A little history.

At 37 years old, I have been a recording artist for Warner Music for what will be seventeen years this April. I was only 19 years old when I recorded my first album as Prince. Recording for a large label was new and exciting. I had an opportunity to reach millions of people around the world, not just my faithful following here in Minneapolis around the club scene. As time passed, the realities of the music industry and its current hierarchical pecking system sunk in. Artists are last on the totem pole in terms of recoupment.

My path has been a long and arduous one. In the beginning, both youth and excitement towards the opportunity to have an album produced made me, as Prince, naïve. Saavy lawyers claiming to have my interest at heart, long in bed with the record companies they pimp, offered me what seemed to be a lucrative contract, without fully explaining the ramifications of its terms. I wrote an album a year for many years until I realized a trap had been laid. I would never be able to leave the legacy of my music to my family, my future children or anyone, because “Prince” did not own the Masters—I did not, and still do not, own my Art.

For most of all of my adult life, I have labored under one construct. I compose music, write lyrics, and produce songs for myself and others. My creativity is my life; it is what guides my everyday, my sleepless nights. My songs are my children. I feel them. I watch them grow and I nurture them to maturity. I deliver them to my record company, and suddenly, they are no longer mine. The process is painful. I have been long ready for a new program. The time is now.

As an artist, I want to share my music with others. I crave the experience of writing and sharing with others. It is what I do as an artist; as a human being. I take pleasure in the fact that others are able to share in my joy once the process is complete. My fans are my children’s friends; I respect them and want to communicate with them.