A random video shows Prince as he’s never been seen before – as a boy of about 11 in the schoolyard in Minneapolis.
Contemporary document from 1970 shows Prince as a student
A teachers’ strike in the US state of Minnesota is said to have led Matt Liddy, production manager at US radio station WCCO, to his employer’s film archive. There he found a video that was supposed to show footage of a strike in 1970. He watched the video hoping to relate the images to the current strikes.
The images are said to be 13 minutes of footage that was restored by the broadcaster. It interviewed children about what was happening on the strike, including one that Liddy said had similarities with Prince Rogers Nelson, born in 1958. The identity of the musician is said to have been confirmed later.
WCCO will confirm the child’s identity
The production manager reports: “I went straight to the editorial office, showed it to people and said, ‘I’m not going to tell you who I think this is. Who is this? And every single one said ‘Prince’.” WCCO then reportedly attempted to extract the audio from the video in order to properly understand the child’s words. Surrounded by his friends, the latter is supposed to take a stand on the strike and say with a smile: “I think they should also get a better education because, um, and I think they should get more money because they work, they work extra hours for us and all that stuff.”
The name Prince Rogers Nelson was not mentioned in the video. The fact that it really is Prince was later confirmed by contemporaries of the star, who died in 2016. According to WCCO, historian Kristen Zsschomler, who has also dealt with the musician’s history, is said to have recognized the school in the background of the video and made contact with a former friend of Prince. She was already convinced at that point that the boy was Prince: “There’s so much consistency in his demeanor, his eyes and everything else that it looks like he is.”
“Overwhelming” childhood memories
Terrance Jackson, who introduces himself as Prince’s kindergarten friend and former neighbor as well as a band member, is said to have recognized him directly in the video: “That’s Prince! He’s standing right there with his hat on his head, right? This is Skipper! Oh my God!” He is said to have gotten dizzy with laughter when he saw the little boy in the video, at the young Prince’s words he would have gone silent and then only whispered “Wow” and then laughed again. He was “overwhelmed” by this childhood memory and is said to have remembered: “He [Prince] used to play phenomenal guitar and keyboards”.
Jackson’s wife also recognized the boy in the film and found it “simply incredible to see him so small and young and to hear his voice”. Without a doubt, it is “Prince, also known as Skipper to the Northside,” according to the couple.
The “symbiotic bond” between Prince and his hometown
For historian Zschomler, this discovery is a crucial step in understanding the musician: “I think if you see Prince as a little kid at his local school, it helps to really connect him to Minneapolis,” she says. She continues, “Even if these are just brief glimpses of what Minneapolis meant to him, what he championed while living in Minneapolis, it helps to understand this symbiotic connection he had with his hometown. “
The video can be seen here Prince speaks from about minute 5:32.
Jack White recently announced that he would be releasing the previously unreleased Prince record CAMILLE on his Third Man Records label. A collector’s edition of the concert film Prince and the Revolution: Live will be released in June.
+++ This article first appeared on rollingstone.de +++