In the long and rewarding history of people who are absolutely never boring, Prince might very well reign supreme. The Purple One, he of funk pop mastery and endlessly enviable style decisions, has never shied away from candidly expressing his thoughts on the generally less-than-creative tactics of the major label machine. In the early 90s, Prince swiftly proved himself to give far less f:)cks than anyone else in the industry by briefly changing his name to the unpronounceable Love Symbol #2, inspiring many to simply dub him The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

Two legacy-affirming decades later, Prince has continually doubled down on his distaste for said machine. In 2014, Prince suddenly pulled his music from YouTube and temporarily vanished from all social media platforms. 2015 saw The Purple One slowly returning to those platforms, but only with sporadic chess-like moves of minimalism. He removed his music from all streaming services except Jay Z's unfairly maligned TIDAL, a move which ultimately saw Prince entirely opting out of the currently dominating Apple Music. As previously reported, Prince will actually be releasing his new album HITNRUN as a Tidal exclusive on September 7.

During a Q & A session with a selection of journalists at his studio in Minneapolis on Saturday, Prince spoke openly about why he supports Jay Z and Tidal. "Jay Z spent $100 million of his own money to build his own service,” Prince told the group. “We have to show support for artists who are trying to own things for themselves.” Prince also had some entertainingly acerbic words for the continued annoyance of the major label machine, speaking firmly on its potentially detrimental impact on a young artist's career. "Record contracts are just like, I’m gonna say the word, slavery," Prince said. "I would tell any young artist—don't sign."

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