“Purple Pearl” by UEBERTRIBE
Prince is and will be an important source of inspiration and musicology for me (Legbo) and my funk mates. And I was sure I would listen to his new tracks every now and then much longer, so today it still feels like a loss in the family, if you know what I mean.
Long before Uebertribe was there, in early 2000s, Diazpora used to throw funk parties, and Princes „Get On The Boat“, „Musicology“, „Sexy Motherfucker“ and many other tracks were on heavy rotation. 2010 we took a trip to Berlin to see him playing live at Waldbühne - at that time we were playing „Kate“ already, Diazpora’s first track that was inspired particularly by Prince. As Martin, Daniel and me started Uebertribe in 2011, with heavy and raw old school funk sound and kinda freewheeling arrangements in mind,
Prince was one of the few modern artists, who’s impact was highly appreciated and valuable. If you know our debut album „Brand New U“ already, you may have mentioned a „Princy“ touch on the title track. „Brand New U“ was written at the time when live versions of „All The Critics Love You In …“ were fighting each other the top of my personal playlist. „Purple Pearl“ came out as we were jamming on some other track in April 2016. We had too many ideas again - so we picked things that made a lot of fun and did not fit to the original track and started developing a new one. That was a very joyful process, it took us two rehearsals to experiment with some parts, so by the end of April we had it almost there, as the news reached us…
So it was evident that it will be dedicated to Prince, final arrangement and the name for the track just came as if they always been there
Legbo
UEBERTRIBE is a funk band from Hamburg, Germany, known for its surprising „over the cliff“ grooves and arrangements and a gritty sound.
Having their roots in raw funk, Uebertribe takes you to a trip to the outer space through genres like Afrobeat, P-Funk and Jazzfunk. Hittin' it on the one, getting hard as Funk Rock, shooting through the Neosouls grease, and putting some Voodoo on all of it, Uebertribe sounds raw and dirty, cause dirt keeps the Funk.
Daniel, Legbo, Martin, Kobi and Kimo from UEBERTRIBE
5 ON PRINCE
1. What was the Prince moment of your life to you, Legbo?
Surely his performance at Waldbühne in Berlin - the only time I saw Prince live!
2. What was Prince's greatest achievement for you: playing the guitar, singing, acrobatics, composing, acting?
Composing, playing the guitar and poetry. And his diversity.
3. Which album was the most valuable for you - and why?
NEWS, because it tells a story. And the second is probably 3121, because it contains „3121“ and „Get On The Boot“, two of my favorite songs on one album. Or Lotusflow3r - for „Dreamer“ and the „Wall Of Berlin“. Actually it is pretty hard for me to value his albums, because I love his funky, rocky and jazzy sides, but I would actually skip most of the pop songs. Best Prince records for me are his live shows, and I would love to name three particular shows: - Live at Paisley Park 1987-12-31 - Live at Montreux 2009 - second show - Live at Montreux 2013 - set 3
4. Did Prince teach you anything no one can ever take from you? Oh yes. Except a few certain things that I would like to keep for myself - Prince is excellent in being serious and jokey at the same time. And then there are things like some particular bitchy kinds of groove, some funky riffs that really got me and will remain in my vocabulary for years.
5. If you could have met Prince for a juice, what would you have talked about? I think I would have some questions about songwriting, arrangements and philosophy behind it, but I’d rather like to jam with Prince!