Key Takeaways
- Jodeci’s Mr. Dalvin recalled pitching Prince a hip-hop remix of “Purple Rain,” only for Prince to request a Mudslide and tell him, “When you’re not with the industry, maybe we could talk.”
- Michael Jackson stunned Dalvin by singing Jodeci’s album interludes and identifying their keys and chord progressions, proving his fandom went beyond the hits.
- Dalvin and K-Ci shared the stories with Nessa on HOT 97 as Jodeci celebrates 35 years of its triple-platinum debut, Forever My Lady.
Jodeci's Mr. Dalvin once pitched Prince a hip-hop remix of “Purple Rain.” Instead of getting a collaboration, he ended up buying the legendary musician a drink.
Michael Jackson, meanwhile, was apparently such a devoted Jodeci fan that he could identify the chord changes in their album interludes.
The R&B group's encounters with both icons came up during a revealing interview with Nessa on HOT 97, where Dalvin and K-Ci revisited some of their most unforgettable celebrity interactions.
Dalvin's Prince encounter happened at a party in Atlanta, shortly after his remix of “Freek'n You” featuring Raekwon and Ghostface Killah became a New York favorite. Feeling confident, he approached Prince with an ambitious proposal: a hip-hop version of “Purple Rain.”
Prince didn't even look at him. Instead, he asked for a Mudslide.
Dalvin, who was dating TLC's T-Boz at the time, didn't understand the request until she explained that Prince wanted a cocktail.
“So I went over there to the bar, and I got him a Mudslide,” Dalvin recalled. “I handed him a drink. I said, ‘Here you go, sir.’ But this time I felt defeated.”
The remix never happened. Prince did, however, leave Dalvin with a cryptic message: “When you're not with the industry, maybe we could talk.”
Dalvin said he didn't understand the remark until years later, when he learned more about Prince's highly publicized battle with Warner Bros.
Making matters worse, T-Boz wouldn't stop teasing him about buying another grown man a drink.
There was another twist. Dalvin initially believed Prince had no idea who he was, but his brother, DeVanté Swing, later told him otherwise. Prince had mentioned meeting Dalvin during a separate encounter in New York. “I didn't even know he knew who I was,” Dalvin admitted.
DeVanté had idolized Prince as a teenager, even traveling to Minneapolis hoping to meet him. He left disappointed, although Dalvin clarified that Prince never knew his brother had made the trip.
Michael Jackson delivered the opposite experience. Dalvin recalled Jackson telling him that he bought Jodeci CDs in every city he visited. What initially sounded like a celebrity compliment became something much more surprising when Jackson started singing the group's interludes and identifying their musical keys and chord progressions.
“He wasn't just singing the songs. He was talking about the interludes on our album,” Dalvin said. “For you to know even not our songs, but our interludes on our album means he studies our music.”
