Discovering Prince, Ten Years Later

It's been a decade since we lost Prince, and I wanted to take a moment to offer a look back at some of the pieces I've written over the years, and share some of the work I've done, and hopefully it will give you a chance to explore some aspect of his artistry or legacy that you haven't yet had a chance to discover! Perhaps a good place to start: It's time to discover Prince — a set of starting points to look at Prince's musical catalog, with selected albums (with more than 40 albums to pick from, it can be overwhelming to know where to start!) and some playlists that I created specifically to help new fans find out exactly why we love his music so much. Another comprehensive overview: Every video Prince ever made. I walked through all of the music videos Prince made over the four decades of his career, offering some info and context that might help you find which ones are most compelling (or weird!) and worth your time. I've also gotten to guest on a number of podcasts and in other media over the years to discuss various aspects of Prince's career. Perhaps none was more exciting for me than talking about Prince's history of technological innovation for the official Prince podcast. Then, no less than the New York Times described me as a "Prince scholar" when it covered the discovery of the earliest known footage of Prince as a child. There are a bunch of other podcast appearances (see below) but these felt like the pinnacle of legitimacy for my career as a Prince fan. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Prince (@prince) Here on my site, there are some pieces I wrote to try to explain a few of Prince's masterworks. I wanted to give a sort of x-ray view into the larger cultural and even political context behind his choices when Prince created his best-known artistic expressions: I Know Times Are Changing: This is the minute-by-minute story of how the song Purple Rain was created — covering everything from the background story of how conservative rock fans had hounded Prince's band off the stage at the turn of the 80s, to a glimpse into Prince's editing process where he turned a debut of his band into his signature song. How Prince Won the Super Bowl: Many people know that Prince played the greatest Super Bowl halftime show of all time, but very few know that it wasn't just a scintillating musical performance. I get into why Prince didn't play his biggest hits like "When Doves Cry" and "Kiss", and how the show was a deeply personal statement on race, equity, and legacy. Prince Interactive: Shortly after Prince's passing, I collaborated with several of the people who maintained Prince's (many!) websites over the years to help create the Prince Online Museum, an archive of many of Prince's digital works over the years. The earliest of these digital experiences is the Interactive CD-ROM which Prince released in 1994. I created a walkthrough video of the game which is shared as a resource on the site for those who've never gotten a chance to see the game in the years since its release. Prince's Own Liner Notes On His Greatest Hits: I have worked hard to preserve Prince's extensive digital archives over the years, and this is one of the bits I'm most proud of. For the release of his first greatest hits set in 1993, Prince compiled a list of draft notes for his former manager Alan Leeds to use as the basis of the box set's liner notes. This draft was later posted on Prince's first website, and then quickly deleted — but not before I was able to archive a copy! So I was able to share the only surviving copy of Prince's first-person commentary on the biggest hits of his career, which is well worth a read. Message From The Artist: This is another bit of digital archiving from Prince's original website of a letter that was briefly posted 30 years ago before being lost to history. In it, Prince explained the spiritual and artistic reasons behind his shocking decision to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol, and laid out the battle for ownership and control of his music which would come to define the second half of his career. The letter was quickly amended to be far less personal, and then deleted completely from Prince's website, but I was able to hold onto a copy that we can now read for ourselves. Then, there are some fun artifacts and experiences about Prince that I found to be worth sharing, and other folks have found them to be pretty fun, too. One of my most favorite stories is The Purple Raincheck, about the time that Prince invited me to his house, but I couldn't go. And yet somehow, in true Prince fashion, I ended up with an even better story in the end anyway. If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to roll up to Prince's Oscars party, this is the one for you. At the other end of the nerdy spectrum, there's this piece about my favorite floppy disc of all time, a rarity I was able to track down which contained the obscure font that Prince's team sent out to publications when he had changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, so that they could properly render his trademark icon. Later, with the help of the brilliant minds at Adafruit, I was able to recover the data from the disc after almost three decades, through some vintage technology and a little bit of good luck. For Minnesota Public Radio's The Current, we also dug into Prince's history as a computer nerd. On Switched on Pop, we dug into Why U Love 2 Listen 2 Prince, with an incredible audio breakdown showing how Prince influenced everybody — including a direct connection to the biggest album of all time. Dig, if u will We've been lucky to have a global community of Prince scholars that's formed over the years, which regularly hosts academic symposia, publishes papers and books, delivers remarkable talks on every aspect of Prince's work and the impact of his legacy, and in general uses his art as the starting point for some pretty extraordinary cultural exploration. One manifestation of that tendency to take his work seriously is the spreadsheet of Prince recordings, which is a fan-created work designed to provide a canonical reference for the thousands of compositions that Prince created over his career, unifying the conversations and discussions that people have. This is genuine nerd stuff! And finally, one of the things I'm most proud of is this talk I delivered just a few weeks after Prince passed, in Minneapolis on what would have been his 58th birthday. It covers a really broad swath of Prince's influences and both his technical innovations and fierce battle for artistic independence. But it also dives into a lot of my background and my family's personal history, and connects it to a lot of themes of immigration and the systems that govern how this country moves. A decade on, I think some of these themes resonate more than ever, and if you're willing to set aside some time for it, I'd really love for more people to watch it, as I think it speaks to so many of the things I care most deeply about. In all, after the initial grief and shock of his loss, I've been pleased to see Prince's legacy and impact grow. It's been wonderful to see so many people be surprised and delighted at all the different ways his work and innovative ideas remain relevant and resonant years and even decades after he created them. And I never get tired of people around the world sending me links or images of Prince or Prince-related items, saying "this reminded me of you!". Whether it's from old friends or people I've never met, it's something very special to be connected to others through the art and creativity of a fiercely independent spirit. Above all else, Prince wanted to encourage people to create and be creative, to have mastery over their work and their lives, to be their true selves, and to be loving and compassionate towards others. Like everyone, he was flawed and complicated and weird and contradictory. But unlike anyone, he was able to create new worlds that millions of people got to live in inside their imaginations, and to fight impossible battles against all the odds and still somehow prevail. That's still an inspiring example everyone can follow, no matter who your are, or how you create in the world. And best of all, Prince has created a perfect soundtrack to help you do it.