American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and actor.
He was known mononymously as
Prince. From 1994 to 2000 he used an unpronounceable symbol as name referred by others as
The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince).
The son of
John L. Nelson and Matti Della Shaw was born on June 7th 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Two years later his sister
Tyka Nelson was born.
In 1976, he started work on a demo tape with producer
Chris Moon in a Minneapolis studio. Prince also had the patronage of
Owen R. Husney (of
The High Spirits), to whom Moon introduced him, a connection that helped him produce a high-quality demo recording. Husney started contacting major labels and ran a campaign promoting Prince as a star of the future, resulting in a bidding war eventually won by [l1000] as they were the only label to offer Prince creative control of his songs.
He was married to
Mayte (from 1996 to 2000) and to
Manuela Testolini (from 2001 2006). On 21 April 2016 Prince passed away at [l269869].