Prince Project May Need More Work

Tasty Clips contributor MDH was on the scene last week to catch new PRINCE protégé TAMAR with the purple one sitting in at NY's Nokia Theater. Here's what he had to say: "The show started about 12:15 a.m. Prior to them hitting the stage, they played Tamar's single Beautiful, Loved and Blessed, which I found weird but ultimately understood after sitting through what was essentially an uneventful evening of Prince showcasing someone that he must be boning. I felt as though I was watching a bad Las Vegas cover band with a really good guitarist (Prince). He walked her through a diva songbook including Not Gon' Cry (Mary J Blige), Rock Steady and I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You (Aretha Franklin) and Love Changes (Melisa Morgan/Kashif). It gets even better. They did Play That Funky Music and invited some guy from the audience to sing the song.

Tamar's two backup singers/dancers were C-level performers who attempted to sing something that I remembered at the time but now escapes me. She also managed to perform some songs from what promises to be a "stellar" debut and I use that term loosely. Afterwards, she invited more audience members on stage to dance. I'll sum up the evening in a nutshell. Long and boring. Tamar was a background singer who kept calling the audience Nokia (The name of the venue. Either she's not very bright or didn't realize she was in New York); and Prince was her hype man. After an hour and a half, he thanked the audience (what was left of them) for always showing love and he appreciated us showing up for his baby sister. You're welcome!!! 3121, the new Prince album with the single Black Sweat is due March 20 on Universal/Motown. A limited number of CDs will have “purple tickets.” The lucky person who finds such a ticket enclosed wins An Evening With Prince - A Private Performance at Prince's House. A two-disc compilation of his hit remixes called Ultimate is out on Rhino Records March 21.