Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 7, 1958, the son of jazz singer Mattie Della and pianist and songwriter John Lewis Nelson. He was given his father's stage name, Prince Rogers, which his father used while performing with his mother in a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio.

Prince wrote his first song, "Funk Machine", on his father's piano when he was seven.

Prince said he was "born epileptic" and had seizures when he was young. He stated, "My mother told me one day I walked into her room and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because an angel told me so.'"

Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (she's never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like
When doves cry

In 2006, Universal hid 14 purple tickets--seven in the U.S. and seven internationally--inside Prince's album, 3121. Lucky winners who found a purple ticket were flown in to attend a private performance (along with a long list of celebrities) at Prince's Los Angeles home.

He pioneered the Minneapolis sound, a funk rock subgenre with elements of synth-pop and new wave. According to the Rolling Stone Album Guide, "the Minneapolis sound ... loomed over mid-'80s R&B and pop, not to mention the next two decades' worth of electro, house, and techno."

Jackson originally envisioned "Bad" as a duet with Prince, pitting the two superstars against each other in a musical duel. Producer Quincy Jones arranged a meeting, but Prince took issue with the song's opening line, "Your butt is mine." He responded to the King of Pop by saying, "Who's singing that to whom? Because you sure ain't singing that to me--and I sure ain't singing that to you."

He became a Jehovah's Witness in 2001, following a two-year debate with bassist Larry Graham, who became his mentor and a close friend at this time. He did not consider it a conversion but a "realization", comparing it to Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix. He attended meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocked on people's doors to discuss his faith.

Sign o' the times mess with your mind
Hurry before it's too late
Let's fall in love, get married, have a baby
We'll call him Nate
If it's a boy

Paisley Park was opened to the public as a museum and memorial to Prince following his death. Before his death, he had intended to establish Paisley Park as a public venue like Graceland.