Prince – Sexy M.F.

Levi Seacer wrote the line, and the band played it with no loop

On 30 June 1992, Paisley Park and Warner Bros. released Sexy M.F. as the first single from the album that would not carry a title you could pronounce. Love Symbol came out on 13 October. The track had been cut in December 1991, in Studio A at Paisley Park in Chanhassen, in the same run of sessions as The Sacrifice of Victor and The Morning Papers. Prince had already played it live on 11 January 1992 at Glam Slam in Minneapolis, months before the record reached a shop.

Prince wrote the music and most of the words. Levi Seacer Jr. came up with the title and the chorus, and he sang that line. Tony M. wrote the rap and delivered it. The band on the tape is the New Power Generation as a working group: Michael B. on drums, Sonny T. on bass, Seacer on guitar, Tommy Barbarella on keyboards, Kirk Johnson and Damon Dickson on percussion. The horns are the NPG Hornz: Michael B. Nelson, Kathy Jensen, Dave Jensen, Brian Gallagher and Steve Strand. After hearing George Clinton’s Get Satisfied, Prince asked engineer Dave Friedlander for a horn part in that spirit.

The chorus says the word, and American radio would not say it. A clean edit, issued under titles including Sexy Mutha, went to stations and onto the US version of the album. The single still reached only number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK it hit number 4. Some formats used a disc pressed in the shape of the Love Symbol. The video, directed by Sotera Tschetter, was shot from 20 March 1992 in the Paisley Park parking garage and at Prince’s house, with Troy Beyer in the cast and a yellow BMW in the frame. Warner sold it as a VHS single on 16 June 1992. That tape went to number 1 on Billboard’s music-video chart and was certified gold by the RIAA on 3 February 1993.