Didn't your mama tell U life was 2 good 2 waste?

I spent my early teen years like most do, listening to Top 40 Radio. songs from 1999 were played, I liked.

When I was 13, Purple Rain came out. My friend Tammy and I snuck into see it. (It was NAUGHTY, y'all!) I had a boom box in the bathroom and listened to the cassette every morning. I had to turn the volume way down when Darling Nikki came on. It was NAUGHTY, too.

I had the advantage of having a cool older sister who was up on all the cool stuff she had Prince's older stuff on vinyl so that's how I first heard For You, Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy

Senior year in high school, I played It from Sign O' the Times over and over while programming my final project in BASIC. I'd get to the end of the song and hit rewind on my walkman in the computer lab.

In college, I got my hands on a bootleg copy of The Black Album. Not sure if I actually listened to it more than once or twice. But I had it!

For my 20th birthday, Steph took me to see Graffiti Bridge and gifted me with a bottle of Everclear. Now, that was a birthday!


That's when I became a Bad Prince Fan. The music wasn't my style. The songs on Come felt too personal, like I was reading his diary behind his back. I know he was stuck in a contract that he wanted out of.

For every time in my life there is a Prince record to go along.

Now it's time to purify myself in the waters or Lake Minnetonka.