During a recent interview with Bryan-Michael Cox on T-Pain’s Nappy Boy Radio Podcast, the auto-tune pro spoke on a hilarious encounter he had with late pop icon Prince.
He recounted a time when Prince’s bass player approached him while in Los Angeles. Excited to meet the “bartender” crooner, he was interrupted by a phone call from The Purple One.
“I was sitting at the Sofitel in L.A., sitting at the bar and dude was sitting right next me [and was] like ‘Ayy! Man Ain’t you T-Pain? I’m Prince’s bass player.'”
Deeming the musician’s position as “dope as hell,” T-Pain then revealed that, in that moment, the bassist’s phone rang. It was Prince.
“What’s up P?” the bassist asked The High Priest of Pop before revealing to him that he was sitting next to T-Pain.
More concerned with whether the instrumentalist was “coming to jam” with him or not, Prince disregarded the Tallahassee star’s presence saying, “Man I don’t wanna talk to no motherf**king T-Pain!”
Forced to get on the phone with Prince, the 38-year-old shared his appreciation with the “Diamonds and Pearls” singer, to which he crudely got the response, “Can you hand the phone back?” See below.
Prince, née Prince Rogers Nelson, was known for speaking his mind.
Legendary songwriters and producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis recounted the time they were fired by the “When Doves Cry” crooner during an interview with Nile Rodgers on Apple Music’s Deep Hidden Meaning Radio show.
“It happened to be the same night we had a session with S.O.S Band to mix,” he told Nile. “So when we got to the studio, it was Prince, Morris, Jesse and Terry and myself. And he said, ‘I told you guys not to produce outside acts and you did, so you’re fired.’ And we were like, ‘Oh.’”
“So when we walked out the studio, we were like, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’” Jam added. He continued, “And Terry said, ‘Well, let’s go over to the other studio and mix the S.O.S. Band.’ I said, ‘Well, cool.’ So we walk into the studio … the engineer was a guy named Steve Hodge and he goes, ‘Hey, nice to meet you guys.’ And he said, ‘Why you guys look so down?’ And we said, ‘Well, we just got fired from the Time [Prince’s album].'”
“‘You did?’ And we said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t think you have anything to worry about because this one here? This is a smash.’”
Check out T-Pain’s full episode of the NBR Podcast, where he speaks on talking to Prince, below.