Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums, he toured frequently, produced albums and wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he has released, Prince has shown remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, Princes' music can be maddeningly inconsistent because of this eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeed; no other contemporary artist can blend so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.

A virtual one-man band, Prince sculpted and created the Minneapolis Sound through his keyboards, screeching, almost pleading, vocals, erotic live shows and explicit sexual lyrics. Named after his father's jazz band, the Prince Rogers Band, Prince Rogers Nelson had music in his blood from birth. When Princes' parents divorced his father left his piano behind, and at the age of seven, Prince began mimicking television themes on the keys.

As a teenager, Prince ran away from home, moved in with a friend, formed a band and taught himself how to play bass, guitar and drums. By the age of 18, Prince had recorded several demos, and by 19, he had struck an amazing deal with Warner Records, one unheard of by an unknown; the artist, dubbed a prodigy, was not only given a six-figure, several-album contract, but also an inordinate amount of freedom--as a songwriter, musician and producer.

In 1977, Prince became the youngest producer in Warner history. Not too surprising, Prince's debut, For You, in 1978, was over budget and over-ambitious (he played a reported 23 different instruments on the record).

The artist, soon to be known as The Artist, released album after album over the next 12 years, but none that had the impact of his earlier efforts, except perhaps the single Kiss in 1986 and Sign O' The Times in 1987. Although many of these records achieved some success and he continued to play major arenas to screaming audiences, his eccentricities and self-indulgence ultimately alienated him from U.S. fans.

During that decade-plus, Prince went through numerous stylistic phases--even experimenting with the psychedelic on Around The World In A Day, starred in a movie that flopped, opened his own studio and record label (Paisley Park), fired the Revolution, hired the New Power Generation, made a another movie that flopped and a concert-type film, opened a club, grew his hair long, cut his hair short, and changed his name to a symbol.

Through it all, His Royal Badness has remained a royal mystery--until his triple CD Emancipation in 1996, The Artist granted extensive interviews (most notably with Oprah Winfrey), no doubt in promotion of his new music, which Prince released after getting out of his long-term Warner Bros. deal. Prince released not one but two albums on his own in 1998, Crystal Ball and New Power Soul.