In 1999, Prince sat down with CNN’s Larry King to chat about his unique worldviews and approach to creativity.

Prince didn’t often do interviews, apparently because he felt his music was more than enough of a statement, so this chat is unusual.

Not many artist were as good at branding themselves as Prince was. From the symbol that he adopted, to the colour purple that he chose – his pop star enigma fuelled media speculation without his intervention. He had a knack of just giving enough to keep his fame intriguing, but not too much so that he became too mainstream.

When referring to the writing of the song 1999, Prince recalls: “I knew there were going to be rough times for the Earth, because the system is based on entropy and it pretty much headed in a certain direction.”

It’s perhaps a shame that he didn’t do more interviews because he comes across as deeply insightful and wise, but his musical legacy will never die, which is more than enough to keep the world inspired for a while.

RIP

—

Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and others perform “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the 2004 Hall of Fame Inductions.
Prince starts his face melting solo at about three and a half minutes in.

Too rad.