Questlove Defends Madonna / Stevie Wonder Prince Tribute at Billboard Awards

Posted by on May 23, 2016 in News | Comments Off

Questlove Defends Madonna / Stevie Wonder Prince Tribute at Billboard Awards

Questlove has honored the late Prince with several tributes in the past month, including special DJ sets, a written essay, and more. At last night’s Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas, he read another tribute to the legend—as well as making a valiant attempt to impersonate the classic Prince yelp—to introduce Madonna and Stevie Wonder’s tribute. After a social media backlash against the performance, Questlove defended them, concluding, “let’s not get ugly w playing the ‘Prince would and wouldn’t approve’ game.” Watch his speech below, and scroll down to see the tweets.

“All of us live in the land of music, and his departure from it was an earthquake,” Questlove said in his remembrance. “But his departure leaves behind so much work still to do. And we can follow the trails he blazed and we can follow his example. We can be fierce, uncompromising, experimental. We can also listen to all those songs that he left for us. He was very, very generous in that regard.”

because of P’s well known love for the *poof* vanishing act. A lot of us are left feeling incomplete in the act of saying goodbye.

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

For starters it’s hard to accept him no longer being here. & in the upcoming award season for ’17 there will be a gang of tributes

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

Naturally there will be folded arms & shade thrown because the Purple Standard is hard boots to fill & a lot of us don’t wanna come 2 grips

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

—w the fact that Prince–(an on the surface) face of health & invincible agelessness subcomb to something so….friggin basic

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

So w mourning will come sadness & anger. 1st week I cried. 2nd week I tried to atone for his sins w gettin 8-10 hrs of sleep he didn’t get

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

Now anger is in the air w who (in our eyes) is allowed to mourn & how they are allowed to mourn.—none of us were prepared for his death

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

So I know there is gonna be ALOT of “feel a certain ways” about who you want to see do his music justice—but you gotta put that aside yall

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

Every Prince rendition will not be a life changing orgasmic xperience. Just to SING his work is brave enough. Again feeling are on high

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

And EVERYBODY wants and deserves a chance to say goodbye in their own way. But remember: there will be AMAs, SoulTrain, NAACP, mtv, GRAMMYS

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

And a gazillion other tributes. But the point is let’s not get ugly w playing the “Prince would and wouldn’t approve” game.

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

….& this isn’t *just about* the Madge/Stevie tribute btw

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

I’ve been gettin earfuls from in/outside the Purple Circle concerning inclu/exclusions of his estate/work/memorials/tributes who in who not.

— Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 23, 2016

Watch clips from Madonna and Stevie Wonder’s performance:

Watch: Stevie Wonder and @Madonna pay tribute to Prince at the #BBMAs https://t.co/VIlBnzZkWp https://t.co/S1wHpqvmw9

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 23, 2016

 

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