Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Mattie Shaw, a jazz singer and social worker, and John L. Nelson, a lyricist and pianist. His father's stage name was "Prince Rogers". His parents were both from African-American families from Louisiana. They separated during his youth, leading him to move back and forth, and he had a troubled relationship with his stepfather. This led him to run away from home, where he was eventually adopted by the Andersons.
Prince soon became friends with the Anderson's son, Andre Anderson (Cymone),and together with Charles Smith, they formed a band called Grand Central, which later renamed itself Champagne. Although the band was successful live, it eventually diminished.
At the age of 18, Prince started working on high-quality demo tracks with Chris Moon. These demo tracks ultimately led to him signing a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records, making him the youngest producer associated with the label. His debut album, For You, was released in 1978 and ranked 163 on the U.S. Pop Charts.
Prince's next releases would do much better on the charts, with his singles "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover" in 1979. This started to introduce him as a person who presented sexually explicit material into the music industry. However, it wasn't until he released his single "1999" that he began to attract mainstream artists, and he became a part of the mainstream music media.
Prince released two more singles, "Little Red Corvette" and "Delirious," and the album featured his new band, The Revolution. In 1984, Prince released the feature film/soundtrack album Purple Rain, which was seen as an admired and profound masterpiece. His father contributed to the album, cowriting the chord sequence for a couple of his songs. Prince continued to give cowriting credit to his father on several other albums, as his famous chord sequence would be used in several of his singles and albums.
Many of Prince's songs did not agree with listeners, and one of his songs, "Darling Nikki," prompted a group of people to start a censorship organization called the Parents Music Resource Center (P.M.R.C.). Prince, however, continued to release various other singles, with memorable releases being "Around the World in a Day," "Parade," "Love Sexy," and "Batman."
Prince released a sequel to Purple Rain in 1990 called Graffiti Bridge, a soundtrack album accompanied by the movie of the same name. The film did terribly in box office and was nominated for several Razzie awards, but the soundtrack album was seen as the high point of the film.
In 1991, Prince assembled a new band called The New Power Generation, with which he released singles such as "Diamond and Pearls," "Cream," and "Gett Off." Prince eventually changed his stage name from Prince to a symbol, which led people to call him "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince." He soon took back his old stage name.
In the 1990s, Prince continued to release singles such as "Came," "The Gold Experience," "Chaos and Disorder," and "Emancipation." With the rise of the new millennium, Prince released material such as a religious album called The Rainbow Children, One Nite Alone, The Chocolate Invasion, The Slaughter House, and had a collaboration with Stevie Wonder on Stevie's single "What the Fuss" in 2005.
Prince died on April 21, 2016, in Chanhassen, Minnesota, at his Paisley Park recording studio complex. He was 57.
