P.M. Dawn

Success has transformed Prince Be from stereo potato into overweight lover, a phrase he lifts without attribution, and like all his multifarious appropriations, this one fits him like a caftan--flatteringly, commodiously, with room to move around. Truth, sincerity, and so forth are probably present and definitely beside the point. Whether he's rapping or crooning, boasting or begging, dishing out a verbal beatdown or plumbing the sacred essence of "Norwegian Wood," his aesthetic constructs are their own socially significant reason for being. As long as he's circumspect enough to allude to his mysterious religious beliefs rather than promulgate them, he'll be a force for good in a world that generates too many misfits and not enough b-e-a-u-t-y. (Grade: A)