Prince Rogers Nelson, born June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, was a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, and one of the most influential musicians of the last 50 years. He signed to Warner Bros. as a teenager with full creative control, played nearly every instrument on his early albums, and released Dirty Mind, Controversy and 1999 before Purple Rain in 1984, which topped the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks and won him an Academy Award for its accompanying film. Sign o' the Times, Batman and Diamonds and Pearls followed. He changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in 1993 during a long public fight with Warner over ownership of his masters, an argument the industry is still having. He died at Paisley Park on April 21, 2016. His catalog remains one of the most sampled in hip-hop and R&B.