Minneapolis Remembers Prince: "The Personification of Cool"

Fans at First Avenue / Photos by Zoe Prinds-Flash

Yesterday, Minneapolis lost its favorite son.

The news of Prince’s death in Paisley Park, like David Bowie’s death a few months ago, was not entirely shocking—there had been rumors of ill health in recent weeks. But the news still hit the world hard, and nowhere more than in the Twin Cities.

Prince was a musical quadruple threat—a skilled singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and dancer—but he was so much more than those words suggest, too. At various times in his life, he was a proud gender bender, a Republican, an enemy of the PMRC, a Jehovah’s Witness, and a guy with no name who wrote the word “slave” on his face.

He was also a Minnesotan. In 1996, Prince was asked on Oprah why he chose to live in Minneapolis. “The cold keeps the bad people out,” he said. At First Avenue and Seventh Street in downtown Minneapolis last night, the streets were closed quickly for an impromptu tribute concert that lasted until morning. Thousands of people showed up, filling up blocks of the downtown surrounding the city’s storied venue First Avenue. Local artists like Lizzo played on an outdoor stage that could barely be made out through the throng.

Under normal circumstances, there was no way anyone could put together a concert and shut down a block downtown within a few hours. But the death of Prince was a special occasion that even city officials understood needed to be celebrated, that transcended earthly laws and ordinances.

First Avenue is, of course, the legendary venue where all the concert scenes in Purple Rain were filmed, making it a natural gathering place. Its outside walls are covered with painted silver stars with the names of famous artists who have performed at the venue. A massive shrine was erected in front of the Prince star, and over the course of the night, thousands made a pilgrimage to pay tribute to Prince. Many wore purple or brought purple flowers. There were photos, messages, even guitars offered in tribute. Some lit incense, and some prayed.

One of those purple pilgrims was Michele, who stood by the shrine talking to Prince fans for hours, bedecked in a purple scarf. “I’m a music fan, but I’m an instrumental music fan, because I have a hearing impairment. So Prince’s music, I could always hear it,” she told me, holding back tears.

“I’ve only been within five feet of him probably three or four times, and only spoke to him once,” she said, like it’s no big deal. Michele had a number of stories about the Purple One and attending his special Paisley Park concerts. Though it may seem crazy to outsiders, if you grew up in Minneapolis, chances are you have at least one or two stories like this, too. While it’s a popular conception that Prince is aloof and unapproachable, Michele related a different story of a man who listened to criticism seriously from his fans: “I was mad at him when he had a show at the Myth a few years back. It was 200 dollars. And I Facebooked him. And I said ‘you know what, you’re really out of it, you want to come home and charge us the way you charge everybody else.’”

“I got a Facebook from them saying, ‘we’ll get you in. Just come. Just show up.’” Michele could not attend the show that night, but still remembers that act of generosity.

Dene, a middle-aged man who talked about living in Haight-Ashbury in the height of the late 60s hippie movement, remembered Prince for other reasons. At the tribute, he wore a wide-brimmed hat with tasteful purple trim and a purple boutonniere. A fan of loud, psychedelic guitar playing, Dene considered Prince to be the ultra. He compared Prince to Carlos Santana. “I’ll tell you, when Santana hit the scene, there was something that happened about music and percussion that really exploded across the country, and Prince did the same thing. He rippled through America,” he said.

He started talking about Prince’s guitar solo in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which was performed with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and others at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: “He’s humbly in the background, and then he’s just… the personification of cool. He can’t help it. Fuckin’ blew everybody’s mind!”

Throughout the night I heard dozens of stories about Prince’s kindness, love of his fans, and his love for Minnesota in particular. Minneapolitans repeatedly pointed out that Prince, unlike fellow hometown hero Bob Dylan, never left. Others were happy to admit they conceived their children to Prince tunes. Many described him as the key figure in their sexual awakening. A fair amount of people claimed to know him personally or called him a “family friend.” I asked around to have people name their favorite Prince jams, and surprisingly, the most common answer was “I Would Die 4 U.” Perhaps it was the spirit of the occasion.

Even those few who were not there to celebrate Prince’s life were happy to talk about him and his legacy. One couple had come to see Corey Taylor, lead singer of Slipknot, who had the luck of performing at First Avenue on this night of all nights. They told me Taylor began his show with a cover of “Purple Rain”: Even the punks and metalheads here by coincidence understood the importance of this loss.

Purple Rain, both the film and the album, loom particularly large in the Minneapolitan imagination. Those old enough still remember when the movie came out and how amazing it was to see their city captured accurately on film.

“I watched his movie over and over again and can cite it word for word. And now all my kids love ‘em,” said Tanya, a mother who attended the tribute with three of her daughters. She had extensive history attending Prince’s special Paisley Park shows and spoke fondly of them.

"The first time I had actually seen him—they laugh at me because I still have a glass he sipped from wrapped in saran wrap. And I took a drink of it, and it was just coke. No alcohol in it, he wasn't a drinker. But I kept it with a straw, still wrapped up." One of her daughters told me about being ten years old at Paisley Park and being asked by Prince to come dance onstage, but she was too scared. She still regrets that.

Her mom continued: “Her little brother was five then—his dream was to meet Prince. So we took him to a private concert after the concert out of Paisley. And Prince didn’t come out until two in the morning. By then he had fallen asleep. And in the back of the room was a stage that was up high that had a couch on it. We were sitting up there when Prince and his wife came, so we got up, and my son is laying on the floor, sleeping. So his wife took her coat and laid it over him, and then Prince got up and was just dancing over the top of him. And he never woke up.”

Then there were those who remembered Prince in his pre-fame years, when he was known around Central High School as “Roger,” a shy kid in a green army jacket who liked to play a guitar under a tree during lunch. Everyone in Minneapolis knows someone who went to school with Prince.

I talked to Robert, a chef in his early 50s who has many memories of Prince and the late 70s scene. “As kids we used to go to the Roller Gardens—Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Prince, everyone went out there. And just like when he made Purple Rain—the escalator in there where he’s playing around with Apollonia—that was the heart of Minneapolis. That was where everyone got their jellybean shoes, and all the rest of that. When Hennepin Avenue was the happening spot.”

Robert mentioned a tribute gig that Prince put on for his bodyguard Chickie at Rupert’s American Café. Robert was working there, making chicken for Prince. “Instantly, my family knew I worked there: ‘oh man can we get tickets’? There ain’t no tickets for me, I’m just cooking, you know.”

This was the second time I heard about this tribute to Chickie from a completely different person. Talking about Prince with his fans feels a bit like the film Rashomon: Everyone has seen the man, and everyone has a story, but those true stories are often embellished through the haze of myth and the excitement of seeing a living legend.

“I’m pretty sure I saw him do karaoke one night,” said Tony, who is not a big Prince guy but was there with his wife Randi, a huge fan. Really? I asked, amazed. He told me: “In North Brooklyn Center. I worked at Coyote Grill, right across the street from Denny’s, and they did karaoke Thursday nights. And this guy walked in—it could have been him. And he got up and sang ‘Little Red Corvette.’ I’ll never fucking forget it. He finished his cocktail and left. That’s it.”

And it was really him? Was he really short? “It was either him or someone who really wanted to be him.”

Stories like this, which I heard over and over, reinforce how much Prince was tied into not only Minneapolis history but also its mythology. He was not just a local celebrity; he was a folk hero. And such was his allure and mystique that when people did see him, they often did not believe it.

Though it was a sad occasion, and many came to the shrine in tears, the overall tone and feeling at the block party was not sadness. Prince’s music was too bright and danceable for people to just stand and cry. They didn’t want to mourn his death; they wanted to celebrate his life.

Towards the end of the night, I asked another huge Prince fan, Nadine, to explain why his death is so important. Nadine was there because she felt she needed to be; she had work the next day but said she didn’t care. She told me: “He died where he was born and raised. I’m telling you, I’m so proud to be a Minnesotan right now. So proud.”

I asked her to describe Prince in two words. Nadine responded: “Loyalty. And Excellence.”

Update: A previous version of this article misstated Prince's high school. It was Central, not South.

Zoe Prinds-Flash is a photographer based in Minneapolis. Follow her on Instagram.

Nathan Sacks's favorite Prince song is "Pop Life." Follow him on Twitter.