that thought..."
The phone call was quick, I remember that much. I thought he'd still be in California but he'd just got back. His, Prince's, suggestion was that we both came over for what he claimed would be a good time. He called up some friends and we all ended up hanging by the pool. Prince had one of his first few chefs during these days. He hired her when he got back from the tour, adding another loop to Rande's expanding belt. Rande was a delight, a real sweetheart. It was Rande's day off on this particular day and with Aaliyah wanting to be in that realm, Aaliyah told Prince she'd cook for him if he bought all of the ingredients. It was a fair trade off. Prince agreed.
So, there we were. We were at Prince's house, still on Kiowa Trail at the time, having a blast as if we didn't all have things to do. Mild weather blessed us beneath the Minnesotan sun as Father Winter spared our temperatures for the sake of a good time. The radio was playing and Prince's last single was a repetitive offender in the radio station's rotation. The song was Raspberry Beret, I think... I'm pretty confident it was. The song details don't matter. The mood was set. We were all having fun.
