Spike Lee is a true American hero, one of the most respected, acclaimed and articulate figureheads of the nation's arts and culture community in the 21st century
From his early ground-breaking work with Public Enemy - Fight The Power only exists because Lee asked Chuck D to write an anthem to run through the core of his brilliant 1989 movie Do The Right Thing - to his storied career as an iconoclastic writer, film director and producer, culminating in a 2019 Oscar win for comedy-drama BlacKkKlansman, Atlanta, Georgia-born Lee has been a visionary force-of-nature for the better part of five decades.
With all that said, when he cheekily asked superstar musician Prince to gift him one of his bespoke, iconic and instantly-recognisable guitars in the late '90s, he received the sort of look one might anticipate if you asked a stranger for permission to take a shit on their living room floor.
"He looked at me like I had five heads," Lee cheerfully confessed to US talk show host Jimmy Fallon during an interview on last night's edition of The Tonight Show. But, to his credit, Prince delivered.
"A year later, this big-ass guitar case shows up," Lee revealed. "A year later!"
After Fallon produced photographic proof of Lee with said guitar, his guest added, "I miss him. I miss him."
You can watch the interview in full below.
When accepting his Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay forBlacKkKlansman at the 2019 Oscars ceremony, Lee paid tribute to his late friend, who passed away on April 21, 2016. Prince’s estate had given Lee permission to use an unreleased song by the artist, a cassette recording of Mary Don't You Weep, over the film's end credits.
"What could be more fitting than to have a Negro spiritual sung by Prince, just him and the piano in this movie," Lee said. "It was not a mistake. Prince wanted me to have that song in BlacKkKlansman. People can say I'm crazy, smoking crack, which I don't. Or eating the mushrooms, which I don't. I'm telling you, on my mother's grave, he wanted me to have this song."
