At this stage of history, it seems almost cruel to cast Prince and Michael Jackson as rivals. While the former continues to compose, record, perform, and tour with the obsessive artistry that has distinguished his three-decades-and-counting career, the latter is content to repackage old hits ad infinitum and pad around Bahrain in a burqa. About the only forum where Prince and Jackson can contend as near equals is on the dance floor, where the greatest dance records of each—Prince's "Erotic City," "Housequake," and "Kiss"; Jackson's "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," "Wanna Be Startin' Something," and "Billie Jean"—remain universal intoxicants.
Enter DJ Dave Paul, founder and CEO of San Francisco's legendary Bomb Hip-Hop record label, who brings his renowned "Prince vs. Michael" dance party to Re-bar on Thursday, March 23. "The first concept was to do a Prince night," says Dave Paul, on the phone from the Bay Area. "But there'd been a lot of Prince-only nights, so we decided to make it a fight."
Unsurprisingly, the night was a smash, and over the past four years, DJ Dave Paul has toured his Prince vs. Michael battle around the country. "What's cool is that there's so much music from them that no two nights are the same," says Dave Paul, who spikes his battle sets with music from each of the artists' side projects. (For Prince, that's Vanity 6, Sheila E, and the Time; for Jacko, the Jacksons and the Jackson 5.) As for the winner, Dave Paul says, "It's a tie. Ultimately, it comes down to what the women like."
