Forget the greyness of everyday life and opt for purple by discovering the life of a musician fan of funk and Prince. It will be necessary to open Minneapolis, the new release full of rhinestones and music of the Humanoides associates.
A princely shadow
Theresa is a young adult living in Minneapolis in the early 1980s. Since childhood, she has loved music and decided to make a career at it since she saw a poster of Prince, the city's child prodigy. She decided to start her own funk band, Starchild. But in this white city and in this misogynistic environment, Theresa accumulates the handicaps of being an African-American woman. Minneapolis was originally planned as an album about Prince without Prince. At first, he only appears on a street corner on the cover of Controversy. But there is elsewhere a touch of purple on each page. Finally, it appears more in the second part. He is presented as a divine figure. Theresa first sees an icon through the poster. This star does not speak and makes the offering of a song to Starchild and then the keys to paradise. Thanks to his guitar skills, Prince auditions Theresa. But does he offer him paradise or just crumbs of glory?
All dressed in purple
After the end of H1, the American subsidiary of Humanoïdes associés changed its tune. They put aside the shared universe and magazines like Ignited and Omni for a more European vision. Focus on complete stories in one volume. These changes also correspond to developments in the American market where the sale of magazines with hard cover is becoming the majority. But the progressive gaze remains. Indeed, with Minneapolis, screenwriters Joe Illidge and Hannibal Tabu tell the story of the progression of a Starchild funk band. There are essential steps such as the search for musicians and tensions between the group for ego problems. But, Minneapolis is mostly about the struggle of a black woman to find a place in a misogynistic environment. While she plays for the first time with her father's guitar he shows her that she will never be able to live from it. Tenacious, she hangs on and this frustration pushes her to write her songs. To oppose the surrounding environment, she chose a multi-ethnic, mixed group that she would lead. We understand in the foreword of the president of the magazine Paste in what way this choice is a revolutionary bet. Through Theresa, we discover the other side of the music world. The difficulty of finding a room because the managers are only looking for well-known artists; opt for resourcefulness by making your own demo; Make the buzz by all means… Meredith Laxton's very classic drawing illustrates this rise with a rounded realism. She knows, by a double page make you enter the music or a concert hall which is highly appreciable in this period of health restrictions. Joe Illidge, Hannibal Tabu and Meredith Laxton offer with Minneapolis a guide to the record business, an environment far more ruthless than an Olympic competition. A fan of manga might see it as a shonen by the insistence on work. But this book also offers you a journey into the past of funk, a bygone era but is it so different intwenty-first century rapgaming? If you like graphic stories about music, we recommend the chronicles on Les amants d'Hérouville and Peer Gynt in different genres.
