Prince Biography

Prince is an American musician who rose to fame in the 1980s with his famous album compositions like “1999” and “Purple Rain” where the latter album was incorporated as the soundtrack for the movie that was named the same as that of the latter album. During his initial music career, he released songs such as “Prince” and “Controversy” that got widely popular among Americans and drew a lot of attention due to the amalgamation of religion as well as the  varied concepts of the songs. He gained the ultimate popularity by releasing albums 1999 and Purple Rain and pinned him on the billboard no.1 hits with songs like “Let’s Go Crazy” and “When Doves Cry”. He is famously known as a celebrated singer, songwriter as well as music innovator. 

He is a seven-time Grammy Award-winner who has a gigantic and massive range of musical output that includes albums of his latter musical career like Diamonds and Pearls, The Gold Experience and Musicology. According to several of Prince’s biography books, he died of an accidental drug overdose on 21st April 2016. Prince revealed his life and especially childhood in Prince’s autobiography that was released post-death of the artist. He was working on a memoir of his life before he died. “The Beautiful One” which is a major part of Prince’s autobiography reveals his childhood memories that include his finesse of superman to his first kiss. It also served as a great snap on his music critics and what all they got wrong about him.  

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The Early Life of Prince

Prince birthday is on 7th June 1958 and he was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was also born to a musical couple where his father, John Nelson was also a musician with a stage name Prince Rogers and his mother Mattie Shaw who was a jazz singer and performed in Prince Roger Band. As he never celebrated his birthday but after his death, Prince birthday was celebrated as a tribute to the artist. At one of the interviews, he was asked by a reporter about the reason for no celebration of Prince Birthday to which he said that everyone has one birthday, the day which they are born and celebrating it means counting the days and time and no celebrations let him stay as the way he was 10 years before. That is the philosophy the American musician Prince followed for the rest of his life. 

As the singer was interested in music from a very tender age, he taught himself to play the guitar, drums as well as piano. When he was 10, his parents broke up and he and his sister decided to split their time between both their parents’ homes. He later ran away and settled with his neighbours known as the Anderson family. In his high school, he formed a band that he named Grand central with Andre Anderson who later changed his name to Andre Cymone and another band member Morris Day. The band name was changed to Champagne. 

As a young boy, he had a nervous system disorder known as epilepsy that caused a period of Seizures because of which he faced bullying and was made fun of in his school. Thus once accepted in an interview that he compensated for being bullied by flashy and noisy as much as he could. In 1978, he was offered to record with Warners Bros. In one of the interviews in 2009, he revealed the strained memories of him as a teenager and about his epileptic seizures syndrome.  

Personal Life 

According to Prince biography, he was always a private person and loved to stay away from the spotlight. He didn’t believe in revealing his personal life and thus used to spend most of his time in a quite unpopular neighbourhood called the Paisley Park compound.

The 80’s and the 90’s Songs 

“Purple Rain” and Beyond:

The first album that he created with his band was “Purple Rain” in 1984 and it was finally incorporated as the soundtrack of the film with the same name. This melancholy song and the film did a business of $70 million at the U.S. box offices back in that time. Later he also came up with other tracks while his melancholy track ranked at no. 1 in the top 100 hot songs of the billboard. Soon the other two tracks, “When Doves Cry '' and “Let’s Go Crazy” followed up to the top 2 songs of the top 100 hot songs on the billboard.  Another song “Crazy” soon entered the marathon but “when doves cry” was one of its kind with a mixture of electronic and funk chords without any usually traditional chorus. The soundtrack later came up with two other hits, “ I Would Die” and “Take Me With You”. He soon became a very well known Visual artist with his style of curls, flowing jackets and flashy embellishments.

Around the world in a day was released in the year 1985 that consisted of the top 10 soundtracks that are mid-tune playful like “Raspberry Beret” and another famous song named “ Pop Life”. The production houses continued featuring the versatility of the singer to play different musical instruments and the songs imparting the message of self-love that was a clear reflection of song, “Paisley Park” which was derived from his studio’s name Minneapolis studio.his 8th album named Parade was released in 1986 that had one of his biggest pop hits “Kiss” which was considered as the soundtrack for the artist’s second movie, ”Under the cherry moon”.

Career Take-Off with “Controversy and “1999”:

He dropped his debut albums in 1978 that were named “For you” followed by “Prince” in 1979 where Prince played almost all the instruments by himself. The 20 initial top hits of the pop genre with the most easy-going song of the album, “I wanna be your lover”. Following the style of his previously released songs, he then released controversy in the year 1981 that reached the top 3 list of R&B charts. In his musical career, he is also known for the songs that were deeply spiritual with a theme of wonder and majestic elements in them. The singer first tasted international success with his most popular album “1999” which was released in the year 1982 that included top 20 tracks about nuclear doomsday in a synth-funk ode and the top 10 hits among the songs were “Little red corvette” and “delirious”.

“Sign O the Times” and “Batman” Track:

At the time of the Revolution, Prince was able to revamp the shelved projects that turned into one of his most brilliant works in the form of an album, “Sign O the Times”  as its main track acquired the top of the billboard. It did remarkably to be on the R&B chart of top 3 songs. The songs were designed as a stark commentary on the social issue but also has a playful and fun part to the album that has songs like “U got a look” that was sung in collaboration with a Scottish singer named Sheena Easton that grabbed the second position on all pop charts. It was his critically acclaimed album finding its major audience in Europe but failed to impress the American crowd.

Batman was his 11th album and by this time he became the most popular household name in America as a celebrated pop artist. He was also commercially successful and maintained his top rankings on the pop charts with his creations. The soundtrack in the batman album that became the top on the pop chart list was “Batdance” while another track named “Partyman” hit the top 3rd position in the R&B chart. 

90’s: The New Power Generation

The early 90s marked the wave of a new power generation with Prince and his new band that created contemporary tracks that have a blend of R&B, hip-hop, jazz and soul with the vocal of famous Rosie Gaines. The band got its first spotlight with the soundtrack of Graffiti Bridge which was a sequel of Purple Rain, though the film did not do well, the album created the top 10 track “Thieves in the temple”. With the artistic contribution from NPG, Prince launched another hit album, “Diamond and Pearls” in 1991 that soon acquired the top 3rd position in the billboard of top 200 albums. 

In 1992’s fall, Prince signed a 100 million dollar deal with WarnerBrows. That is still considered the biggest music and publishing music contract of history where the great Michael Jackson and Madonna have signed a contract amount of 60 million dollars. He was also given an upper hand in pursuing TV, books, films and merchandise deals separately. 

Achievements of Prince

After several years of criticism, he finally returned to the Grammy Awards to perform with Beyonce Knowles. That same year he released “Musicology” following a musical tour that became the biggest hit in United States history. This album collected two Grammys and then added another tranquillisation track “Call my name” for Prince Canon. In 2006, his next album was named 3121. The same year he wrote and performed a song named “song of the heart” for an animated movie that won the golden globe award. In 2010, he was acknowledged by Billboard.com as the biggest super bowl performer and he was featured in Times magazine as “Top 100 influential people in the world”. He also achieved the lifetime achievement awards by BET. He was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame at the end of the same year.   

Death and Tribute

He was found dead in his Paisley Park compound on 21st April 2016 which is said to be the cause of drug overdose. Prior to his death a few days ago, Prince was rushed to the hospital for his condition that was initially reported to be severe flu but later it was confirmed that he was treated with life-saving shorts for a particular drug Overdose. The Midway Medical Examiner’s office with the Sheriff of Carver County started investigating the cause of death and after the final autopsy report was submitted, his remains were handed over to his close family and friends who cremated him and organised a small gathering for his funeral ceremony.  His fans all over the world did an impromptu celebration of his work and thousands of people sang “Purple Rain” in his hometown the night of his death.

On 16th March, it was officially announced that he was working on his memoir under the title, “ the beautiful ones”. But he died before he could complete his memoir but his collaborators kept working on it and finally in 2019, Penguin Random House published his complete autobiography under the name “The Beautiful Ones” which comprises 278 pages that contain his unfinished work, scrapbook with his photos.