Prince Rogers Nelson ( June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis , Minnesota , United States ) is a singer, songwriter and multi -instrumentalist of rock, soul , funk and new wave. Use the stage name of Prince, but has also been known under the unpronounceable symbol , which he used between 1993 and 2000. This name change was controversial and many referred to him as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" , often abbreviated to " TAFKAP " , or simply " The Artist" during that period.
During the decade of the 80s , was one of the most important and innovative artists .
He is considered the founder of the " Minneapolis sound " . Sound that began to form on their third album , Dirty Mind and was substantiated in 1981 on his album Controversy and evidence of a disc clearly influenced by him : the debut album The Time. Prince reached the peak of his popularity with the album Purple Rain (1984 ) and the film having the same title .
Only in the United States has sold over 39.5 million albums and nearly 100 million worldwide . The song " Purple Rain" won the Oscar for best soundtrack for the Prince himself, who also won a Grammy Award for the album. The album included other songs that reached a high popularity as " When Doves Cry" and " Let 's Go Crazy" , which became worldwide hits and elevated to superstar level .
His musical influences include great artists and bands such as Jimi Hendrix , The Jackson 5, Sly & the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Parliament / Funkadelic , Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington , Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, James Brown , The Beatles , Queen and Led Zeppelin.
Prince was born on June 7, 1958 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis , Minnesota. His father, named John L. Nelson, amateur musician , was part of a group called the Prince Rogers Trio Jazz , which took the name for his son. It met Mattie Shaw, lead singer with whom he married and became the mother of Prince.
When he was six his parents divorced . The father left the family home but the piano had not carried , which was used by Prince to learn to play it himself , learning by ear tunes of television series like Batman. He later learned to play other instruments at age 13 his father gave him an electric guitar , which he learned to play Prince quickly. In his high school years he formed with his friend André Cymone several groups , including two called Champagne and Grand Central . They played at school parties and the like but Prince did not sing , considering that his voice was not fit to be presented in public. Time later prove his talent as a singer is as wide as the instrumentalist or composer . When he was 17 he met a musician named Pepe Willie , the husband of a cousin , who introduced him to the professional world and with which he made his first studio recordings . Shortly after an engineer named Chris Moon convinced him to submit their demos to some company . The cat that got the water was Warner Bros , who gave him complete artistic and creative freedom.
