Prince Rogers Nelson was a rule-breaker, a hit-maker and an all-round musical legend. The diminutive musician with the towering genius defied categorisation and his overt sexuality, lyrical genius and maverick attitude collided to create an enigma of epic proportions, the likes of which will never be seen again.

His musical artistry is without question, from seamlessly blending jazz, soul, funk, rock and pop with abandon to his staggering vocal capacity that ranged from the guttural to the sublime, he was an almost offensively talented visionary who made no apologies for who he was. His influence as an artist and as a man was far-reaching, a provocative figure who, throughout his career spanning four decades, ruffled more than a few feathers. It is with a heavy heart that we bid farewell to the dazzling showman who charted his own course and enriched so many with his music and his personality.

MUSIC

Warner Bros

Prince’s pioneering case against Warner Brothers in 1993 saw the musician scrawl the word ‘slave’ on to his face and adopt a symbol in place of his name as he fought for financial and creative control of his music. The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (TAFKAP) refused to be cowed and fulfilled his contract reluctantly but thanks to his action against the juggernaut record company, future artists have been able to negotiate more autonomy in their record contracts.

Taylor Swift

Taking a stand against what he saw as the strangulation of artists by record companies and corporations, in 2007 Prince took on Pirate Bay, YouTube and Ebay for illegal use of his music. In 2015, he went on to remove most of his back catalogue from all streaming sites except Jay Z’s Tidal, arguing that it was virtually impossible for artists to profit from the new modes of music sharing. This move blazed the trail for Taylor Swift to pen her open letter to Apple and to sever her ties with Spotify.

Collaborations

From mentoring, producing and composing to performing duets, Prince was generous with his spotlight and paired with hundreds of other artists to ramp up their voltage. In 2007, Amy Winehouse made him weep after storming the stage in London for an impromptu rendition of her hit Love Is A Losing Game, while his medley of hits performed with Beyonce at the 2004 Grammys was an electric affair with Prince stealing the show from Queen B. Even if you are not a card-carrying fan, you’d be hard pressed not to recognise the thump of Tom Jones’ Kiss or the elegiacal strains of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compare 2 U, such is the reach of Prince’s genius.

Musical influence

Stevie Nicks, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake are just some of the artists who have openly cited prince’s majesty and musical manipulations as a source of inspiration. On the day of Prince’s death, Noel Gallagher, playing at The Hydro in Glasgow, paid tribute to the star by dedicating Oasis’ Live Forever to him. He later performed a rousing rendition of Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy to the home-grown crowd.

CULTURE

Gender

Along with his genre-bending tendencies, Prince embraced a fluid gender identity that showed him to be unconcerned with the rigid constructs of sexuality, race and gender. Nodding to public perception in the lyrics to Controversy in 1981, the non-comformist sang, ‘I just can’t believe/All the things people say, controversy/Am I black or White?/Am I straight or gay? Controversy’. His opener to the 1984 song I Would Die 4 U further cemented the ambiguity: ‘I’m not a woman/I’m not a man/I am something that you’ll never understand’.

Purple Rain

The track that has most permeated popular culture is Purple Rain, a soulful blend of pop, gospel and rock taken from the soundtrack of his filmic offering of the same name. The semi-autobiographical tour-de-force became a cult classic, winning him an Oscar and smashing box office expectations despite being largely panned by the critics. The popularity of the film spawned a DC Comics spin-off with Prince immortalised in print as a gang-busting, motorcycle-straddling superhero.

Feminism

From his collaborations to his backing band, Prince was an equal opportunities proponent who surrounded himself with women, nurturing and celebrating their talent. He challenged gender stereotypes and empowered women through his music and shared what can be seen as typically feminist ideals, even using a blend of the two astrological symbols for male and female as his name during his TAFKAP phase. Blisteringly sexy, the lyrics of his songs Gett Off, Head and The Continental showed him to be a one-man sexual revolution promoting female sexuality and pleasure without reducing women to mere objects of his fantasy.

WOMEN

Carmen Electra

Meeting Tara Leigh Patrick at an audition, Prince spotted her potential for greatness but not without a swift name change, and thus Carmen Electra was born. Soon she was his mentee and girlfriend and under his tutelage she enjoyed a short-lived pop career but didn’t quite make the cut for lasting musical stardom.

Kim Basinger

The eighties saw Prince step out with rising star Kim Basinger, whom he met on the set of Batman when writing the soundtrack. So enamoured with her, he featured her on his 1989 track The Scandalous Sex Suite, where it has been rumoured that her climactic backing moans are the real deal.

Sheena Easton

Bellshill native Sheena Easton featured on Prince’s bolshy, percussion heavy 1987 hit U Got the Look. Rumoured to have been dating, the Scots-born singer holds her own in the sexy refrains, and went on to record the Prince-composed single Sugar Walls, prompting Tipper Gore to campaign for warning labels on albums due to its suggestive lyrics.

Mayte Garcia

Mayte Garcia, a professional dancer, met Prince at 17 after her mother sent him a video of her performing. She joined his tour and shortly after they became lovers, tying the knot when Garcia was 22. She features heavily on his albums throughout the nineties and his tender love song The Most Beautiful Girl in the World is a paean to the women who was his first wife and the mother of his only child, a son who died at a week old.

STYLE

Androgyny

Standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow binary-smashing peers, Bowie and Iggy Pop, Prince championed the androgynous look, donning heels, makeup and flamboyant threads in his very own signature style. Despite his rejection of traditional codes of dress, his ease in his own masculinity and his unquestionable sexiness was never minimised by the ruffles and the sequinned jumpsuits.

Fashion

Channelling the Romantics during his Purple Rain era in the look that launched a thousand fancy-dress costumes, Prince favoured fashion whose roots lay in a more feminine aesthetic. His extensive wardrobe was often tailored to his compact frame but he was frequently spotted front row and in 2007 he performed on Matthew Williamson’s London Fashion Week catwalk leaving the audience and the designer awestruck at more than just his sartorial fluency.

Nudity

Never shy of baring his body, particularly in the early stages of his career (who could forget the military coat, high-cut briefs combo on the cover of Dirty Mind), Prince appeared in all his glory on the cover of his 1998 album, Lovesexy. Reclining on a bed of lilies, a phallic stamen directed towards him, Prince employs his nakedness to cement his status as the foremost pusher of the pleasures of the flesh and to show that even nudity can be a fashion statement when worn by him.

Cane

While his love of heels elevated his physical stature and added to his fashion flair they may have taken their toll on his hips, with speculation rife that the his purple funkiness refused surgery due to his Jehovah’s Witness’ faith. Sporting a jaunty cane intermittently since the early 1990s, he was spied with a jewel-bedecked walking stick keeping him company at the Grammy Awards, the French Open and the Golden Globes in recent years.