As the 2024 presidential election nears, most candidates are gearing up for debates in traditional business attire, succinct speeches and elegant fundraisers.
But there’s one candidate who defies several of these traditions, and their name might ring a bell to Brooklynites: Paperboy Love Prince.
Prince, who uses the pronouns they/them, wears many hats; an artist, perennial political candidate, a Brooklyn community activist and even a self-described time traveler. Now, they can add “presidential candidate for the 2024 election” to their extensive resume.
For Prince, this isn’t their first rodeo on the campaign trail. Their previous runs for Congress, New York City Council and mayor have all been unsuccessful. Despite these long shots against incumbents and more conventional candidates, Prince remains optimistic about a victory.
The Paperboy Prince Love Gallery on Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick is a bastion for Prince’s mission as an activist. Opening its doors in 2020, the gallery serves as a mutual-aid space hosting food drives, a community fridge and a retail shop for eclectic pieces of vintage clothing items and jewelry.
On a recent brisk December afternoon, Prince walked into the gallery donning some signature items from their wardrobe: cartoonishly large red rubber boots, a Gameboy necklace and a fluffy red brocade jacket.
As they sat down to talk with BK Reader about their latest ventures, the perennial candidate traded their red rubbers for gold-glittered teddy bear shoes and queued up classical music on the sound system.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
BK Reader: What made you want to run for a political office again, and specifically for president?
Paperboy Prince: I love this question because there are so many reasons. One of the biggest reason is to fight for our country. So many people feel disenfranchised and that the system has forgotten about them. If all of us who feel that way got together and decided that we were going to change it — a true change could be made. This is about taking this movement of love on a national scale.
BKR: That idea of love is very central to your campaign. Does that make you different from other candidates?
PP: It does make me different from other candidates, but it makes me similar to every person in this country. Every person can feel love — that’s what they get excited about. When something good happens to you, you’re excited to tell somebody you love. For me, it’s super important, and we’ve gotten away from that. We’ve gotten so much into how the economy is doing that we forgot about how people are doing.
BKR: You ran for mayor in 2021 at age 28, which means you’re at least 30 years old now. How do you expect to run and win if you’re not the legal age to become president? The legal age is 35.
PP: You weren’t supposed to ask me that. I’m just kidding! You can ask me whatever you want to. We need to be finding more ways early on to get involved in this process and to be leading the way. For me, I support lowering the voting age to 16. I support lowering the age to run for president to 30. And I’m doing that by challenging the system directly.
BKR: Do you think you’ll be able to achieve that within 11 months?
PP: Only time will tell.
BKR: What’s the sense in claiming you are 3,000 years old and from the future?
PP: It comes from within. What it means is that I’ve been here before and I come from the future with love. This love is an ancient wisdom. Some of this stuff isn’t to be understood. It’s to be taken in and to really think about and process. It’s about breaking the boundaries of space and time.
BKR: What’s the campaign trail been like so far?
PP: It’s been a lot of love. A great opportunity to meet so many people from around the country and see and talk to people that I maybe wouldn’t normally get to talk to and maybe wouldn’t normally get to talk to me. We’re really America-ing it up.
BKR: How would you spell that?
Paperboy: America, dash, then I-N-G. It’s the new version of being American. The old version is kind of like this cowboy or something — the new version is like this cultural cowboy who has this ability to enjoy and love so many different types of people from all over.
BKR: How’s your music career going? What do you have lined up?
PP: I have some new AI music project dropping with Boomy which is like an AI music platform that I did a partnership with. I have some new crypto music projects that are blockchain-based and are a way for folks who were tuned into my music early to have proof of that. For example, I created a 500-song album with over 200 artists from around the world. Before that, I created a 171-song album. I did this years ago now, so I’m already in the future. We’re doing new projects that I am not allowed to talk about yet, but I can say that it’s coming and it’s a way to use technology to bring more people together.
BKR: Do we have a timeline for that?
PP: Definitely by 2024!
The Love Gallery is located at 1254 Myrtle Ave., Brooklyn, NY, 11237.
