Janelle Monae is having a fabulous year to date, and she continued the steep upward curve with this cover of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” at the BET Awards. The purple one is notoriously protective of his own material and can be seen quietly nodding his head in the audience during Monae’s performance.
There isn’t a great deal of difference between this version and the original aside from the odd flourish of horns, although it’s hard to see what else could be done with “Let’s Go Crazy”—it wouldn’t exactly lend itself to lounge or jazz versions. Let’s just hope that the notoriously YouTube-shy Prince allows this one to stay up for at least a little while.
Between this, Alicia Keys straddling the piano, Patti LaBelle kicking off her heels during "Purple Rain", and Prince's hilarious facial expressions throughout, this was an awesome tribute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he6F8zML1po
The video above got taken down but you can see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he6F8zML1po
(until it also gets tooken down :( )