- Born
- Died
- Birth namePrince Rogers Nelson
- Nicknames
- The Purple One
- His Royal Badness
- Skipper
- The High Priest of Pop
- The Prince of Funk
- The Artist Formerly Known as Prince
- Joey Coco
- Height5′ 2½″ (1.59 m)
- Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Mattie Shaw, a jazz singer and social worker, and John L. Nelson, a lyricist and pianist. His father's stage name was "Prince Rogers". His parents were both from African-American families from Louisiana. They separated during his youth, which lead him to move back and forth. Prince had a troubled relationship with his step-father which lead him to run away from home. Prince was adopted by a family called the Andersons. Prince soon after became friends with the Anderson's son, Andre Anderson (Cymone) together along with Charles Smith they joined a band called Grand Central. The band later renamed themselves Champagne and were a fairly successful live band, however soon diminished.
Prince at the age of eighteen started working on high-quality demo tracks with Chris Moon. With these demo tracks Prince eventually ended up signing a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records and was the youngest producer associated with the label. Prince made his debut on the record label with his 1978 album, For You. It wasn't a strong successful album, however it was fair for a beginning artist and ranked 163 on the U.S. Pop Charts. Prince's next releases would tend to do much better on the charts with his singles, "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and I Wanna Be Your Lover in 1979. This would start to introduce Prince as a person who presented sexually explicit material into the music industry. However Prince didn't begin to attract mainstream artists until he release his single, 1999. This single began to be noticed by M.T.V. viewers and this would make him a part of the main-stream music media. Prince released two more singles called Little Red Corvette and Delirious. The album featured Prince's new band, The Revolution. In 1984 Prince would release what would be seen as an admired and profound masterpiece the feature film/sound-track album, Purple Rain in 1984. Prince's father contributed to this album, by cowriting the chord sequence for a couple of his songs. Prince continued to give cowriting credit to his father on several other albums, as his famous chord sequence would be used in several of Prince's singles and albums.
A lot of Prince's songs did not agree with listeners and one of his songs, Darling Nikki prompted a group of people to start a censorship organization called, Parents Music Resource Center (P.M.R.C.) as the track implemented grinding ludicrous acts such as masturbating, which stunned listeners. Prince however continued to release various other singles with the same platform his memorable releases being, Around The World In A Day, Parade, Love Sexy, and Batman.
Prince released a sequel to Purple Rain in 1990 called Graffiti Bridge, a soundtrack album accompanied this movie entitled, Graffiti Bridge. The film did terrible in box-office and was nominated for several Razzie awards. Many people saw the sound-track album, as the high point of the film.
In 1991, Prince assembled a new band called, The New Power Generation with this band he would release singles such as Diamond And Pearls, Cream, and Gett Off. Prince eventually changed his stage name from Prince to a symbol, which lead people to call him, "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince". Prince soon took back his old stage name.
In the 1990s, Prince continued to release singles such as Came, The Gold Experience, Chaos And Disorder, and Emancipation. With the rise of the new millennium, Prince released material such as a religious album called The Rainbow Children,One Nite Alone,The Chocolate Invasion,The Slaughter House, and had a collaboration with Stevie Wonder on Stevie's single called, What The Fuss in 2005.
Prince died on April 21, 2016 in Chanhassen, Minnesota, at his Paisley Park recording studio complex. He was 57.
Prince will be remembered as a musician and artist who inspired millions through his music, and set an inspirational platform which others still abide by.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Peter Sean
- SpousesManuela Testolini(December 31, 2001 - October 2, 2007) (divorced)Mayte Garcia(February 14, 1996 - February 14, 1999) (annulled, 1 child)
- ChildrenAmir Nelson (died at 1 week of age)
- Parents
- In song titles, usually replaced "to," "two," or "too" with "2"; "for" with "4"; and "you" with "U." (Example: "I Would Die 4 U.")
- Colourful outfits and raunchy lyrics
- High heels
- Odd shaped guitars
- High pitched, almost falsetto singing voice contrasting his baritone speaking voice
- Arrived an hour late to the 2007 Golden Globe Awards due to traffic and missed accepting the Golden Globe for Best Song for Happy Feet (2006). Justin Timberlake accepted the award for him, after an awkward silence waiting for him to come on stage. He did so in an amusing fashion by crouching down to a shorter height and raising his voice to accept the award for Prince. Hugh Grant later announced that he had finally arrived after being stuck in gridlock traffic, and gave him an opportunity to stand and receive applause for his win.
- On 7/7/07 he thrilled his hometown fans by performing three shows over 12 hours, only stopping when police shut him down. The Minneapolis native first performed at a department store to promote his new cologne, cramming nine songs into a 45-minute set. He then played that night at the Target Center arena. He capped the night with a return to First Avenue, the club he made famous in Purple Rain (1984). Minnesota's governor and the Minneapolis mayor issued proclamations honoring him, and fans flew in from all over the country to see the performer. After the Target Center, he waited until nearly 2:45 a.m. before starting the First Avenue show, the first time he had played at the club since 1987. The city lets music play until 4 a.m. He was 15 songs and 70 minutes into a 24-song set when he announced from the stage: "The authorities say we gotta go. We always listen to the authorities. I promise I'll be back".
- On 10/16/96 his son, with Mayte Garcia, was born with the rare skull disease Pfeiffer's syndrome and unable to breathe without a ventilator. The child was taken off life support on 23 October and died.
- He was one of the very few musicians who wrote, produced and composed all of their music themselves. On most of his albums, he played all the instruments himself, except for brass instruments, though he did have a backing band for concerts. His songwriting skills provided hits for others such as Chaka Khan, Sinéad O'Connor and Jordan Knight.
- He was diagnosed with epilepsy as a child, and had seizures through his early childhood. However, it wasn't until 2009, in an interview with PBS' Tavis Smiley, that he openly talked about this, one of very few celebrities to go public about their experience as someone living with epilepsy. He also credited epilepsy with motivating him to become a performer.
- You can always renegotiate a record contract. You just go in and say, 'You know, I think my next project will be a country-and-western album.'
- People say I'm wearing heels because I'm short. I wear heels because the women like 'em.
- Cool means being able to hang with yourself. All you have to ask yourself is "Is there anybody I'm afraid of? Is there anybody who if I walked into a room and saw, I'd get nervous?" If not, then you're cool.
- I never really got off on awards so much. I think it's more for the people who give them and also for the fans. I get a lot of props from people in the street and a lot of love and congratulation, pats on back, so it's a good feeling you know the after-effects.
- I've got more hits than Madonna's got kids.
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