In 1995 Prince,(yes I know he went by that Symbol during this period, but we'll leave that ridiculousness in the past), was at the height of his feud with Warner Bros. Records. It had been going on for a few years prior, but his campaign to get "The Gold Experience" released by a label who felt he was putting too much product out in the market turned into an all out battle. Prince wearing 'Slave' on his face is a well known protest from this time, but he also packed up and took his band, The New Power Generation, to Europe for the Ultimate Live Experience Tour, where he vowed to stay until his 'shackled' album was released.
While in the midst of this tour, which focused almost exclusively on new material, Prince delivered the ultimate 'F. U.' to Warners by slipping out the album "Exodus", credited to the New Power Generation, in Europe on March 27, 1995. Although his backing band indeed was playing on the album, with bassist Sonny T. handling a lot of the vocal work, this was still for all intents and purposes a Prince and the New Power Generation album. Prince is all over it, not even hiding his vocals, oftentimes singing co-lead with Sonny, writing, producing and playing on it as well. But the little bugger invented a new persona, Tora Tora, to 'cover-up' his involvement. For public appearances, Tora Tora was nothing but Prince wearing a scarf or mask over his face to hide his identity. Never mind that the drawing and pictures of this Tora Tora in the album artwork were adorned with Prince's symbol hanging in chains around his neck. The whole scenario was Prince delivering a giant middle finger to the record company he was at war with.
In its released form, "Exodus" was a 21 track funk opus, an obvious nod to George Clinton's whole Parliament-Funkadelic gang, from the cartoon artwork to the music contained on the album. But of the 21 tracks, only nine are actual songs, with the remaining 12 tracks filled with segues and comedy segments, telling a very loose, extremely vulgar (this album makes "The Black Album" blush with its rampant use of F bombs, N words and MF this and MF that) almost indecipherable story. But for die-hard fans, it represented Prince in some of his funkiest moments on record, it is still a favorite of mine.
What we have here then, is the first of two early configurations of "Exodus", released as "The Exodus Has Begun" by the Digital Funk Bitch label. This configuration is dated June 19, 1994 and only contains six actual songs amongst its 14 tracks. But there are enough differences, and one unreleased song, to keep things interesting and make this a must have for collectors. Even more important, this DFB release is sourced from a complete disc, not tracks patched together from various sources. This equals consistent, excellent sound quality throughout. We've come a long way from the days of bootlegs with unreleased studio material in hissy, almost unlistenable quality.
Although I prefer the released album to the early configurations of "Exodus", having this along with the new "Exodus V.2" release which I will be reviewing here soon, is a great insight into the process of making an album as it goes through various tracklists and versions. Unreleased studio material has always been my favorite stuff to collect, making this an essential release. A track by track listing follows:
"NPG Bum Rush The Ship" - On the released album, this serves as a segue into the last song on "Exodus". Here it serves as an album intro, although it is basically unchanged from what was released. The only difference is on the released version there are a few extra seconds at the start with a voice saying "Meanwhile, somewhere in outer space". The NPG band attacks a spaceship with a captain hell bent on taking over the world. I told you the storyline of the album was rather ludicrous.
"The Exodus Has Begun" - Although this is the basic version that was used for release, this is an earlier, rougher mix with less effects added, specifically the annoying turntable scratches that were put on the released version. It seems those scratches were specifically added over a sample they might not have gotten clearance for. Prince's electronically altered and slowed down lead vocal is also buried deeper in the mix on this version and the outro is longer and different from what was released. A song completely influenced by P-Funk, and one of Prince's funk classics to be sure.
"NPG Operator" - This segue was actually the intro to the released "Exodus" album. This is the exact same recording, featuring Mayte giving instructions to a caller played by Prince (again with voice altered) on how to get "free from any other contractual obligations" when you want to send your music directly to your fans.
"Get Wild" - A longer and much different version from what was released on "Exodus". This version has a bit of a slower groove and features a lot of extra dialogue near the end from Mayte and another female speaking in Spanish. The version that appears on this bootleg is, however, identical to what was released on the soundtrack to the movie "Pret-A-Porter". I seem to remember a longer, unreleased version of this track but it is possible that the version on this configuration is what was released on "Pret-A-Porter".
"Count" - Another segue, this is actually a slightly different version from what was released as it has an extra line of dialogue from Sonny T. when he tells his woman "Now that I'm running things, I just hope I don't become the very thing that I'm rebelling against." It sounds super cheesy and is probably why it was cut for release.
"Count The Days" - This ballad, a duet between Prince and Sonny T. is identical to the released version.
"DJ Gets Jumped" - This segue is identical to what was released.
"New Power Soul" - This mostly instrumental track was edited down for release. This is the full length version, about 90 seconds longer than what was released.
"DJ Seduces Sonny" - This segue is slightly longer than what was released. There are about seven seconds of dialogue at the very beginning that was cut off the released version of the band members talking amongst themselves about the spaceship they hijacked.
"It Takes 3" - This bluesy, horn laden track was never released, and this is the only configuration of the "Exodus" album it was included on. It's for the best too, as it's the weakest track from the sessions. It does not fit into the album conceptually or musically, and it was a good idea to bury it back in The Vault. Prince has recorded so many better tracks in this genre.
"Rain" - Another segue leading up to the next track, this is also identical to what was released.
"Hallucination Rain" - The highlight of this disc. This song was severely edited for inclusion on "Exodus". Here however is the full length, original 11:06 version of this psychedelic rock freakout. Over five minutes of this track were cut for the released version, but luckily the original is here in all its glory and in sparkling sound quality.
"Spooky Soup" - Another brief segue, this serves as an outro to "Hallucination Rain" and was cut from the final album and is unreleased.
"NPG Outro" - Another quick segue that serves as the ending of this configuration of the album, telling listeners "To find out what happens to our heroes, tune in to the full length CD entitled the NPG's New Power Soul, coming soon on NPG Records." This outro was not used and remains unreleased. Although an album credited to the New Power Generation called "New Power Soul" was eventually released in 1998, it dropped the entire storyline and was just a standard (and underwhelming) Prince album.
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