TIME || Prince & Andy Allo

1: in the beginning

April 22, 2011

Andy hung her hat on the back of her bedroom door before kicking off her heels and collapsing onto her bed.

She had worked her ass off this week doing back to back shows at the cafe up the road for $250 a night.

It wasn't about the pay though. She genuinely loved what she did, but sometimes she felt like giving up on it. She had dreamt about being a star for so long, but it wasn't easy.

She closed her eyes for a minute and sighed tiresomely, and although she didn't mean to begin dozing off, she saw no use in fighting it.

Rest is what her body longed for. She hadn't gotten many moments to herself nor had she had the proper time to get a full night of sleep in a while.

But now that she was done with shows for a couple weeks, she could restore herself.

Her phone began to vibrate.
And luckily, she heard it because if it had went off a few minutes later than it did, she wouldn't have.

It was an unfamiliar number, calling from an area code in a nearby California county.

"Hello." Her voice sounded as plain as it was groggy. She didn't mean to sound so rude.

"Hey Andy, it's Elrick. How have you been?"

Elrick was the CEO of the Africa Channel - a TV station that showcases various topics, usually circulating around travel, lifestyle, cultural series and specials.

A while back, they broadcasted a hour-long documentary on Andy and her debut album, UnFresh. It gained her more recognition on the west coast, and more people knew who she was ever since it aired.

She cleared her throat and got up to avoid dozing off again.

"Oh hey, what's up?" Andy walked outside of her bedroom, and plopped down on the sofa in her living room.

This was rather surprising. For Elrick to be randomly calling her at 9 o'clock at night. A small part of her was annoyed but she couldn't really be mad at him.

"Well, there's something I wanted to tell you. And I think you'll love this idea."

"Shoot away."

Andy figured that whatever Elrick had to say would take a while, so she decided to go into the kitchen and brew her a fresh pot of coffee.

Even though staying up wasn't what she wanted, she kept in mind that tomorrow she could sleep in however long she wanted. Therefore, it really didn't matter.

"So, the Africa Channel is doing a special for Prince. He has a string of shows happening this month for 21 nights straight and it started a couple nights ago."

Andy wasn't paying close attention because whatever he was rambling on about didn't exactly have her full focus and didn't involve or have anything to do with her.

But of course she heard Prince come up in his sentence.

Prince.
She had heard his name many times but she wasn't deep into his music. As a kid, she'd go through her mother's and father's music collections and find many artists but Prince wasn't in the mix.