Prince recorded the 12 songs that comprise the posthumous album
Welcome 2 America back in 2010, polished off some mixes, and allegedly completed a sequence, then he set it aside. It's impossible to tell if
Prince considered the album finished or if he planned to release it. He did launch the Welcome 2 tour in December 2010 but it was in support of
20Ten, an album given away with copies of the Daily Mirror in the U.K. and never officially released in the U.S., and almost no songs from the
Welcome 2 America sessions were played on-stage or leaked from the vaults: the fizzy trifle "Hot Summer" was streamed on the website of local radio station 89.3 The Current but that was it. Few
Prince fanatics were aware of its existence until it was unearthed in 2021 as the first release in his estate's deal with
Legacy. Complete unreleased albums are relatively rare among
Prince's known outtakes, so the appearance of
Welcome 2 America was big news. The album itself doesn't quite live up to expectations.
Welcome 2 America is essentially the product of
Prince giving the rhythm section of bassist
Tal Wilkenfeld and drummer
Chris Coleman a test run, leading the pair through chord sequences without singing scratch melodies or anything that would give them an idea of a finished song.
Prince added his vocals later, along with harmonies and keyboards from
Morris Hayes, who is credited as a co-producer on the released product. The results sound every bit as complete as either
20Ten or
Art Official Age or any other latter-day official
Prince album. It also sounds very much of a piece with the music
Prince made toward the end of his life: he moves with ease through the slipstreams separating funk, soul, and pop, using his guitar as the bonding agent between the styles. The opening triptych of "Welcome 2 America," "Running Game (Son of a Slave Master)," and "Born 2 Die" suggests
Welcome 2 America may be a thematically weightier album than usual from
Prince, but by the time "Hot Summer" kicks in, it's clear this is a trick of sequencing; the rest of the album is fairly standard
Prince fare. The sequencing doesn't do the album a lot of favors, as it gets the proceedings off on a slow foot, but the second half has a distinct pulse surfacing on the fuzz-funk of "Check the Record," the sultry "When She Comes," and the jazzy struts "Same Page, Different Book," and "1010 (Rin Tin Tin)."
Welcome 2 America is still a latter-day
Prince album, so it's filled with vaguely baffling turns of phrase, slick jazz-funk, and covers of 21st century
Soul Asylum songs. In other words, it's not a buried gem or a return to form but a snapshot of an excellent musician having a pretty good run in the studio. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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