Real name, secret concerts, 1,000 unreleased songs – learn everything about Prince here.
Would you have known these facts about Prince? Test your knowledge here!
1. The whole truth
Prince is really called that. He was born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis on June 7, 1958, named after the Prince Rogers Trio, the jazz band in which his father, John L. Nelson, played piano and his mother, Mattie Shaw, was a singer.
2. Who is Austra Chanel?
He was known by various names. In his creative heyday in the ’80s as a producer, guest musician and songwriter for others, Prince used a number of pseudonyms: including Camille, Jamie Starr, Alexander Nevermind, Joey Coco, Austra Chanel and Christopher, under whom he wrote the Bangles hit “Manic Monday.”
3. Multi!?
Prince owes his reputation as a multi-instrumentalist to the liner notes of his first album FOR YOU (1979). It lists 27 “different” instruments that the then 21-year-old played, including “vocals” and “handclapsandfingasnaps”. On closer inspection, the instruments that Prince masters can be reduced to the three main groups of guitar (and bass), keyboard instruments and drums (and percussion) – which is no less “multi”.
4. The Artist Formerly Known As Prince
For a while he was not known by any name. Because of a dispute with his record company Warner Brothers over the transfer of the marketing rights to his music, Prince not only felt like a “slave,” which he wrote on his cheek in a media-wide manner, but also gave up his name in protest. From June 7, 1993 to May 16, 2000, the “Love Symbol,” a combination of the biological signs for male and female, was his “name.” Because this was unspeakable, the media used such auxiliary constructions as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (TAF-KAP), The Artist and Symbol.
5. The woman pleaser
The 1.60 meter tall multi-talent owed his reputation as a celebratory woman-pleaser to his numerous conquests, which often developed from fruitful musical collaborations – including Carmen Electra, Vanity, Apollonia Kotero, Sheena Easton, Ingrid Chavez, Kim Basinger, Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) and Nona Gaye (daughter of Marvin Gaye) who tried to exchange bodily fluids with him.
Prince was married twice. From 1996 to 1999 with backing singer and dancer Mayte Garcia. And from 2001 to 2006 with Manuela Testolini, a former employee of his Paisley Park organization.
6. The oversexualization
Prince’s lyrics testify to a certain oversexualization, which the artist was able to deny in good conscience in interviews because the messages were often ciphered and coded. So it was left to the listener’s imagination what he interpreted into songs like “Clockin’ The Jizz,” “Come,” “Cream,” “Da Bang,” “Do Me, Baby,” “Gett Off’, Head,” “Scarlet Pussy” and “Soft And Wet.”
7. Keyword Parental Advisory
We have him to thank for the “Parental Advisory – Explicit Lyrics” warning on record covers. After Tipper Gore, wife of US Senator and later Vice President Al Gore, gave her then twelve-year-old daughter Karenna the album PURPLE RAIN and heard the lyrics to the song “Darling Nikki” (“I knew a girl named Nikki / I guess you could say she was a sex friend / I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine”), she founded the “Parent’s Music Resource” in 1985. After a Senate hearing, record companies in the USA committed themselves to labeling records with “harmful” content.
8. The exclusivity
In 1997, CRYSTAL BALL was the first album by a mainstream musician to be distributed “exclusively” over the Internet. For this, Prince received the “Webby Lifetime Achievement Award” from the International Academy of Arts and Sciences. The only thing is that many people who ordered it online had not yet received the 3-CD box even when, contrary to expectations, it was regularly available for purchase in record stores.
Speaking of new distribution channels: The album PLANET EARTH was included as a free supplement in the British newspaper “The Mail On Sunday” in July 2007. To the delight of Prince’s then-distributor Sony BMG.
9. The permanent worker
Prince was a workaholic. Up to 1,000 unpublished recordings are said to be stored in a vault in Paisley Park. After his regular concerts, he often gave “secret gigs” in small clubs where he jammed for hours with his band and covered the songs of his idols – Sly Stone, Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye. The after-show concerts were considered among hardcore Prince fans the real shit.
10. Transgenderism
Prince brought the word “transgenderism” to life when it wasn’t yet part of the postmodern nomenclature of hip art school types. He played a game with traditional gender assignments in song lyrics, outfits, his vocal delivery and with the “love symbol”.
Editorial recommendations
11. The support thing
In 1981, at two concerts at the Los Angeles Coliseum supporting the Rolling Stones, Prince was booed off the stage. His outfit – high-heeled boots, bikini bottoms, leg warmers and trench coat – was a little lacking in real rock’n’roll for Stones fans.
