REMEMBERING ROYALTY
THE legendary Prince passed away in Minnesota on April 21, 2016.
Paisley Park, where he lived and worked, welcomed back a select 1,400 fans to mark the fifth anniversary of his death from inside his creative sanctuary.
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Who was Prince?
Prince Rogers Nelson was born on June 7, 1958, and was an American singer-songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, philanthropist, dancer and record producer.
He sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time.
He won seven Grammy Awards, an American Music Award, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award for the film Purple Rain.
Prince was born in Minneapolis, and developed an interest in music as a young child.
He signed a recording contract with Warner Bros at the age of 18, and released his debut album For You in 1978.
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His 1979 album Prince went platinum, and his next three records - Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982) - continued his success, showcasing Prince's prominently sexual lyrics and blending of funk, dance, and rock music.
In 1993, while in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros, he changed his stage name to Prince logo.svg, an unpronounceable symbol also known as the "Love Symbol," and began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations.
He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998.
In 2000, he began referring to himself as Prince again.
He released 16 albums after that, including the platinum-selling Musicology (2004).
His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service on December 12, 2015.
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When did Prince die?
The musician was 57 when he died.
He was found alone and unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park home on April 21, 2016.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Purple Rain star lay dead for up to six hours before he was found by his drummer Kirk Johnson and his personal assistant Meron Berkure.
They placed a call to emergency services at 9.43am on that morning.
The newspaper reported at the time that a paramedic who responded to the emergency call confirmed to those at the scene that Prince was likely to have passed away during the night.
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How did Prince die?
Autopsy results revealed he died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl - a drug 50 times more powerful than heroin.
According to the search warrants, authorities searched Paisley Park as well as looking through the mobile phone records of Prince’s associates, and the star’s email accounts to try to determine how he got the drug.
The search warrants don’t reveal the outcome of the email searches.
But they do say that officers searching the Purple Rain singer’s home found it was littered with containers of different pills.
Some were in prescription bottles under the name of Prince’s pal Kirk Johnson.
Other bottles of pills were marked under the names of different drugs – but at least one of those tested positive for fentanyl.
In April 2018 cops announced that nobody would be charged in connection with supplying the painkillers that killed him.
Prince wows Super Bowl in 2007