The artist formerly known as Prince has a new wife, new baby and a new attitude - Interview - Cover Story

Ebony, Jan, 1997 by Lynn Norment

Mayte joined his New Power Generation band as a dancer and singer, but the relationship started out as platonic. "Mayte has been my best friend for years and years; she is the, only person who showed me no malice," he says, adding that it was as though he was engulfed by a universal knowledge or awareness. "That was when I realized that I was in love with her, with everything about her, in love with the process itself. Somebody discovered this thing [love]; whoever did was a genius. I fell on my knees and said `thank you' [to God].

"At that point I decided that I did not really ever want to be him [Prince] again," he explains. "The human body will trap you. It is egotistical, flawed. I did not want to go back. Mayte helped me to understand some things."

One of those things is that while growing up in Minneapolis, his nickname friends never called him Prince. "Prince [Rogers Nelson] is on my birth certificate," says the Artist. "My father wanted me to be a star, so he named me Prince. He was a musician. I've distance not feel right about the name Prince mayte never called me Prince. She just didn't use it. Her soul knew."

In 1978, Prince released his first recording, For you. As a singer musician songwriter, performer, actor dancer and fashion icon, the entertainer quickly established himself as one of the most creative and genuinely talented artist of his generation. He attained commercial and artistic heights with Dirty Mind (1980), 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984) and Sign O' The Times (1987). His popularity crossed cultural add racial lines and encompassed fans of all music genres.

He was recognized for his wizardry on guitar, piano and keyboards and for playing all instruments on his recordings, as he did with Emancipation. Prince also was noted for sensuous lyrics and outrageous on stage. He was known as an eccentric artist who maintained an air of mystique and kept company with beautiful women.

In the late '80s, the Artist asserts that Warner Brothers helped him to build Paisley Park studios. By 1990 he began to resent not being in total control of his career. In 1993 the Artist announced that he no longer should be called Prince, that the hieroglyph is now his name. In addition, the Artist often appeared in public with the word `slave' scrawled across his face. His fans complained that recent recordings were not the caliber of music they had grown to love and expect. The artist also limited live performances, much to the frustration of his devotees.

However, all of that "chaos and disorder," the title of his last Warner Brothers record released in July 1996, are now gone, and harmony and peace prevail in the Artist's personal life as we as in his career. With the guidance of talented Black entertainment attorney Londell McMillan of New York, & was able to negotiate his way out of the deal with Warner Brothers and into a position of strength and independence in the recording industry. "My personal goal was to wipe slave, off his face," says McMillan.