99 Fun Facts About Prince

In which city was Prince born and raised?

He was born at Mount Sinai Hospital in June 1958 and pioneered what became known as the Minneapolis sound.

Prince was named after what?

His father's stage name was Prince Rogers, under which John Nelson led a jazz trio. 'I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do,' he once said.

What was the title of the first song Prince wrote, on his father's piano at age seven?

Funk Machine was his first tune, picked out at the age of seven. When his parents separated three years later he kept at the piano, he said, 'to fill the void'.

Prince's first record deal, signed as a teenager in 1977, was unusual for granting him what?

Creative control came written into the three-album deal, a rare concession to an unknown teenager. He could ask for it because his demo tape had drawn interest from several labels at once.

What was unusual about Prince's debut album credits?

He played every instrument on For You, and the sleeve said so: 'Produced, arranged, composed and performed by Prince'. He spent nearly all of his three-album advance making it, and it peaked at No. 163 in the US.

In 1981 a hostile crowd pelted a little-known Prince when he opened for which band?

The Rolling Stones' stadium crowd booed and threw things at the opener in a trench coat and bikini briefs until he left the stage. He wanted to skip the second date and had to be talked into playing it.

Under the alias Jamie Starr, Prince wrote and produced for which band fronted by Morris Day?

The Time were assembled by Prince from a local funk group, with his childhood friend Morris Day up front. The line-up included Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who went on to become star producers themselves.

Which Prince video became one of the first by a Black artist to win heavy rotation on MTV?

Little Red Corvette went into heavy rotation in 1983, when MTV's playlist was almost entirely white rock acts. It also became Prince's first Top Ten single in the US.

Prince got the idea for his 1983 car-themed hit after dozing off in whose car?

Lisa Coleman's pink Mercury, long misreported as an Edsel, is where the idea came to him mid-nap. Her camp says Prince had helped her buy it at auction, and that he put a few of the dents in it himself.

Drummer Bobby Z. says Prince wrote '1999' overnight after the band watched what on tour?

A TV documentary about Nostradamus, found on a hotel's free HBO, left the whole band rattled about the world ending in 1999. While they were still comparing notes the next day, Prince had already written the song.

Which singer turned Prince's 1979 album track 'I Feel for You' into a hit in 1984?

Chaka Khan's version added a rap from Melle Mel and a harmonica part played by Stevie Wonder. It reached number three in the US and won Prince a Grammy as the songwriter.

Which single was number one the week in 1984 that Prince also had America's top film and album?

When Doves Cry had been number one for weeks when the film opened on top, knocking Ghostbusters off its perch, and the album got there days later. Ghostbusters took its crown back the very next weekend.

What is famously missing from the biggest hit single of the Purple Rain album?

A bass line was recorded and then pulled at the last minute, though he hated to see it go. His engineer remembers him grinning as he took it out, sure that nobody else would dare.

Purple Rain knocked which Springsteen album off the number one spot?

Born in the U.S.A., a month into its reign on the US chart in August 1984, then waited 24 straight weeks for Purple Rain to budge before taking the top spot back in January 1985.

In the film Purple Rain, Prince's character is known only as what?

The Kid is the only name he gets: a gifted frontman whose home life is falling apart. Prince brought him back in 1990 for a sequel, Graffiti Bridge, which he wrote and directed himself, and it flopped.

Which Purple Rain track prompted Tipper Gore to found the Parents Music Resource Center?

Darling Nikki reportedly reached Tipper Gore through her 11-year-old daughter, whom she found listening to it. Her campaign led to the warning stickers the record industry adopted for explicit albums.

Which Duran Duran single kept Prince's 'Raspberry Beret' at number two in 1985?

A View to a Kill held it off that July. Prince had released Around the World in a Day with no single at all, and Raspberry Beret only followed weeks later.

Writing under the name 'Christopher', Prince gave which hit song to the Bangles?

Manic Monday climbed to number two in April 1986, and the record that kept it off the top was Prince's own Kiss. He borrowed the pen name from Christopher Tracy, his character in Under the Cherry Moon.

'Kiss' began as a rough acoustic demo Prince handed to which funk band before taking it back?

Mazarati and producer David Z turned Prince's bare acoustic sketch into a sparse groove in a single day. He heard it the next morning, told them it was too good for them and took the song back.

Which Prince album, home of the hit 'Kiss', was the soundtrack to his 1986 film Under the Cherry Moon?

Parade far outlasted the film, Prince's first as a director, which stalled at the box office even as the album's lead single went to number one.

In 1987 Prince's label balked at a triple album, so he trimmed it into which double album?

Sign o' the Times was pieced together from three shelved projects after executives balked at a three-disc set. The compromise now regularly tops critics' rankings of his albums.

Prince's shelved Camille project featured what vocal gimmick?

A sped-up, female-sounding voice came, his engineer Susan Rogers says, from slowing the tape while he sang and playing it back at full speed. The album was meant to come out without Prince's name anywhere on it.

Which 1988 album did Prince release after abruptly withdrawing the Black Album, which he had decided was evil?

Lovesexy put Prince nude on its cover, and on CD he insisted its nine songs play as one unbroken track. The Black Album became one of the most bootlegged records ever before its official release in 1994.

Which director's 1989 film came with a Prince soundtrack that produced the number-one single 'Batdance'?

Tim Burton's Batman sent Prince's soundtrack album to number one in the US. In the Batdance video he appears split down the middle, half caped hero and half Joker.

Which 1991 single, recorded with the New Power Generation, became Prince's fifth and last US number one?

Cream was written, Prince later joked, while he stood looking at himself in a mirror. Its guitar lick is a loving nod to the T. Rex hit Get It On.

In 1993 Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol during a dispute with which company?

Warner Bros. had signed him to a $100 million deal only a year earlier. He argued that the label controlled the name Prince along with his music, so he took a new one: a glyph merging the male and female signs.

What did Prince write on his face during public appearances in the mid-1990s?

Slave stayed on his cheek through a public war with his label over who owned his recordings. 'If you don't own your masters, your master owns you,' he told Rolling Stone in 1996.

Which triple album did Prince release in 1996 to celebrate his escape from his record contract?

Emancipation came out on his own NPG label through a new distributor, EMI, which found itself handed three full discs at once. He was still billed as a symbol, and kept that name until 2000.

Which singer took Prince's little-known song 'Nothing Compares 2 U' to number one around the world in 1990?

Sinéad O'Connor's version eclipsed the 1985 original by the Family, a Prince side project, which had barely made a ripple. The tears in her video, she said, were for her late mother.

Prince's 2004 solo on 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' came at which hall of fame's induction ceremony?

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees that night included both Prince and the late George Harrison. Prince joined Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Harrison's son Dhani for the tribute and closed it with an extended solo.

Everyone who bought a ticket to Prince's 2004 Musicology tour was also given what?

A copy of the album came with every ticket and counted as a sale, which helped Musicology enter the US chart at number three. The chart compilers then changed their rules so that bundled CDs had to be optional.

Which 1998 multi-disc set did Prince sell directly to fans over the internet?

Crystal Ball helped make his name as an internet pioneer, and in 2006 the Webby Awards gave him a lifetime achievement award. A year later he had turned on the web, launching a legal campaign against sites that shared his music.

Prince's Super Bowl XLI halftime show in 2007 opened with an intro from which Queen song?

We Will Rock You gave way to his own 'Let's Go Crazy'. It was pouring by showtime, and when the nervous crew checked that he was still happy to go on, he asked whether they could make it rain harder.

Which university's marching band was secretly recruited for Prince's Super Bowl halftime show?

Even his keyboardist did not know until the first joint rehearsal; Prince reportedly asked if they could make it rain harder.

In 2007 Prince played a 21-night residency at which London venue?

The O2 Arena had only just opened when his run began in August 2007. Two years later Michael Jackson booked 50 nights at the same arena to beat it, and died before the first.

In 2007 Prince gave away his new album Planet Earth free in Britain with what?

A Sunday newspaper, the Mail on Sunday, tucked more than two million copies inside a single edition. Record shops protested, his label shelved the British release, and one music chain ended up stocking the paper instead.

Prince died in 2016 from an accidental overdose of counterfeit pills laced with what?

Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, was hidden in pills made to look like Vicodin, and prosecutors said he had no idea. Nobody was charged, because investigators never learned where the pills had come from.

What did Prince keep locked in the basement vault at Paisley Park?

Unreleased songs piled up there because he recorded almost every day, his saxophonist Eric Leeds recalls, and shelved much of it. Since his death the vault has fed a run of posthumous albums and expanded reissues.

The company that runs which famous estate opened Prince's Paisley Park to visitors in 2016?

Graceland's operators opened Paisley Park for tours in October 2016, six months after his death. He had always wanted it open, his family said, and had already been readying the building as a museum.

Who inherited Prince's estate after he died without a will?

His siblings, a sister and five half-siblings, were named heirs by a judge in 2017. With no will to guide the court, the $156 million estate took until 2022 to settle, six years after his death.

Which all-star charity single of 1985 did Prince famously skip the recording session for?

We Are the World went ahead without him, and the solo line meant for Prince was handed to Huey Lewis. He gave the charity album that followed an exclusive song of his own instead.

Which band backed Prince through the Purple Rain years until he broke it up in 1986?

The Revolution was broken up after the 1986 tour, most of its members fired. Within days of his death thirty years later, five of them announced a reunion, and they toured in 2017 as a way of grieving together.

Vanity 6, the female trio Prince launched, topped the US dance chart in 1982 with which song?

Nasty Girl was written and produced by Prince, who had a Purple Rain role lined up for Vanity until she walked out. She later became a born-again Christian, renounced the act, and died two months before him, also at 57.

A famous 2004 Chappelle's Show sketch has Prince trouncing his guests at which sport?

Basketball had been his game since school, and in the sketch he follows the win by serving pancakes. In 2013 he returned the joke, putting Dave Chappelle, dressed as him, on the cover of a single, 'Breakfast Can Wait'.

In 2023 the US Supreme Court ruled against which late artist's foundation over his portraits of Prince?

Andy Warhol based them on a Lynn Goldsmith photograph that Vanity Fair licensed in 1984 for a single use. She learned a whole series existed only when one ran on a tribute cover after Prince died, and the justices backed her 7-2.

Which religious group did Prince join in 2001?

Jehovah's Witnesses welcomed him after years of study with his mentor, Sly and the Family Stone veteran Larry Graham. Raised a Seventh-day Adventist, he took the new faith seriously enough to go door to door like any other member.

Prince revealed in a 2009 TV interview that he had suffered what as a young child?

Seizures, he told Tavis Smiley: he was 'born epileptic', a thing he had never spoken about before. He was teased at school, and said that early in his career he compensated by being as flashy and as noisy as he could.

On which 1989 Madonna album did Prince co-write and sing the duet 'Love Song'?

He also played uncredited electric guitar on 'Like a Prayer', 'Keep It Together' and 'Act of Contrition'.

In 2006 Prince opened a nightclub named 3121 inside which Las Vegas hotel?

The Rio refitted a showroom as Club 3121 for him, and his shows there began around midnight. When they ended he would move to a smaller room next door for a second jam session in the small hours.

After Prince swapped his name for a symbol in 1993, what did his label mail to journalists so they could print it?

Floppy disks held a custom font containing the glyph, which fans called the Love Symbol. Writers without one settled for calling him the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

Prince's sister Tyka Nelson surprised fans after his death by revealing that his favorite color was actually what?

Orange showed up in his all-orange stage outfits, his concert sets and one of his custom guitars. Purple stuck as his trademark anyway.

Which rock singer turned down Prince's request to write lyrics for an early instrumental of 'Purple Rain'?

Stevie Nicks received a ten-minute instrumental and felt too overwhelmed to add words. The track had started life as a country song.

Michael Jackson originally planned which of his hit singles as a duet with Prince, who turned the invitation down?

Bad became a duet idea after producer Quincy Jones suggested the two stars record together. Prince said years later that he had disliked the song's opening line.

On stage at the Coachella festival in 2008, Prince surprised the crowd by covering which Radiohead song?

Creep circulated online afterwards as a bootleg recording, until it was taken down at Prince's request.

Prince played himself in a 2014 episode of which sitcom, broadcast straight after the Super Bowl?

New Girl wrote the whole episode around him after Prince asked about making a guest appearance. It became the highest-rated scripted telecast in three years.

Which veteran crooner scored a 1988 hit by covering Prince's 'Kiss' with the electronic group Art of Noise?

Tom Jones had made the song a staple of his stage shows, and the single gave Art of Noise its biggest mainstream hit. Its video won an MTV award.

Before an awards show, Prince's management sent Weird Al Yankovic a telegram demanding that he avoid what?

Eye contact was banned even though the two had been seated in the same row at the American Music Awards. Prince also refused every parody request Yankovic made.

Which future Baywatch star was discovered by Prince, who produced her 1993 debut album for his own label?

Carmen Electra met him in 1991 and soon signed to Paisley Park Records. The self-titled record was her only album release.

Which company honored Prince in 2017 by adding a purple shade named Love Symbol #2 to its color system?

Pantone took the name from the glyph Prince adopted in place of his own name in the 1990s, which was later copyrighted as Love Symbol #2.

Prince opened the 2004 Grammy Awards by performing a medley of his hits alongside which singer?

Beyoncé sang her own hit 'Crazy in Love' during the medley and went on to win five awards that night, more than any other artist.

Where inside his Paisley Park complex was Prince found unresponsive on the morning of his death in April 2016?

In an elevator is where emergency responders found him. Less than a week earlier his private jet had made an emergency landing in Illinois after he fell ill on board.

Which performer scored a top ten hit in 1984 with 'The Glamorous Life', a song Prince wrote and co-produced?

Sheila E. took the song to number seven in America. She later became the drummer in Prince's own touring group.

Which Scottish singer shared the vocals with Prince on 'U Got the Look', a number two hit in 1987?

Sheena Easton filmed the video with him in Paris, yet she was credited on the album and not on the single itself.

Which real nightclub, where Prince's character performs each night, is the main music venue in the film Purple Rain?

First Avenue was paid $100,000 and closed for 25 days so the film could be shot there. Prince had already recorded the title song's basic track live at the club.

Which Purple Rain track, Prince's second US number one, opens with a funeral-style organ and a mock eulogy?

Let's Go Crazy also topped the R&B and dance club charts and reached the UK top ten. It is the opening track of both the album and the film.

Prince and Teena Marie were the opening acts on which funk star's first headlining tour, Fire It Up?

Rick James invited the up-and-coming Prince onto the 1980 tour. James later built his own stable of side acts, including the Mary Jane Girls.

Which streaming service was the first to carry Prince's 2015 album Hit n Run Phase One, a week before its CD release?

Tidal also premiered the sequel, Hit n Run Phase Two, three months later. That record turned out to be the final album Prince released in his lifetime.

Prince won a Golden Globe for 'The Song of the Heart', which he wrote for which animated film from 2006?

Happy Feet's makers had only asked permission to use 'Kiss' in a musical number. Prince enjoyed a private screening so much that he offered a new song, finished a week later.

Prince asked a member of which band to check that 'Purple Rain' did not sound too much like their ballad 'Faithfully'?

Journey's Jonathan Cain, who wrote 'Faithfully', reassured him that the two songs shared only a few chords.

Which US retail chain had exclusive rights to sell Prince's 2009 triple-album set Lotusflow3r in its stores?

Target sold the three-disc bundle for $11.98. Alongside two new Prince albums it held Elixer, the debut by his protégée Bria Valente.

Prince released a 2015 protest song named after which city, then played a Rally 4 Peace concert there?

Baltimore was his tribute to Freddie Gray, who had died in police custody there weeks earlier. One set of the concert featured Prince alone at a keyboard.

Which dancer in the New Power Generation did Prince marry on Valentine's Day in 1996?

Mayte Garcia had appeared on television at seven as the world's youngest professional belly dancer. She danced with his band from 1992, and the marriage lasted four years.

Prince wrote a new song in 2010 after attending a playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and which NFL team?

The Vikings, his hometown team, won the game that January. Prince named the song 'Purple and Gold' after their colors.

Which jazz trumpeter joined Prince on stage at a Paisley Park charity concert in December 1987?

Miles Davis has often been compared with Prince, since both kept changing artistic direction throughout their careers.

Which singer covered Prince's 1982 B-side 'How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?' on her 2001 debut album?

Alicia Keys retitled it 'How Come You Don't Call Me' for Songs in A Minor. Prince's original features only his falsetto and his own bluesy piano.

Which singer recorded a synthesizer-based cover of Prince's 'When You Were Mine' for her 1983 debut album?

Cyndi Lauper gave it a mid-tempo arrangement on She's So Unusual. Prince had released the original three years earlier.

Which Prince side project first recorded 'Nothing Compares 2 U' for its only album in 1985?

The Family was one of the first acts on his Paisley Park label. Prince credited most of the songs he wrote for the album to band members but kept his own name on this one.

Paisley Park, the estate where Prince lived and recorded, stands in which suburban city?

Chanhassen became home to a 65,000-square-foot complex with four recording studios and a sound stage. It opened to the public as a museum in October 2016.

Which country star recorded 'You're My Love', a song Prince wrote under the pseudonym Joey Coco?

Kenny Rogers included it on his 1986 album They Don't Make Them Like They Used To, with El DeBarge singing backing vocals.

Which puppet series welcomed Prince as a guest star while he was billed as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince?

Muppets Tonight was a 1990s continuation of The Muppet Show with Clifford as host. In his episode Prince turns up with song suggestions for the gang.

Prince's film Under the Cherry Moon tied for the Worst Picture Razzie with which other box-office flop of 1986?

Howard the Duck shared the top dishonor. Prince's film collected five Razzies in all, including worst actor and worst director for Prince himself.

Prince wrote the ballad 'With This Tear' for which Canadian singer's self-titled 1992 album?

Celine Dion received a song Prince had composed specifically for her. It was among the last tracks recorded for the album.

Which manufacturer made the customized motorcycle that Prince rides through the film Purple Rain?

Honda's CM400A Hondamatic was the model the filmmakers customized. The riding scenes were filmed on a road that runs along a river.

Which English actress made her feature film debut opposite Prince in his 1986 movie Under the Cherry Moon?

Kristin Scott Thomas played heiress Mary Sharon, a role Prince first meant for his then girlfriend. He also directed the film himself.

Which 1990 Prince album was the soundtrack to the last feature film he wrote, directed and starred in?

Graffiti Bridge was conceived as a standalone sequel to Purple Rain, six years after the original.

Which posthumous Prince album from 2019 gathers his own demo recordings of songs he gave to other artists?

Originals was released on what would have been his 61st birthday.

What title, borrowed from a ballad on Purple Rain, was given to Prince's unfinished memoir published in 2019?

The Beautiful Ones holds the roughly 50 pages he finished before his death, plus rare photos and his handwritten concept for the film Purple Rain.

Which awards gave Prince a lifetime achievement honor in 2006 for his pioneering online distribution of music?

The Webbys praised his visionary use of the internet to reach audiences. Weeks later he shut down his NPG Music Club website after more than five years.

As teenagers in 1974, Prince and future collaborator Morris Day were bandmates in which group, later renamed Champagne?

Grand Central was started by Prince's cousin Charles Smith. The band changed its name after being confused with the funk group Graham Central Station.

Prince's longtime keyboardist Matt Fink was known on stage for which outfit, the source of his nickname?

Surgical scrubs and a mask set him apart at Prince concerts and made him known to fans as Doctor Fink.

On which 1981 title track does Prince recite the Lord's Prayer in full?

Controversy places the prayer around its midpoint, which led some listeners to call the song blasphemous. It was the lead single from his fourth album.

As a child, Prince disliked his given name and called himself by which nickname instead?

Skipper was his own choice as a boy. Decades later the adult Prince dropped his name altogether for several years in favor of an unpronounceable symbol.

In which city's Fox Theatre did Prince play his final concerts, a week before his death in April 2016?

Atlanta had been due to host him a week earlier, but the shows were postponed when the venue announced that he had influenza.

On his 1999 album Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, Prince covered 'Everyday Is a Winding Road', a hit for which singer?

Sheryl Crow also guests on the album in person, alongside Gwen Stefani, Eve and Ani DiFranco.

Prince co-wrote and produced the 1991 single 'Love... Thy Will Be Done' with which pop singer for her second album?

Martika released it as the first single from her album Martika's Kitchen.

Prince played and sang on 'Why Should I Love You?', a track from which English singer's 1993 album The Red Shoes?

Kate Bush credits him with keyboards, guitar, bass and vocals on the track, and as its co-arranger. Comedian Lenny Henry sings on it too.

Which New Power Generation keyboardist shares the vocals with Prince on the title track of Diamonds and Pearls?

Rosie Gaines impressed one reviewer of the single enough to write that she sounded as though she needed a record of her own.

Which 1979 single gave Prince his first major US hit, reaching number 11 on the Hot 100?

I Wanna Be Your Lover sold more than a million copies and stayed at the top of the soul chart for two weeks.

Which gospel and soul veteran recorded the 1993 album The Voice under Prince's direction for his label?

Mavis Staples was already famous from the Staple Singers when the two began working together. People magazine named The Voice one of the top ten albums of 1993.