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Prince is a singer, actor, and composer who hit it big in the 1980s with 1999 and Purple Rain, the latter also a film starring Prince.

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Born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, Prince, who later changed his name four times, released Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), and Controversy (1981) early in his career, each of which attracted increasing controversy with their tendency to mix religious and sexual themes. Later came 1999 and Purple Rain, cementing his superstar status.

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Singer, composer. Born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Named after the Prince Roger Trio, a jazz band in which his father was a pianist, he was signed to Warner Brother Records as a teenager, and released For You in 1978. Subsequent albums included Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), and Controversy (1981), which attracted increasing controversy with their tendency to mix religious and overtly sexual themes.

International success followed the release of 1999 (1982), the film and album Purple Rain (1984), and Batman (1989), which confirmed him as one of America's most commercially successful pop artists.

Prince is said to be a perfectionist who is highly protective of his music. He writes, composes and produces the majority of his music himself and plays most of the instruments on his albums. He changed his name to the unpronounceable glyph O(+> from 1993 to 2000.

In 2004, after several years of relative obscurity, Prince returned to the limelight to perform at the Grammy Awards with Beyonce Knowles. That spring, he released Musicology with a tour that became the top concert draw in the U.S. The album won two Grammys. His next album, 3121, was released in 2006. That year, he wrote and performed "Song of the Heart" for the animated film Happy Feet, which won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

 

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