The musical genius of Prince was immediately apparent when the teenaged artist released his 1979 hit tune, "I Wanna Be Your Lover."

The world was just getting a peek at the young man who would blossom into an award-winning performer, a man whose artistry and influence would span the globe. Prince's music has spanned myriad styles - from his early material, rooted in R&B, rock, and soul - and he has constantly expanded his musical palette throughout his career, absorbing many other genres, including funk, New Wave, pop, rock, blues, jazz and hip-hop.

Born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince Rogers Nelson honed the circumstances of heritage as the background for his hit movie and Oscar-winning soundtrack, 1984's "Purple Rain." Although wildly popular before that point, from there, Prince's superstardom was lunched.

The famously prolific artist has released several hundred songs, sold nearly 100 million albums and won a half-dozen Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards along the way. In addition to "Purple Rain," his body of work consists of 20 Top 10 hits, which include "Little Red Corvette," "1999," "Kiss," "Cream," "Diamonds and Pearls" and countless others that remain mainstays among adults, like "Head," "Erotic City" and "Hot Thing."

Yet, his achievements where nearly relegated to the B-sides of music history.

Prince adopted an unpronounceable symbol as his official name from 1993 to 2000, thus causing the press to dub him "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" or simply, The Artist. During that seven-year span, The Artist waged a questionably successful war with Warner Bros. Records, scrawling the word "Slave" along his cheeks and demanding his artistic freedom. He released a number of musically uneven CDs that would alienate some of his fans while drawing puzzled reactions from other music professionals.

"His stance about how morally corrupt (his record labels) are after "Purple Rain" and "1999" was a bit hypocritical for me," said saxophonist Branford Marsalis. "I thought it was disingenuous of him to criticize the system that enriched him. I agree that the system is not fair, but the system made him wealthy. It was kind of like Michael Jackson accusing Columbia of racism. It kind of rings hollow. It's hard to really bolster your case when there's overwhelming evidence that you are criticizing the system that has made you what you are. But at the same time, I like the fact that he understood the business well enough. The music industry is rather corrupt. It's hard to know how much money you really make because there are so many invisible clauses."

Or, as music journalist and author, Richard Torres concluded: "It's very tough to gain sympathy for a multi-millionaire."

When the dust settled from battle between Warner Bros. and Prince, the Artist had a completely new strategy to ensure his future artistic and financial control of his creative output. He was among the first to create a successful global online music presence where fans had exclusive access to his music.

In 2004, the new-and-improved Prince was ushered back into the public conciseness with the one-two punch of his February performance with Beyonce Knowles at the start of the Grammy Awards and his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Two months later, he would independently release "Musicology," his biggest album since 1991's "Diamonds and Pearls."

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@