Prince Rogers Nelson (born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American musician. He uses the stage name Prince and is best known by that name or as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, though the name he has used has varied over the years.[citation needed]His music has spanned myriad styles: from his early material, rooted in R&B, funk, and soul, he has constantly expanded his musical palette throughout his career, absorbing many other genres including New Wave, pop, rock, blues, jazz, and hip hop. The distinctive characteristics of the early-to-mid 1980s work which brought him to super-stardom (including sparse and industrial-sounding drum machine arrangements, and the use of synthesizer riffs to serve the role traditionally occupied by horn riffs in earlier R&B, funk and soul music) became known as the "Minneapolis sound," which proved heavily influential.
Prince has been a remarkably prolific artist, having released several hundred songs, both under his own name and through other artists. Regarded as a perfectionist, Prince is known for being highly protective of his music. He produces, composes, arranges and performs nearly all of the songs on his albums. Many critics have dubbed him a musical genius due to the quality of his compositions and proficiency at various instruments.
Early years
Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota at Mount Sinai Hospital on Saturday June 7, 1958 to John L. Nelson and Mattie Shaw.[1] John was a pianist and songwriter. Mattie was a singer. He is named after the Prince Rogers Trio, his father's jazz band. As a boy, he was called Skipper. There are a number of myths regarding Prince’s ethnicity, some spread by Prince himself. In fact, according to an April 28, 1983 Rolling Stone article, Prince's father is African-American and his mother Italian-American. This has proven to be a myth also, as both his parents are of African-American descent.
After the birth of his sister Shanika in 1960, Prince's parents gradually drifted apart. After they formally separated, he had a troubled relationship with his stepfather, causing him to run away from home. He lived briefly with his father, who bought him his first guitar. Later, Prince moved in with a neighborhood family, the Andersons, and became friends with their son, Andre Anderson (later called André Cymone).
Prince and Anderson joined Prince’s cousin Charles Smith in a band called Grand Central, formed in junior high school. Initially his involvement was just part of a mainly instrumental band, that played clubs and parties in the Minneapolis area. As time went by and Prince's musical knowledge broadened he found himself dictating the arrangements to the rest of the band. Before long he had become the band's front man. By the time Prince had entered high school, Grand Central evolved into Champagne and started playing original music already drawing on a range of influences including Sly Stone, James Brown, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix. At some point Prince was a student at the Minnesota Dance Theatre.
In 1976, he started working on a demo tape with producer Chris Moon in a Minneapolis studio. He also had the patronage of Owen Husney, to whom Moon introduced him, allowing him to produce a quality demo. Husney started contacting major labels and ran a campaign promoting Prince as a star of the future, resulting in a bidding war eventually won by Warner Bros. Records. They were the only label to give Prince creative control of his songs and offered him a contract
Personal life
In the 1980s and early 1990s Prince was romantically linked to many celebrities, including Vanity, Madonna, Sheila E, Anna Fantastic,[28] Carmen Electra,[29] Kirstie Alley, Whitney Houston, Apollonia Kotero, Kim Basinger, Sheena Easton, Troy Beyer, Susanna Hoffs, and Nona Gaye. He married his backup singer and dancer, Mayte Garcia on Valentine's Day, 1996. They had one son, Gregory, who was born with Pfeiffer syndrome and died shortly after birth. They were divorced in 2000. Prince became a Jehovah's Witness in 2001. He married Manuela Testolini in 2001 but she filed for divorce in May 2006.
- monikers
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