Black History fact #20: Prince

What's going on, everybody. Welcome to another episode of a day with crime, black history fact edition. Of course I am your man, David. Let's jump in. 

Today, we going to talk about a man that created his own sound that would be known as the Minneapolis sound.

And that is none other than the incredible Prince a virtual woman band, prince sculpted, and created the Minneapolis sound through his keyboard screeching, almost pleading vocals in erotic lodge. Named [00:01:00] after his father's jazz band, the Prince Rogers band prince Rogers Nelson had music in his blood from birth prince is said to be a perfectionist who is highly protective of his music.

He writes composes and produces the majority of his music himself and plays most of the instruments on his albums. Prince holds the record for longest pop album. eMASS a patient in 1996 was exactly three hours. He changed his name to the unpronounceable glyph from 1993 to 2000. All right, let's talk about the incredible Prince.

If you guys don't me, I am a huge prince fan and I could not let the month of February go by without talking about this incredible artists. So prince, his birth name is prince Rogers, Nelson. He was born June 7th, 1958. Unfortunately [00:02:00] he passed away April 21st, 2016 at the age of 57. Of course he was one of the greatest American singer songwriter, mostly instrumentalists record producer, dancer, actor, and director.

He is widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of his generation considered a guitar virtuoso. He was well-known for his eclectic work across multiple genres, flamboyant and androgynous, persona, and wide vocal range, which includes a far reaching falsetto and high pitched screams, princes, innovative music, integrated a wide variety of styles, including funk, RNB, Latin country, rock new wave classical soul synth, pop psychedelia, pop, jazz, industrial, and hip hop.

He pioneered the Minneapolis sound, a funk rock sub genre that emerged in the late 1970s. He was [00:03:00] also known for his Politik output, releasing 39 albums during his life with the vast array of unreleased projects left in a vault at his home after his death. It is believed that the vault contains dozens of fully produced albums in over 50 music videos that have never been released along with various other.

He released hundreds of songs, both under his own name and multiple pseudonyms during his life, as well as writing songs that were made famous by other musicians, such as nothing compares to you and manic Monday estimates of the complete number of songs written by prince range, anywhere from 500 to well over 1000 born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, prince signed a recording contract with Warner brothers brokers at the age of 19.

Principal went on to achieve critical success with the innovative album's dirty mind in 1980 controversy in 1981 and 1999 in 1982, his sixth [00:04:00] album purple rain in 1984 was recorded with his backup band, the revolution. It was the soundtrack to his film, acting debut of the same name. Purple rain spent six consecutive months on top of the billboard.

Print one of the academy award for best original song score. After this banding, the revolution principal went on to achieve continued critical success with sign all the times

after disbanding, the revolution prince went on to achieve continued critical success was signed all the times in 1980. And in the midst of a contractual dispute with Warner brothers in 1993, he changed his stage name to be unpronounceable symbol, known to fans as the love symbol, and was sometimes referred to as the artist formerly known as prince or simply the artist he signed with the rest of Rutgers in 1998, and began referring to himself by his own name again in 2000 after returned into [00:05:00] mainstream prominence, following a performance of the Grammy war ceremony in 2000.

And. He scored six us top 10 albums over the following decade. Joni Mitchell said of prince he's driven like an artist. His motivations are growth and experimentation as opposed to formula and hits in midlife pressure, poorly experienced considerable pain from injuries to his body, mainly hips to sustain through his dynamic stage performances, which included leaping off speaker stacks in high heels.

It was sometimes seen using the. All right. So there you have, so just a little bit about the man known as prince. Yeah. With those high heels kind of did his hips in, but when you do that for so many years, you can still have a little bit of that problem. But prince was probably the only dude I know that could pull off some high heels.

So a lot of fans already knows when prince went and changed his name. It was because he had already felt that prince, as he knew, as we all knew him was. Matter of fact on his album come C O M E. [00:06:00] He actually has that. He has his name prince in his 1958 to 1993. I believe that was the last album. He produced a Bunder the name prince up until he got out of his contract with Warner brothers.

And that's when he made the album email. It's a patient. And to be honest with you as a huge prince fan, that comm album and hold whole lot other, I was underneath the Warner brothers. Wasn't quite as good. And we, as fans knew is because he felt like he was a slave to the industry, which he had no problems telling you that, which he went on various music shows, including the Grammys with slavery on his face at this time, because he wanted to be able to control his own music and his own destiny.

All let's talk a little bit more about prince of course already stated he was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the son of jazz singer, Maddie. And pianos and songwriter. John Lewis, Nelson, all four of his grandparents, hailed from Louisiana and prince was given his father's stage name, prince [00:07:00] Rogers, which his father used while performing with his mother in a jazz group called the prince Rogers trio in 1991, prince, his father told a curd affair that he named his son prince because he wanted prince to do everything I wanted to do.

Prince was not fond of his name and wanted people to instead call him skipper. A name would stuck throughout his childhood. Prince said he was born epileptic and had seizures. When he was young, he stayed at my mother, told me one day I walked into her and said, mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore. And she said, why?

And I said, because an angel told me, so, and prince, his younger sister, Tika was born on May 18th, 1960. Both siblings developed a keen interest in music, which was encouraged by their father. His parents were members of the seven day Adventist. And Emma angelical denomination when he was in high school, prince was trained in classical ballet at the Minnesota dance theater, through the urban arts program of Minneapolis public schools.

He grew to become an advocate for [00:08:00] and support of dancers. In the 1990s, he used his wealth to save the ailing Joffrey ballet in Chicago. Prince wrote his first song, funk machine on his father's piano. When he was seven, his parents divorced when he was. His mother be married to Haywood baker with whom she had a son named Omar prince had a fraught relationship with Omar to the extent that it caused them to repeatedly switch homes, sometimes living with his father and sometimes with his mother and stepfather baker took prince to see James Brown in concert.

And he credited baker with improving the family's finances. After a brief period of living with his father who bought him his first guitar prince moved into the basement of his neighbors, the Anderson family, after his father kicked him. He befriended the Anderson son, Andre who later collaborated with prints and became known as Andre Simone.

He attended Minneapolis, Bryan, junior high, and then central high school where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He was a student at the Minnesota dance theater [00:09:00] through the urban arts program in Minneapolis public schools. He played on Central's junior varsity basketball team and continued to play basketball for fun.

As an adult prince met songwriter and producer Jimmy jam in 1970. And impressed him with his musical talent, early mastery of a wide range of instruments and work ethic. So as always, I'll leave this down in the show notes because we'll be here all night. If we had to read through all of Prince's great and outstanding career, I mean his career span starting in 1975, but I will tell you this.

So if you guys did not know that. Prince is the reason why the parental advisory label actually became a thing because of the purple rain album. One song in particularly called darling Nikki, because a politician was so enthralled with her rain, that she bought it for her daughter and then pay attention to the album, listened [00:10:00] to it.

And Darlen Nikki came on and she had. Here's how it was pretty much written, but I remember how this went because of course I was alive through this time and it was a big mess after tipper gore heard her 11 year old daughter, Carina, listening to princess song, darlin, Nikki, which gained wide notoriety for its sexual lyrics.

She founded the parents' music resources. The center advocated the mandatory use of a warning label, parental advisory explicit lyrics on the covers or records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content on suitable for minors, the recording industry later voluntarily comply with this.

The whole story is all man, there was press conferences and tipper gore pretty much went off. And because like I always say it's up to the parents to police. Well, you know, back in this timeframe, there wasn't a whole lot of, you know, if there was cursing and stuff on the albums, it wasn't [00:11:00] marked. And this was the only song basically on purple rain, really?

That had lyrics like these nowadays. Seriously over the top explicit, I guess you could say that there wasn't any curse words per se, but the words that he was using, you know, for things like self pleasure and things of that nature, it was a very sexual song. It was this temporal gorgeous bought it because she was in love with the song purple rain.

She didn't bother to listen to all the other tracks and her daughter ends up picking up this song. She has a fit. And because of that, we now have the parental advisory explicit lyrics. So you guys never knew that story. Uh, there you have it. So some other cool things about prince, if you guys did not know, he did the soundtrack for the movie, Batman, he played every instrument that there was in that record.

Nobody was in English. So have you guys didn't know other cool things I think is pretty cool as a prince fan is that February [00:12:00] 2nd, 2007, prince did play the halftime show at Superbowl 41. Now, if you guys was there and watched this performance, I still watched it before me to this day because the one thing that's never happened at the super bowl happened that night.

It rain. And the thing was is that they were concerned because as you guys know prince performance and heels, he had all these ladies with him that was dancing in heels. He had a whole entire, you know, guitar setups, everywhere microphones. We got electricity. Uh, he actually performed on a stage that was shaped as the love symbol.

And of course that was all lit up. So they pretty much call prince up and say, Hey, prince luck, man is running. And prince, his answer to him was pretty much can you make it rain harder? And so they was impressed because they're like, it's never rain. How are we going to handle this? They were concerned about prints, but if you wasn't half time, so it was raining all day.

Then the rain kind of like [00:13:00] slowed down a lot. But when prince got the purple rain, it started to pour. And I mean, it was, it was the most beautiful thing you want to say. One of the best halftime shows in the world. In my opinion, the only, the one that could top it would have been Michael Jackson's halftime show.

So as you guys probably know, I lived in Minneapolis to buy whole entire adolescents. Was there graduated high school from there once you high school there? Uh, so of course it's where prince lived. I used to live in the town where prince lived at and I actually have ran into him. And his purple bins.

When I lived there in Minnesota, I didn't live too far from Paisley park. And when I saw the car come out, I'm like, I bet you that's prince. Cause he's the only one in Minneapolis that had a purple car like that. And when I was 19 and a band, we all went downtown Minneapolis and we were in this [00:14:00] club. And he was there and we looked at the girl, one of the girls named Jeannie and the band was like, Hey, go ask that guy.

That's prince, because he was, he was really short, but he was with a super tall woman. If you know anything about prince, he loved tall women. And, uh, we was like, we bet that's principle. We weren't going to go up and ask them. So he told Jane, he said, Hey, Denny, once you go over and ask him if he spreads it sure enough was him because he answered it, came back, was as my.

And that's a typical prince answered that he would give. I have been in the club first avenue at seventh street entry, which was where prince performed at a lot of downtown. It is an iconic building there. I haven't been there in a long time because they made a lot of changes downtown Minneapolis I've been back.

But I do believe that they did leave that there that's not conduct building and they still do hold concerts up in there. This is a few of my stories. About prince, miss him to death. So let's talk about what happened to him. [00:15:00] Prince saw Michael T Schulenberg a twin cities, press and family medicine and associates on April 7th, 2016.

And again, on April 20th on April 7th, he postponed two performances, the Fox student in Atlanta from his piano and microphone tour, the venue released a statement saying he had influence. He rescheduled and perform what was to be his final show on April 14th, despite that still not feeling well while flying back to Minneapolis early, the next morning, he became unresponsive in his private jet, made an emergency landing at quasi international airport in Moline, Illinois, where he was hospitalized and received Narcan.

A medication used to block the effects of opioids, especially following an. Once he became conscious. He left against medical advice. Representative say he suffered from dehydration and the influenza for several weeks. Prince was seen bicycling the next day in his hometown of Chanhassen. He stopped that evening at the electric fetus in Minneapolis for record stores [00:16:00] day and made a brief appearance at an impromptu dance party at his Paisley part recording studio complex, stating that he was feeling.

On April 19th, he attended a performance by singer Liz right at the Dakota jazz club on April 20th, 2016 versus representatives called Howard cornfield, a California specialist in addiction, medicine, and pain management, seeking medical help for the star cornfields scheduled to meet with him on April 22nd.

And he contacted a local physician who cleared his schedule for a physical exam on April 25th. On April 21st at 9:43 AM the Carver county Sheriff's office received a nine one one call requesting an ambulance be sent to printer's home at Paisley park. The caller initially told the dispatcher that an unidentified person at the home was unconscious.

Then moments later said he was dead and finally identified the person as prince. The color was cornfield son who had flown in with blue Brenna Finn that morning to devise a treatment plan for [00:17:00] opioids. He burdened, the responders found prints unresponsive in the elevator and perform CPR. But a paramedic said he had been dead for at least six hours and they were unable to revive him.

They pronounced him dead at 10:07 AM. 19 minutes after their arrival, there were no signs of, of suicide or fall play in a press release from the Midwest medical examiner's office in a NOCCA county on June 2nd, stated that the musician had died of an accidental overdose of footnote at the age of 57. The fentanyl that led to his overdose was contained and counterfeit pills made to look like a generic version of the painkiller, Vicodin.

The question of how, and from what source prince obtained, the drug that led to his death has been the subject of investigations by several law enforcement agencies. A sealed search warrant was issued for his estate and another unseal search warrant was issued for the local Walgreens farm. On April 19th, 2018, the Carver county attorney announced that the multi-agency investigation related to [00:18:00] circumstances of the Star's death had ended with no criminal charges filed.

Following an autopsy, performed by Dr. A queen Strobel, a protege of Janice, um, a Tuzzio his remains were cremated. On April 26th, 2016, princess sister, and only full sibling title Nelson file court documents and Carver county to open a probate case stating that no wheel had been found as of his death, the twice divorced prince was neither married nor known to have father, any surviving children under Minnesota law in the absence of a will.

This meant that in addition to his full sister, princess five, half siblings also had a claim to an estate, totally millions of dollars and including real estate stocks. And. Within three weeks of his death, several hundred people claim to be half siblings or descendants. Bremer trust was given temporary control of his estate and his vault drilled open and was authorized to obtain a blood symbol for DNA profiling.

From the coroner who had performed the autopsy, for [00:19:00] instance, ashes were placed into a custom 3d printed urn shaped like the Paisley park estate. The urn was placed on display in the atrium of the Paisley park complex in October, 2016. As of April, 2019, no additional estate claimants were recognized by the courts besides princess full sister and five half siblings.

However his estate remained unsettled. All right. So let me tell you guys, as we close out what we as prince fans believe, and I know a lot who was going to say, well, that's just because you're a big fan of his to be a prince fan. Actually means to actually know something about the man. You have to kind of study prince a little bit to know him.

And the thing is, if you knew anything, there was a couple of things that prince was against and he's actually preached against it in his, in his music for one, he was against drugs of any type. Now of course, as we said before, he had. [00:20:00] Hip problems evolve the years of dancing on top of speakers and jumping golf speakers and doing splits and high heels.

Nonetheless, that takes a toll on anybody's hips. And I know for a while he was on Vicodin because the pain was just so great. Now there has been several different videos that's been produced during these investigations. That's pretty much saying that they think that somebody spiked princess. So I just said it was counterfeit fit note that was made to look like, you know, it was Vicodin and really it wasn't.

So we don't believe that he actually ODI, he had a lot to live for. He was still doing tours. Now there is a couple of people I'm in a couple of groups on Facebook for prints, and there's a color who, that actually went to that last concert. And some of them misstated that. By the way he looked at, he knew that something was going to happen to him.

He used a lot of different things in his songs to refer to something [00:21:00] else. Like if anybody knows anything about prince, um, don't let the elevator bring us down. The elevator was often in his mind referring to the devil and we all find it kind of ironic because he actually died in. The elevator of his home.

So that's just what we, as prince Franz thing, we do not think that he would kill himself because he was against drugs. He's very healthy person. Uh, you know, he was vegan, you know, he didn't eat any meat, none of that kind of stuff. So just wanted to point that out. So a couple of things left for prints here.

Uh, numerous musicians and cultural figures reacted to princess. President Obama mourn him and the United States Senate pass a resolution, praising his achievements as a musician, composer, innovator, and cultural icon cities across the U S hair tributes and visuals and his buildings, bridges, and other structures in purple, even LA.

If you guys didn't know this LA airport [00:22:00] turned their whole entire sign, lightweight purple on that day in the first five hours of the media reported his death prince was the top trending most used term on Twitter and Facebook and 61 million press related interactions. Here's the one last thing I'll tell you, and I'll let you guys read all this other stuff here on your own.

Uh, cause there's a lot of it. Before I tell you that I will just give you this one though. After his death on August 21st, 2016, prince was POS mostly inducted into the rhythm and blues music hall of fame. And the first album released following his death was a greatest hits album forever released on November 22nd, 2016.

It contains one previously unreleased song Moonbeam levels recorded in 1982 during the 1999 sessions. Now, just to let you guys know he was, they were putting on, put him in the rhythm of lose all of. Before he passed. So this wasn't just something that he did because after the fact, so here's one of the last things I'll tell you, if you [00:23:00] are a true prince, Fran, you have a problem grasping this because if you know anything about prince, he had nothing on social media.

He was totally against it. He barely had a Twitter page when he passed away. And I think that was because somebody finally convinced him to open one. It was the way he can communicate with us. Uh, his fans. But if you go on YouTube, well now, since he's passed what beforehand, he will have everything stricken.

He didn't trust the internet. He didn't have a cell phone. I believe he didn't do any of this stuff because he just didn't trust it. He said, this is the way the artist is losing money. So even if you were a fan of head and you just did a cover of a song, it was stricken from YouTube. The next day, it was just pulled down.

The other thing we have issue with is prince was a very private person. Since his sister now has his own. They've turned Paisley park and to a tourist attraction. And they're charging money to come in to see that now no one has ever been in prince his home until now. He only invited [00:24:00] one other person that I built that I can remember right now.

And that was Oprah. And Oprah did a re an interview with him years ago, where she actually got to walk in Paisley park and you've seen him in there. He didn't like open his doors and has had people come into it. He was so private that even if you worked at Paisley park, all you can really say is I work at Paisley park.

You couldn't say what you did. You couldn't say who all was in there. You couldn't say anything that was in his house because he had you sign an NDA. And as a fan, I always joke, man. If I had to go fill out like a application for a house, you know, what am I going to do to convince them that I worked at Paisley park?

Right. I can't go in there, say, yeah, you know, I'm the executive, this, this, and this, it wasn't a. So I got to have mixed feelings about the fact that even though I want to go so bad to look in there now they said they put us around there. So I mean, now people's walking by and you can see, you know, see him there.

I just don't know if he would feel good about that being the [00:25:00] man that he was. And the other thing too is now, as you guys have seen, since his death widely, all of his music is now available on musical platforms, such as apple music and so on. And so. Problem is his prince never, ever did that either. Um, and none of his songs, wherever on streaming services, before he died.

As a matter of fact, he didn't even sell his music anymore. Through big, through big chains. He had a deal with target where he was selling his albums out of, because of what he felt about the music industry. Once he got free for Warner brothers, he produced a, he released all his own music on his own. As a matter of fact, prince probably had one of the cheapest concert tickets ever, because he was totally against what ticket master was doing.

And he sat down with Tom. He told you to go first, you know, the ticket cost, you know, 10 bucks, and then you gotta pay ticket master this feed and you gotta pay ticket master this fee. By the time you get done [00:26:00] that $10 ticket has now ballooned up to a hundred bucks while you paying a hundred bucks. We just want to come and see the music.

So down here, In LA, which I was mad. Cause I didn't get to go. Uh, something else was going on that day and I did everything I could to try to get there, but he did a concert down here and I believe the tickets were like $8. And when I lived in Chanhassen, you know, prince partied every night, he had a big light on his house and Paisley park.

That was purple. And you knew when he was throwing a party because he lived that light up and you can see it from miles around. Well, the thing is, is prince loved to. So he would throw a party. He said, everybody come at seven o'clock at night. He may not get done until six in the morning, but then he'll tell you, Hey man, on your way out, grab a ticket, come back to me.

And we going to do it again. So that's probably the only part of Paisley park that anybody's ever been in. But again, it doesn't go through his main house. Right. He had his own little concert venue that was built on Paisley park that you didn't have to go through his house. [00:27:00] Sure. There was doors for him.

To go through that, putting it back in the house, but no fan had to go there. And there was places that you had to park specifically and so on and so forth. So those are just some things about prince. Uh, some of the things that I know and read about him, uh, and I in, well, the elastic I tell you is, you know, Justin Timberlake was, I think he just got beat down for, but prince was always against quote unquote, coming back from the grave.

Uh, he once made a statement and said, I can't remember what musician it was, but he had passed. He says, if he wanted me, if we were supposed to walk out together as meant to be, we would have rocked out together while he was alive. He didn't believe in doing this, you know, CGI thing where you bring people back.

And all of a sudden, now you guys are performing well when Justin Timberlake did his, uh, halftime show in Minneapolis. He actually had a, like a little silhouette of [00:28:00] France, but it was like a picture of prince. And I think he was moving to playing purple rain. He played purple rain. To me, that was different than what I think prince was talking about.

It was just a sheet that was there that had this image on it. And it wasn't like he was trying to play with them and to correspond with him. But a lot of people ripped Justin Timberlake up for that. So I don't know that might not be popular among all his fans. Uh, but that's what I, that's kinda what I felt.

I just think he was trying to pay tribute to the man that would have ended up doing that Superbowl performance. If he would've been alive, I didn't allow me to just a couple of his achievements. He sold over 150 million records worldwide. It ranked him among the best selling music artist of all time. He was in dug into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2004, the UK music hall of fame in 2006.

And of course the rhythm and blues hall of fame in 2016. In 2016, he was paused loosely honored with a doctor of humane letters by the university of Minnesota. He won seven Grammy [00:29:00] awards, seven bird award, six American music awards for MTV video music awards, and academy award for best original song score for the film purple rain and a golden globe award.

Two of his albums purple rain and Simon. The times received the Grammy award for album of the year nominations in 1999. The album night's 99, that is proper rain. And some of the times have all been inducted into the Grammy hall of fame. And at the 28th Grammy awards principals awarded the president's merit award, he was also honored with the American music award for achievement in American music award of merit of the American music awards of 1990 and American music awards of 1995.

Respect. At the 2013 billboard music awards, he was honored with the billboard icon award. In 2019, the 1984 film for Marine was added by the library of Congress for perseveration in the national film registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically [00:30:00] significant. It's also good to know here that when he did pass the movie theaters for a short time also did go back and play purple.

Right. All right. Lastly, if you guys are saying that you don't like prince, I get this a lot. I don't like prince. Well, I give you the same advice I'd given me any people. I've told them to stop listening to music because of what you guys may or may not know, France has written many of the songs that you know, and that you may have come to love by many different artists.

You just didn't know it. So I like to give you just a few of those. Well, the groove in 86, of course you wrote nasty girl. The song stand back by Stevie Nicks is written by prince the times jungle, a written by prince Sheeley, the glamorous life Shaka cons. I feel for you, Sheena Easton, sugar walls. Sheila is a love bizarre.

The bangles manic Monday, art of noise featuring Tom [00:31:00] Jones. Kiss petty little bells. Yo Mr. So NATO Connor, nothing compares to you. The times jerk out Tevin Campbell's round and round RTK love. Thy will be done in Alicia keys. How come you don't call me anymore? Just to give you a few. All those songs was written by prince and there's many, many more out there.

 all right, guys that does with this. And I thank you for tuning in to yet another black history fact here. Join me tomorrow, I have another one for you. 

As always need to get ahold of us, feel free to drop a line. At a day with crime@gmail.com. Also, don't forget to visit the website, www.adaywithcrime.com. It is your one stop shop for everything that is a day with crime. [00:32:00] Alright guys, as always be safe all there and be good to yourself. and each other. And I'm going to catch you guys on the next one.