Artist’s Statement.

We come upon a thirty one-year-old, who hosts karaoke professionally, and holds a BFA theatre degree. He has no kids, no wife, he’s newly single, nothing in his bank account and no prospects. He shares a ramshackle apartment with four burly, white, wayward, comedians in Bushwick. He just performed the latest version of his two hour one-man musical—inspired by Purple Rain—a project he and his collaborator worked on for four years. The production took everything this thirty-one year old had. After the show, he collapsed on a beanbag in his living room. He slept for 10 hours. When he finally came to, he was stunned to find himself surrounded by his four roommates—gawking at him. The year is 2016.

“Yo Ralf! Did you hear? “

“Hear what?”

“Dude! Prince died!”

The thirty-one-year-old who popped up from his beanbag was me. My name is Ralf Jean-Pierre—also known all over NYC as rapper/songwriter Precious Gorgeous. That name is the closest I could get to my hero, Prince. 

Prince is my greatest influence as an artist. He made me uncomfortable and scared as a child, but when I saw Purple Rain at eighteen, I immediately recognized myself. It was the first time I saw myself in the art of another. The unbridled, unprocessed, and unknowable creativity of Prince has been my north star for the last twenty years. 

2016, abruptly awakened from a splayed-out stupor on a beanbag,  I was stunned to learn Prince had died. I was even more stunned to learn that he’d died just as I was performing a musical he inspired. The next day, as planned, I moved out of that apartment. I was on another journey to care for my mother who was battling cancer. It was my honor to go, but it was nerve-wracking to press pause on the show we’d been devising feverishly for about five years. I felt like we’d finally cracked the structure and tone that had evaded us prior. The show, which was about a real-life vision-quest I took to cope with a tragedy—felt like my life’s work. I was terrified that if my collaborator, Jolie Tong, and I squandered the momentum we’d found, we might never get it back. But it had to be put on hold.  

Prior to Prince’s death, I’d developed a new way of producing records as a rapper-songwriter. I had a growing, unshakable dissatisfaction for just rapping over other people’s beats. I really fell in love with how in Prince’s music, he wasn’t just the lead singer, he WAS the music. Every sound was HIM. That’s the kind of integration I craved. I was also working through a theory that rock and roll and hip-hop were exactly the same thing. Producers I worked with didn’t understand what I was after. The only way I could explore these fascinations was to learn to produce my own stuff. I couldn’t play instruments or read music, but I learned from Michael Jackson and Reggie Watts that I could create entire compositions through beatboxing and looping. This technique, even though it’s not as polished as traditional approaches, meant I could bring my entire soul to bear. It’s how I wrote my first one-man blues-rap musical with Jolie Tong.

Two days after Prince’s passing I found myself driving towards my mother in Florida preparing to be alone, with her, in a house.  Alone with the woman who birthed me and is now bravely battling cancer. Overnight my life transformed from a shiftless, bohemian artist’s existence to a responsible, compassionate son who drives his mom to chemo appointments, does chores, runs errands and dotes on his mother. I was a companion to my mother—hanging out with her, arguing with her about my shiftless bohemian existence, and worrying about her fluctuating health. During this time, the tragedies of Eric Garner, Charlie Hebdo,  the Orlando nightclub shooting, and more all came to a head, and Donald Trump was, unbeknownst to many, making his first successful bid for the presidency. I’d sit in my room in my mother’s house and wonder what Prince would do at this moment. 

The answer was obvious. What Prince would do is make an album. So that’s what I decided to do. I would take this production technique I’ve been developing and I’d make a Prince album. 

It’s 2025 and I’ve sat on this record for 9 years.I’ve always been afraid of how odd it is, even though it’s surely the album I set out to make. I turned 40 last year and decided there will never be a right time to release all this music, I just need to do it. I procured a beautiful mix from brilliant engineer Alex P. Wernquest of Basement Floods, who co-produced my last album. On 4/21/25, at 9pm, my sister's birthday, a few days before my deceased mother’s birthday, and the ninth anniversary of Prince’s passing, I’m finally releasing this album. I’m releasing it exclusively to all those signed up on my email list.

Thank you for reading, thank you for listening, and thank you for being on whatever this journey is with me. I hope you dig the record. 

It’s called Only Wanted One Time See You Laughing. Dedicated to Prince Rogers Nelson.

-Ralf Jean Pierre, aka, Precious Gorgeous
Edited by Melissa Hunter Gurney.