The musician Prince has died, the AP reported early Thursday afternoon. He was 57.
Prince was at his recording studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota. The Carver County Sherriff's office is investigating the death.
On April 15, Prince's private plane was forced to make a landing for a medical emergency in Moline, Illinois. The reason turned out to be that Prince had the flu.
The famous musician is still best known for Purple Rain, however, at least four of his albums have sold more than two million copies. Purple Rain alone has sold over 13 million copies.
Prince's career began with his 1978 album, For You. Prince would release many more albums throughout his lengthy career and had been touring until his death.
He famously performed the halftime show at Super Bowl XLI in 2007 and did a concert in Baltimore in the wake of the unrest after the death of Freddie Gray, and performed a song he had written after Gray's death.
Prince is also well known for his name changes and behavior. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would label him as "eccentric."
One must also accept the fact that Prince is a genuine American eccentric who defiantly marches to the beat of his own funky drummer. Consider that in 1993 he changed his name from Prince to an unpronounceable cipher: a hybrid of the symbols for male and female. He was thereafter referred to (at his own suggestion) as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" or simply "The Artist."
"I follow what God tells me to do," Prince explained. "It said, ‘Change your name,’ and I changed my name to a symbol ready for Internet use before I knew anything about the Internet." In May 2000, he went back to being Prince. Although his motivations may sometimes seem mysterious, Prince is never uninteresting and always capable one more hit record or a return to stardom.
Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio in 2004.