Overview (5)

Mini Bio (1)

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

Spouse (2)

Trade Mark (8)

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 singing voice contrasting his baritone speaking voice



Short stature



Symbol O(+>



Uses purple as a recurring motif



Trivia (54)

In May 2000 Prince dropped the symbol O(+> he adopted as a name. He had used the symbol because he considered his record contract with Warner Bros. Records oppressive, which ended in 2000.



The symbol to which Prince changed his name (which is best rendered as either O{+> or O(+> in normal ASCII characters) originated in and was borrowed by Prince from ancient Europe.





On 16 October 1996, 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.

On 7 June 1993, he changed his stage name to O(+>.





He started the careers of Vanity and Carmen Electra amongst others.



He was the son of jazz pianist John L. Nelson



He was one of very few artists who denied 'Weird Al' Yankovic permission to parody any of his songs. After years of asking, ''Weird Al' Yankovic' obtained video parody permission, and the video for UHF - Sender mit beschränkter Hoffnung (1989) includes a sequence that spoofs the bathtub intro for Prince's video of "When Doves Cry".

One of the most acclaimed musicians of his generation, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in March 2004. He was also voted the 28th greatest Rock & Roll Artist of all time by "Rolling Stone" magazine. He was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame for his outstanding contribution to British music and integral part of British music culture in November 2006. He was ranked #18 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll and #5 on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists.



A very short man, he often had to wear large shoes on stage so he wasn't dwarfed by some female singers.





He provided the music for the movie Girl 6 (1996) as Prince. It was the only time he referred to himself as Prince from 1993 to 2000.

In the late 1990s, he requested to be referred to as simply The Artist, since his initial intention when he changed his name to O(+> was to not be referred to as Prince. Unfortunately that was not going too well, considering everyone was calling him the Artist Formerly Known as Prince because the symbol has no pronunciation.



The symbol he used as his name was also the name of his last Warner Bros. album as Prince, which was released just a few months before his name change. He recorded as Prince since then on his independently distributed, self-released albums and those licensed to Arista/BMG Records and Columbia/SME Records.



He was known for his colorful outfits and explicitly flaunting and expressing his strong sexuality during his performances in his early days, despite being a devout Christian. This all changed in 2001 on becoming a Jehovah's Witness and due to his religious beliefs the sexy lyrics and tight/skimpy clothing was dropped, Prince also insisted that no one swear around him.





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, which he didn't play, 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 played the song "1999" at his New Year's Eve party in 1999, which was televised as "Rave Into The Year 2000" then announced he was retiring the song. In true Prince fashion he did a U-turn and re-instated this song in full in 2007 last performing it in 2015.





During the filming of Purple Rain (1984), he was told one day by director Albert Magnoli that the film needed a montage song that dealt heavily on emotions. Prince responded with two songs the very next morning, written, produced and recorded. One of the songs was the smash hit "When Doves Cry".

His 1984 album "Purple Rain" sold 13 million copies in the United States.



In November 2005 he was told by his doctors that he would need a hip replacement following years of energetic dancing on stage.





He was to duet with Michael Jackson on his album "Bad", but could not decide on the words to the song. Prince didn't like the first lyric "your butt is mine".



Prince's 2006 tour made him the most lucrative live performer of the year. His 69 city, 96 show tour took $87.4 million (£45.5 million), beating Céline Dion 's Las Vegas residency, which came in second, taking $80.4 million (£41.8 million).

He was the winner of the British Phonographic Industry Awards for International Act and Soundtrack for "Purple Rain" in 1985. He was also the winner of the Brit Award for International Solo Artist in two consecutive years, 1992 and 1993.





In his An Evening with Kevin Smith (2002) film, director Kevin Smith says that he learned during shooting of a documentary for Prince that he has made about 50 fully produced music videos for songs that were never released in any kind of form.



He arrived an hour late to the 2007 Golden Globe Awards due to traffic and missed accepting the Golden Globe for Best Song for the movie, Happy Feet (2006). Justin Timberlake accepted the award for him, after an awkward silence waiting for Prince 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 Prince had finally arrived after being stuck in gridlock traffic, and gave Prince an opportunity to stand and receive applause for his win.



During high school he was in a band called "Champagne" with his cousin Charles "Chazz" Smith and friends Morris Day and friend Andre Cymone then called Andre Anderson, Andre's sister Linda Anderson, William Doughty and Terry Jackson.

He was known as "Gazoo" in school because of his huge Afro and small body. Gazoo was the flying space guy in the Fintstones cartoon show with the giant head covered by a space helmet.





He wrote a song for his friend, actress Jackie Swanson , entitled "Palomino Pleasure Ride".

He sold 100 million albums worldwide during his lifetime.



He held a press conference to announce his intention to perform 21 shows in London. (8 May 2007).



He performed at the Super Bowl XLI halftime show in Miami, Florida, to a worldwide television audience of 140 million viewers. (4 February 2007).





He thrilled his hometown fans by performing three shows over twelve 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 the movie Purple Rain (1984). Minnesota's governor and the Minneapolis mayor issued proclamations honoring Prince, and fans flew in from all over the country to see the performer. After the Target Center, Prince 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." (7 July 2007).



He shared a great interest in silent-screen star Clara Bow with friend and former girlfriend Sherilyn Fenn



On May 10, 2010, he merited a place in Time magazine's - The 100 Most Influential People in the World ("Artists" category) - with an homage penned by Usher



Prince 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's Tavis Smiley , that Prince 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.



In the film Fargo - Blutiger Schnee (1996), a drive-by witness to a murder is credited as O(+>, a direct reference to Prince's stage name at the time. This is actually a reference to the fact that both Prince and directors Joel Coen and Ethan Coen are from Minnesota.



Prince died on 21st April 2016, 72 days after the death of his longtime protege and former girlfriend, Denise Katrina Matthews better known as Vanity . Denise died on 15th February 2016, fourteen years to the day after Prince's mother, Mattie Della Baker ( Mattie Shaw ) also known as Mattie Nelson.



He is mentioned in Eminem 's song, "Without Me".



He was a childhood friend of Lauren Green

Prince was working on his memoirs with his brother when he passed away.



He was widely known to be a very private man.



Prince reportedly has enough unreleased music in his Vault at Paisley Park to fill albums for the next century, but since he has no will it is unknown if any of it will ever be made public.





His home, Paisley Park, is set to become a public monument like Graceland became to Elvis Presley



Dwyane Wade was his favorite basketball player but Oklahoma City Thunder was his favorite basketball team.



Elton John and BBC arts editor Will Gompertz both described him upon his death as the best live performer they had ever seen.

He was the founder of Paisley Park Records.



Universal Music Group has been granted permission to release the post-1995 music in his "Vault" which will begin streaming on the night of the Grammys in 2017.





Following his death, several comparisons were made in the media between Prince and the British rock star David Bowie , who had died three months earlier. Soul singer Mica Paris called Prince "our black Bowie". BBC arts editor Will Gompertz said Prince had taken over from Bowie as the world's greatest rock star in the mid '80s while Bowie was going through a "creative dip".

His estate is estimated to be worth up to $300 million.



A Minnesota judge ruled that Prince's six siblings are the heirs to his estate.[May 19, 2017].





Prince was also mentioned in the song, "Shoop", by Salt-N-Pepa



Lived with English singer Anna Florence from when she was 17. He wrote the songs Coat of Pink Cashmere (a gift he gave her), Lemon Crush, and Vicky Waiting for her.

Personal Quotes (14)

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.

I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They will not give me an advance for it and they get mad when they don't get it. All computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and they are not good for you



It's fun being in Islamic countries, to know there's only one religion. There's order. You wear a burqa. There's no choice. People are happy with that.





At this point, I wouldn't want to jinx it by meeting him. His arrangements are incredible. I just send him a tape, we talk on the phone, and he sends me the finished orchestra tracks. Hear that? I'm gonna get that chord on the radio! [on his then nearly decade-and-a-half-long working relationship with arranger Clare Fischer (whom, by his own choice, Prince never had and never would meet face to face), as quoted in the January 2000 issue of Keyboard Magazine, reprinted in the 2011 compilation, 'Keyboard Presents Synth Gods']



With special thanks 2 Clare Fischer 4 Making Brighter the Colors Black and White [from the closing credits of Under the Cherry Moon - Unter dem Kirschmond (1986)]

She makes it easier to talk to God.



Freedom is a beautiful thing.



A strong spirit transcends rules.



We need to tell them that they keep trying to ram Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran down our throats and we don't like it no matter how many times they play it.



I believe in one G-d, I pray to Him every night. I don't ask for much, I just say, Thank You.

