Ten years after his death, Prince’s influence continues to shape modern music, fashion, and pop culture in ways that artists still reference today.
As fans mark the anniversary, industry figures are revisiting the lasting impact of one of music’s most influential innovators.
The year 2016 was a cruel year for music fans—a relentless drumbeat of loss that began January 10th, when David Bowie died two days after releasing his haunting final album, Blackstar. The shock had barely settled when, on April 21st, the unthinkable struck again: Prince was gone. If Bowie’s farewell felt like a carefully staged exit, Prince’s death landed like a bolt of lightning—sudden, disorienting, and impossible to comprehend. For millions, it wasn’t just the loss of a pop icon; it was the silencing of a singular force who bent genre, gender, and guitar riffs to his will.
It’s not hard to say that Prince was an enigma. A Jehovah’s Witness who sang about masturbation and sex workers. A vegan who was addicted to pain killers. A flamboyant dresser who was against gay marriage. He betrayed the norm, and broke every mold imaginable. But his talent was inconceivable, and he left a mark on music and pop culture that, much like rock and roll, will never die.
Prince remains relevant today as a style-defying musical genius, influential fashion icon, and fierce advocate for artistic independence. His legacy lives on through his pioneering “Minneapolis sound,” his unparalleled proficiency as a multi-instrumentalist, and his impact on many modern artists like Janelle Monáe and Beyoncé.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of his death, on April 21st, 2016, SW Newsmagazine looks back on his life, achievements and what ultimately took him down.
He stood on nobody’s shoulders, took no prisoners, and held religious and political beliefs all his own. Here’s a look back at the majestic and complex life of Prince.
Early Life
Prince Rogers Nelson was born on June 7th, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to jazz singer Mattie Della (née Shaw) and pianist and songwriter John Lewis Nelson. Prince was named after his father’s most popular stage name, Prince Rogers, which was used while performing in a jazz group named the Prince Rogers Trio.
Showing a keen interest in music at an early age, Prince wrote his first song, titled “Funk Machine,” on his father’s piano when he was just seven years old.
In 1976, shortly after graduating from Central High School, Prince created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon. Unable to secure a recording contract, Moon brought the tape to Owen Husney, a Minneapolis businessman. Husney signed Prince, then aged 19, to a management contract, and helped him create a demo at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis, with producer-engineer David Z. The demo recording, along with a press kit produced at Husney’s ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies, including Warner Bros. Records, A&M Records, and Columbia Records.
With the help of Husney, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records in 1977.
The record company agreed to give Prince creative control for three albums and retain his publishing rights.
First Albums
In 1980, Prince released the album Dirty Mind, which contained sexually explicit material, including the songs, “Head” and “Sister,” and was described by music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine as a
“stunning, audacious amalgam of funk, new wave, R&B, and pop, fueled by grinningly salacious sex and the desire to shock.”
Recorded in Prince’s studio, the album was certified gold, with the single “Uptown” reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Dance chart and No. 5 on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince was also the opening act for Rick James’ 1980 Fire It Up tour.
In late 1982, Prince released a double album, 1999, which sold more than four million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became Prince’s first top 10 hit in countries outside the United States. Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” was one of the first two videos by black artists—along with Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”—played in heavy rotation on MTV, which had been perceived as against “black music” until CBS President Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all CBS videos.
Starting with the release of 1999, the backing band for Prince would be referred to, famously, as The Revolution.
Purple Rain
And then came Purple Rain…
According to his former manager Bob Cavallo, in the early 1980s, Prince required his management to obtain a deal for him to star in a major motion picture, even though his exposure at that point was limited to several pop and R&B hits, music videos and occasional TV performances. In 1984, this resulted in the hit film Purple Rain, and the eponymous studio album, which was also the soundtrack to the film, which starred Prince and was loosely autobiographical.
According to the film’s official synopsis, Purple Rain was about: A victim of his own anger, the Kid (Prince) is a Minneapolis musician on the rise with his band, The Revolution, escaping a tumultuous home life through music. While trying to avoid making the same mistakes as his truculent father (Clarence Williams III), the Kid navigates the club scene and a rocky relationship with a captivating singer, Apollonia (Apollonia Kotero). But another musician, Morris (Morris Day), looks to steal the Kid’s spotlight—and his girl.
The Purple Rain album sold more than 13 million copies in the United States and spent 24 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film won Prince an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and grossed more than $68 million in the US.
At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the No. 1 album, single, and film in the United States, being the first singer to achieve this feat.
New Albums and Collaborations
From 1987–1989, Prince would release Sign o’ the Times and Lovesexy, both highly successful albums, though they saw the disbandment of The Revolution, and additional vocals by new additions Wendy and Lisa.
In 1989, Prince appeared on Madonna’s studio album Like a Prayer, co-writing and singing the duet “Love Song” and playing electric guitar without being credited on the songs “Like a Prayer,” “Keep It Together,” and “Act of Contrition.”
He was also asked by Batman director Tim Burton to record several songs for the upcoming live-action adaptation. Prince went into the studio and produced an entire nine-track album that Warner Bros. released on June 20, 1989.
The Artist Formerly Known As Prince: Prince vs. Warner Bros. Records
Shortly after this, Prince began an all-out war with his record company Warner Bros. for creative and legal control of his musical catalog and name.
From 1993-1996, leading up to the release of The Gold Experience, Prince claimed that Warner Bros. effectively controlled his name, rights, and music because he was signed to the company. Prince changed his name to a symbol and removed his name from releases during this standoff, earning him the moniker, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.” Prince often had the word “Slave” written on his face while performing and making appearances during this legal battle.
Recalling that time, Prince told Rolling Stone in 1996:
“People think I’m a crazy fool for writing ‘slave’ on my face, but if I can’t do what I want to do, what am I? When you stop a man from dreaming, he becomes a slave. That’s where I was. I don’t own Prince’s music. If you don’t own your masters, your master owns you.”
Prince lost to Warner Bros. following a protracted legal and public relations battle. Prince released a number of albums, mostly filled with studio tapes and off-cuts, such as Chaos and Disorder and Old Friends 4 Sale, in order to swiftly satisfy his contractual obligations. From that point forward, Prince was essentially an independent artist that was in charge of his creative and musical output.
Following a bitter dispute in the 1990s that resulted in an 18-year hiatus, Prince returned to Warner Bros. Records in 2014, with a deal that gave him ownership of his catalog. An unprecedented move for an artist. Additionally, as part of the new worldwide agreement, Warner Bros. licensed his classic albums under the label, such as Dirty Mind and 1999.
In addition, Prince’s iconic Purple Rain album was reissued in a remastered deluxe edition just in time for the film and album’s 30th anniversary.
Prince Supports Female Artists
Sheila E. was a pivotal creative partner, drummer, musical director, and close confidant to Prince from the mid-1980s onward. She played on the Purple Rain sessions, was mentored by him for her hit “The Glamorous Life,” and directed his Sign o’ the Times and Lovesexy tours. Beyond music, they were briefly engaged and shared a deep, enduring, yet complex personal relationship.
Sheila E. was already a well established performer when she met Prince. She had worked with Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, been in George Duke’s jazz band, and toured with Marvin Gaye. That was a departure from unpolished newcomers like Denise “Vanity” Matthews and Apollonia Kotero, who were both better known for modeling and acting before they joined forces with Prince.
Prince had wanted to work with Sheila E. for a long time. She is known as one of the best drummers in the business, and her father, Pete Escovedo, played in Carlos Santana’s band. She met him when she was a child, and he was already impressed.
“He came to the Bay Area to do his first record, 1978’s For You, because he was influenced by Bay Area music and wanted to record in that studio where Sly Stone and Carlos had recorded,” Sheila E. told Time in 2014.
“So, my dad was in Santana at the time, and they were at the studio, and they were talking about this young kid who was next door recording and producing and playing all the instruments by himself. They were like, ‘This kid is amazing.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I want to meet him.’ The following year Prince’s record came out, so he came back to the Bay Area and San Francisco to perform. And I went backstage to meet him and as I went to introduce myself, I put my hand out, and he saw me in the mirror and he turned around, and he said, ‘I already know who you are.”
“I think we influenced each other,” Sheila E. told Time. “I influenced him the same way he influenced me… That’s the good thing about Prince: you can see how he was influenced by the people around him.”
“I can hear and see it, because I got to live the influence that I had on him as well as the influence he had on me—just being around each other, being able to record all the time and play, and do things that he had never done using live percussion instruments and recording all the time.”
She says he asked her to marry him during a 1987 performance of “Purple Rain,” but their relationship cooled off during the tour that followed for Lovesexy. Sheila E. kept performing with Prince on stage until a few years before he died in 2016.
Joni Mitchell: the song that never was…
Prince had his heroes. On that particular purple list, there was only one name at the top: Joni Mitchell.
“Prince used to write me fan mail with all of the U’s and hearts that way that he writes,” Mitchell recalled to New York Magazine. “And the office took it as mail from the lunatic fringe and just tossed it!”
Prince wrote a fair few songs for other artists in his time. Two of the most famous are “Manic Monday” for The Bangles, and, of course, Sinéad O’Connor’s iconic reimagining of his song, “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
He also paid tribute to his icon, Mitchell, in song too, not only on the Controversy cut “Joni” but as the music playing on the radio in “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker,” alongside many covers of Joni Mitchell throughout the years.
So, when Prince had a chance to work alongside Mitchell in a musical orbit, he jumped at the chance and offered her one of his songs.
During a session back in 1986, Prince laid down his song “Emotional Pump” and figured it would be right up Mitchell’s alley. Sadly, however, the song didn’t quite live up to expectations.
“He implied that something would happen between our two musics. Something that he had never done before. That whet my curiosity,” Mitchell told the Auckland Sun around the time of their collaborative session. “I asked him to explain it, but he said he could not put it into words. The closest he came to articulating it was that it was the open harmonies I got in conjunction with funk into a hybrid that would be fairly fresh.”
“I said why didn’t he build me a track,” she continued, “so he sent a song with him singing ‘Emotional pump, you’re my emotional pump, You make my body jump.’ I called him back and said that I could not do the song.”
For Mitchell, the song was far too risqué.
“‘I can’t sing this; I’d have to jump around in a black teddy. You think I should be jumping around in a black teddy?’ He said, ‘Oh Joni, we don’t do that anymore!’”
While Prince might have moved to reassure Mitchell, the song was ill-fated. However, their mutual admiration would remain, and they would often praise each other publicly.
Prince’s Religious Beliefs
Though raised as a Seventh-day Adventist, in 2001, Prince converted to become a devout Jehovah’s Witness, and even proselytized door-to-door at stranger’s homes.
It seemed to Prince that the Jehovah’s Witness faith helped explain the growing social injustice around him. He went door-to-door in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, handing out pamphlets on salvation.
“Sometimes people act surprised,” he told Billboard reporter Claire Hoffman. “But mostly they’re really cool.”
He also recalled that one time, a Jewish couple in Minneapolis answered their door on Yom Kippur to discover Prince on their porch with a copy of the religion’s newsletter, The Watchtower, in his hand. Turns out they were fans, and they invited him in.
“It helped him with communicating with people more, reaching out and being connected,” said former bandmate, Sheila E. “It opened him up to the world.”
One of the core beliefs of the Witnesses is the purity of the human body, and rumors swirled that it was a religious refusal of medical treatment that led to Prince’s death. But Witnesses do accept many medical treatments, and there has not been enough information from officials to substantiate those suggestions.
In 2008, the New Yorker writer Claire Hoffman asked Prince what he thought of social issues like gay marriage and abortion. Reported Hoffman of his response: “Prince tapped his Bible and said, ‘God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’”
“But for better or worse, he always was truthful about what he believed. Even when that changed,” says Hoffman.
This exchange caused one of the last great controversies in Prince’s career. The “homophobe” label attached itself to him, accompanied by the bitter shock of many fans. “The irony, it burns,” wrote blogger Joe Jervis. “The pop star who made his name on his effete, androgynous ‘Is he GAY or not?’ persona—now he hates us.”
Representatives for Prince would tell blogger Perez Hilton that the New Yorker misquoted him: “What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment,” Hilton wrote.
But the years after that saw Prince actively avoid talking about gay rights, and some writers saw subtle homophobia in a few of his later lyrics and actions.
Prince was reported to be “outraged” and deeply upset when his public image as an androgynous, sexually liberated icon clashed with perceptions of him being homophobic, particularly following his conversion to the Jehovah’s Witness faith. While some fans and critics pointed to post-2000 lyrics and comments as evidence of homophobia, others argued that he was misunderstood, misquoted, or simply a complex artist whose religious conversion changed his views.
Prince’s Love Life
Prince was romantically linked with many women over the years, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Jill Jones, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, and Sherilyn Fenn.
In 1990, he saw 16-year-old dancer Mayte García standing outside his tour bus and referred to her as his “future wife,” when pointing her out to bandmate Rosie Gaines. García began working as one of his backup singers and dancers after graduating from high school. While they didn’t date until she was of age, they were married on February 14, 1996, when he was 37 and she was 22. She and Prince had a son named Amiir (born October 16, 1996), who died a week after being born due to Pfeiffer syndrome.
Attempts by publications to independently verify the child’s name, birth, and cause of death proved difficult due to Prince’s focus on privacy. The distress of losing a child and García’s subsequent miscarriage took a toll on the marriage, and the couple divorced in 2000.
Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony in 2001. She hails from Toronto, which led the couple to live there part-time. They separated in 2005 and filed for divorce in May 2006.
In March 2016, while discussing his childhood during a show in Oakland, he told the audience:
“I wanted to be like my father and I loved everything he loved—my mother, the Bible, and music.”
Prince Gets Political
Toward the end of his life, Prince was a supporter of Black Lives Matter. According to Al Sharpton, he donated to the family of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and later arranged for Eric Garner’s family to attend one of his concerts.
Before handing out the Grammy for Best Album in 2015, he told the audience,
“Albums—remember those? Albums still matter. Albums, like books and black lives, still matter.”
He organized a “Rally 4 Peace” concert in the city of Baltimore in the aftermath of the killing of Freddie Gray.
The following day, he released a single entitled “Baltimore” with lyrics that mentioned Gray and Michael Brown. The music video for “Baltimore” featured footage of Black Lives Matter protests in the city, and closed with a message from Prince:
“The system is broken. It’s going to take the young people to fix it this time. We need new ideas, new life.”
The Death of Prince
Not unlike his musical rival, Michael Jackson, who similarly lived a clean lifestyle, yet grappled with a prescription anesthetic addiction, and died of an overdose in 2009, Prince—despite his teetotaler image—struggled privately with an opioid addiction that ultimately caused his death.
In the week prior to his overdose, he was unwell and had to cancel shows in Atlanta, which he later rescheduled, performing what would be his final concert.
On April 15th, 2016, while returning home to Paisley Park in Minnesota, Prince became unresponsive, prompting an emergency landing of his private plane. Initially, his team said he was recovering from the flu, but it was later revealed that he was revived with a shot of Narcan, a treatment for opioid overdoses.
Though he continued his journey home and sought medical help, the intervention came too late. The day before he was set to meet with an addiction specialist, Prince was found dead at his estate. The cause was ruled an accidental overdose.
Following an investigation surrounding Prince’s death, it was determined that the musician was addicted to opioid painkillers, and at the time of his death, he was under the impression he was taking Vicodin. Instead, the medication was laced with fentanyl. Prince was found unresponsive at 9:43 a.m. on April 21st, 2016, and pronounced dead 25 minutes later. He was 57-years-old.
Prince’s Legacy Lives On
Prince is widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of any era. The influence he has had on other artists is astonishing. Many artists have cited Prince as an influence and inspiration, including Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Usher, Janelle Monáe, the Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Lorde, Marilyn Manson, Lenny Kravitz, Dua Lipa, Frank Ocean, D’Angelo, H.E.R., Ciara, and Beck.
Bono of U2 regarded Prince as one of his “favorite composers of the twentieth century.” Beyoncé expressed her admiration for Prince in the book Prince: A Private View, calling him “my mentor,” and also praising his independence:
“He dared to fight for what was rightfully his: his freedom, wrapped up in words and the music he created.”
Prince, 1958-2016. Rest in power.
Main image: Courtesy of Scott Penner
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