Prince Rogers Nelson Online Memorial: Forever Loved and Remembered

Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 7, 1958, to jazz singer Mattie Della Shaw and pianist-songwriter John L. From childhood he showed rare musical instinct, learning piano, guitar, and drums and writing his first song while still young.

He emerged from Minneapolis with a sound that blended funk, soul, rock, pop, R&B, new wave, gospel, and jazz into something unmistakably his own.

Across a career that stretched from the late 1970s to 2016, Prince became known as a singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, dancer, actor, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist who often performed many parts on his own recordings. His breakthrough widened through albums such as 1999 and Purple Rain, the latter paired with the film that made him a global star and earned him an Academy Award.

Songs including When Doves Cry, Let's Go Crazy, Purple Rain, Kiss, Raspberry Beret, Sign o' the Times, and many others became part of popular music's shared language.

He also wrote and produced for other artists, built the Paisley Park creative complex, and supported musicians around him through bands and collaborations including the Revolution, the New Power Generation, and 3RDEYEGIRL. Prince's public life was marked by intensity, reinvention, and a fierce commitment to creative control.

His dispute with Warner Bros. over ownership and release rights made him a lasting symbol of artist independence, and his temporary use of the Love Symbol reflected both protest and self-definition.

In 2004 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his lifetime honors included seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, and later recognition in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Prince died at Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minnesota, on April 21, 2016.

He is remembered as one of the most gifted and original popular musicians of his generation, an artist whose work invited listeners to dance, question, feel, and imagine more freely.