‘To me, he was a new version of Sly Stone’

George Clinton, singer and leader of Parliament-Funkadelic

It feels deep that Prince has been gone 10 years. When he died, it felt like I couldn’t even move my mouth, but I’m able to talk about it now. I first met him when he came to my show in 1977, when he was 19. He had the swagger and looked like he was in [Clinton’s band] Funkadelic. To me, he was a new version of Sly Stone. He was excellent on the guitar, could write on keyboards, and play bass and drums as good as hell. His [pianist] daddy had been an arranger, so he knew how to arrange music, and he could dance like James Brown. As a rock star he was perfect, but he was more than a musician. He was special.

I took his music to a pirate radio DJ in Detroit who broke all our records [to the public] and, years later, Prince returned the favour when he signed me to Paisley Park Records and inducted me into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After we made music together, we started hanging out. Prince would call me at all hours. He’d never go to sleep. I’d go: “I’m the one on drugs, you ain’t!” But he’d ask me to come over in the middle of the night, and we’d just talk. He loved to hear my stories about the old days, meeting people like Mavis Staples, Sam Cooke or Jimi Hendrix. He’d go: “I never met nobody.” But once you were tight with him, you were tight for years.

He was always asking me how I could get away from the venue after a concert finished, because he couldn’t get out. The last time I saw him playing in London with 3rd Eye Girl, two years before he passed, he yelled, “My friend George Clinton, on the balcony!” at the end. The spotlight fell on me and while everyone was looking up he snuck out, leaving me with all his fans.

‘He hummed When Doves Cry into my answerphone’

Apollonia Kotero, actor in Purple Rain; singer, Apollonia 6

The past 10 years have been extremely difficult. Prince and I were not just collaborators, but family. We never dated, but maintained love and respect for 33 years. He enabled me to have a platform in the music industry [in Apollonia 6]; to walk the red carpet at the Oscars. Prince could be a tyrant, but he brought out the best in you.

Doing [1984 film] Purple Rain we worked six, maybe seven days a week. I had to jump into a freezing lake and ended up with hypothermia. Everything was fading to black and Prince was horrified and crying, saying: “Please don’t die, Apple. I love you.” And he brought me back to the light. Then I got sick and slept with him in the same bed. I thought he had other intentions, but he wanted to take care of me. He was an absolute gentleman. I’d wake and hear him in the studio and creep in, in my pyjamas. One time, he hummed the initial melody for When Doves Cry into my answerphone – saying, “Don’t erase this!” – so he’d remember it.

He was a sponge for literature and politics, a student of life. He’d show up at my house at 3am: “What are you doing?” It’s 3am! What do you think I’m doing!? But I’d grab a coat and we’d go for a ride all over Hollywood listening to what he’d just recorded, or look at the Hollywood stars [on the Walk of Fame] and fantasise about having our handprints together.

When we got to know each other I found the vulnerable side of him and the fears he had. In later years he became more of a recluse and had difficulty trusting. He’d say, “I don’t have a cell phone because I’m allergic to lithium,” and became harder to get hold of. Then, in 2014, he called to say he’d got the rights to his music back and was so happy. He started correcting his mistakes in life and doing right by people: helping financially, paying hospital bills. He was very upset when Vanity [Vanity 6 singer Denise Matthews] died – he adored her, she was his mirror image – and at her memorial I saw a difference in his physique that made me nervous. I asked how he was feeling and eventually he said: “Well, some people say I look too thin.” It looked like his zest for life was being dimmed. This was six weeks before he passed. We hugged. I said: “I love you.” He said, “I love you too” – and those were our last words to each other.

‘He couldn’t wait to show me his room full of fan mail’

Charles ‘Chazz’ Smith, cousin and original drummer in Grand Central

It seems only yesterday that we were kids and went to see Sly and the Family Stone playing at the Parade stadium, Minneapolis. We didn’t have tickets, but they tore the fence down so we ran in and ended up on the front row, with Sly looking down on us. After that, Prince said: “We’re gonna form a band, and you’re gonna be the drummer.” He had an upright piano in his basement and a TV in the wall, and we’d play TV themes such as The Man from UNCLE. Two weeks later his dad got him a guitar and the next day he came back playing Black Magic Woman by Santana, note for note. He was obsessed with being great at guitar, writing songs, playing rock, funk, ballads, everything.

We’d practise for hours then cut each other down about how ragged or tight it was. Then we’d go play basketball. Prince could probably have played professionally if he’d wanted to but it was always music foremost. He studied all the badass players and at the local jams he burned everybody. We’d play on our bikes and gaze at the stars and he’d go: “I’m gonna be up there one day.” Girls all thought Prince was cute but he was shy and sensitive, romantic, a flowers and Valentine cards type. When he got famous he was flabbergasted that girls would drive all the way from places like Detroit to park outside his house, but he couldn’t wait to show me his room full of fan mail.

I’m really happy with what he was able to accomplish, but I’m also sad because if he’d had a regular life he may still be here today. What if he didn’t have to take the whole world on from day one, or fight the record industry for the freedom to be himself? From the 18-hour recording sessions to the dancing, he pushed himself to the absolute limit and I don’t think you ever get over losing a child [Amiir Nelson, with first wife Mayte Garcia, who died from Pfeiffer syndrome type 2 at six days old]. He had a lot on his shoulders for a very long time. People are gonna talk about the great things he did for a very long time, but there was a lot of heartbreak.

‘He understood what it felt like to be a misfit’

André Cymone, childhood best friend and bandmate

It really doesn’t feel like 10 years. Sometimes it hits me harder than others. My wife and I were in Tucson recently and suddenly in an alley there was a big mural of him. It’s just so weird because I think: this is my childhood friend. We grew up eating bowls of cereal together.

We met in junior high, talked about music and wound up jamming. Then Prince turned up on my mother’s doorstep and lived with us for seven years. His parents had split up and so had mine. He didn’t talk much – you could put Prince in a headlock and you’d maybe squeeze three words out of him – but nobody understood me as an individual like he did. We realised that our fathers had played in the same band and wanted to blow them out of the water. We were brothers in the truest sense; it was a beautiful friendship and we pushed each other. Everything was a competition: music, dancing, basketball, girls. We started the band Grand Central in the cellar. Because we were in Minneapolis we’d listen to stuff from the west coast and the east coast – funk, rock, pop, jazz, avant garde – and kinda filtered it into a unique amalgamation. I played with him until after the Dirty Mind tour, by which point he’d found his own lane, which he did exquisitely.

He understood what it felt like to be a misfit and wanted to speak to misfits around the world: straight, gay, Black, white, Puerto Rican, whatever. He had more than his share of female relationships but was bold enough to think outside the box in ways most artists wouldn’t touch because they felt it would challenge their masculinity. So he’d write songs such as If I Was Your Girlfriend. He’d say to me: “I don’t want to specify whether I’m talking to a girl or a man. I want people to wonder. To create a mystery.” He wanted people to join his philosophical army and feel like they had an artist who spoke to them.

After he became famous it was like being in a Pink Panther movie. I’d be driving, a limo would pull up and a guy inside would say, “Prince wants to see you,” and give me cryptic instructions like: “Go down a tunnel, knock on the door and you’ll be escorted inside by two blonds.” I’d think: why can’t he just ring me?! But when he invited me to hear the Sign o’ the Times album it blew me away. I knew what The Ballad of Dorothy Parker was about: after our first gig in New York, when Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol came to see us, we’d had a rendezvous with a couple of very famous female singers, but wound up getting kicked out of the apartment.

He gave so much for so many years. Diving off huge stage platforms in platform shoes took a toll on his body. On the last tour – when it was just him, a piano and a microphone – I think he was channelling his father, still giving all he could but on his own terms. His death doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m so proud of what he achieved. He deserves to be remembered like Picasso or Van Gogh; he left a lot of treasures.

‘He never made a move on me. But goddammit, I would have!’

Mica Paris, singer and collaborator

When I was 14, I used to hide my Prince albums under the bed from my grandparents, because on the cover of Dirty Mind he was wearing stockings. My sister would say: “Why do you like this guy? He’s a freak.” But there was something about him.

Then, when I was making my first album, I got the golden ticket to see him at Camden Palace in London. Mickey Rourke, Ronnie Wood and Bono were all there, but I was in the second row. Prince was mesmerising. Then he suddenly stopped, looked at me and said: “Don’t you sing?” I’ve no idea how he knew that, but he handed me the microphone. Before I knew it, he wanted to write a song for me and sent four over. When we recorded If I Love U 2 Nite in Paisley Park, this beautiful complex, he came in at 4am with coffee and cream. The next thing I knew he was playing me all these amazing tracks from the vault and asking my opinion: me, from south London. It wasn’t insecurity; he just needed validation, because he was constantly trying to better himself.

After that, he’d call me whenever he was in London. I couldn’t believe I got to spend so much time with him. We used to hang at his [merch] shop in Camden, or go to Stringfellows or Cafe de Paris, but be the only people there. I didn’t understand the relationship and would take my sister, but I think he just liked being around strong women and I loved being with him. Recently, my mate reminded me that when he first came over I said: “Who’s gonna wash your clothes while you’re here?” Can you imagine! I said that to Prince! But maybe he liked that. He never made a move on me. I’m not promiscuous at all but goddammit, I would have! He was incredibly sexy and had this aura.

He was such an observer. He never said much, which people misunderstood for arrogance. He was just very thoughtful and wanted to make sure every word was correct. We got on like a house on fire despite his very few words and just being with him in near silence was wonderful. In 2014, I hadn’t seen him for a few years and then I got a call asking me to see him at Koko – the old Camden Palace – when he did some club shows. I’d never seen him look so frail, because he was always very muscular. A couple of nights before he died, I had a dream where he was pulling a curtain back and smiling. I think he was saying goodbye.

‘He was more comfortable with 10,000 people than five’

Owen Husney, Prince’s first manager

I was 10 years older than Prince, so I was supposed to go first – but in my quietest moments, I didn’t picture him being an 80-year-old limping up to get the lifetime achievement award. Once you’ve been the youngest, cutest, brightest, most talented meteor in the sky, that would be very hard to take. In 1976, when I heard his four-song demo tape, it captured me right away because it was different. Then I found out he was 18 years old, writing everything, singing and playing all the instruments. A kid who in the beginning couldn’t even afford the right clothes, but made them look great nonetheless.

Somebody once asked me at dinner: “Do you think Prince was supernatural?” Everybody laughed, but supernatural can also mean someone who is so gifted he can do things 99% of people cannot do; so yes, he was. He only had a high-school education but could grasp concepts, then demand his own way. He was able to say to Warner Brothers: “I will produce my own album.” He had that incredible self-confidence, but his falsetto had a vulnerability that just melted into you.

He was a shy guy, more comfortable with 10,000 people in a room than five. My job was implementing his genius. I remember a serious conversation about the word “controversy”. Some of Prince’s lyrics and early outfits were outrageous, but you need talent to back that up. He sang about sexuality, gender; identified people’s issues and made them feel OK. People have told me he saved them from being suicidal. His sexuality seemed heterosexual but he was certainly in touch with his female side. In private, he was such a prankster. Once, in LA, he bought a fake hand, wedged it in a bus door as it was driving off and went: “My hand! My hand!” People never saw that stuff because, even before he was famous, he didn’t want his fans to see him doing “normal” things. He could see so far ahead and knew where he was going.

‘Sometimes I’d go over and bake him cookies’

Susan Rogers, audio engineer

I never experienced anything close to what Prince was doing in the 80s. I witnessed the birth of all the classic albums, including his masterpieces Purple Rain and Sign o’ the Times. When I joined he was on his way to becoming a superstar and I was an up-and-coming audio technician around the same age. I was a rare female in the studio world and he had a soft spot for outliers.

Prince was hypercreative. Most of us have inhibitory brakes in our nervous systems, which we can turn off to be creative – with Prince, those brakes were always off. I’d get calls in the middle of the night, or at 6am when we’d been up all night working he’d say, “Fresh tape!”, and go again. The other staff engineer at Sunset Sound would be so angry that she’d be throwing pencils, but I’d be bent over laughing because it was so ridiculous and wonderful.

He was so spontaneous and random, and the slightest thing would launch him. Once, I got a call to come to the studio as fast as I could and, on the way, picked up some wintergreen Tic Tacs. After I’d set him up to record his vocals I found him rifling through my bag. I didn’t object – it was just Tic Tacs and a toothbrush – but then the very next lyric was: “Cherry blue wintergreen / Fireworks in every scene.”

He once said: “Susan. You have no friends.” How could I have a friend when I worked for him? There was an employer-employee boundary but we worked at very close quarters for a long time and I saw a good portion of the human and liked him. He was uncomfortable in celebrity environments because he didn’t do small talk. I understood the loneliness of that kind of artistic vision. Sometimes I’d go over and bake him cookies.

Prince would give me indirect compliments. One time, I’d been awake for four days wiring something and he came in at 4am with Sheila E. He told her: “Susan is the only one who knows what I’m about.” Gosh. I haven’t thought of this for a long time, but it was his way of letting me know he recognised what it took.

‘We once made a home movie called Mommy Dearest; Prince was mommy’

Susan Moonsie, friend and Vanity 6/Apollonia 6 vocalist

My sisters met Prince first. He was interested that they could cook Trinidadian food, so asked them over to cook for him and his managers, and I was invited. He didn’t say much but had big beautiful green eyes and stared at me from across the room all night, which made me very uncomfortable. He was quiet, polite, intellectual, a real gentleman and loved the food. A year or so later I ran into him again and the rest is history.

It was great being around a genius who saw music as a calling. Creating was like breathing for him. It was amazing watching him in the studio playing all the different instruments with such passion and soul, or just at home on the piano playing a lullaby. Sundays were his fun day. There’s a picture of us rollerskating in the park [which he sang about in the song Strollin’], which was probably one of the last times he could go out without being harassed.

He always talked about putting a girl group together but I never expected to be part of it. I’d never sung professionally and had just started my degree at the University of Minnesota, but when Prince asked me to be part of Vanity 6 [later Apollonia 6] it really boosted my confidence. We were three women in lingerie saying what most women wanted to say but couldn’t, which we knew would outrage the moral majority. We were having fun.

When he put “My love to Vashti” [Moonsie’s middle name] on the sleeve of the 1999 album, I felt truly loved. I’ve been told that he wrote When Doves Cry about our relationship. He asked my opinion about the finished song, which he often did. The doves represent peace and harmony, which I guess he got from the relationship, but by then it was on and off because we wanted different things. I left the music business because I wanted a normal life. My fondest memories are from the times before he got too famous. We once made a home movie called Mommy Dearest; Prince was mommy.

‘His dressing room was off-limits to Springsteen and Madonna’

Bobby Z, drummer in Prince and the Revolution

Even after 10 years I still find myself seeing a movie and thinking: “Prince would like this.” Or I hear a joke we’d have laughed at together, because after 40 years of friendship he’s still part of the psyche of my life. I was Owen Husney’s driver when he had an ad agency, and Prince would come into the office and disrupt business by just sitting there. He was so strikingly unusual that Owen would tell me to take him out, so for seven months he came on the road with me in the station wagon while I did errands. We became friends, then I became his drummer, but the friendship was always there. To be part of an incestuous little group in Minneapolis that grew into something as famous as the pyramids is still kind of astounding, but for André Cymone and Prince, music was life and death.

Playing with Prince was the first time I’d experienced musicianship so ruthless. Amazing licks and melodies would flow like water, but he would compete against his own songs. So he wrote Electric Intercourse, which he liked, but then wrote The Beautiful Ones [which replaced it on the Purple Rain album]. Purple Rain started with the title and took a while, and I think that creative pressure created the diamond. There was a new song, a video shoot or something every single day from 1976 to the end. He’d lay down whole tracks inside three hours. You couldn’t believe what you were witnessing. In 1999, he sings “I was dreaming when I wrote this”… and songs did come to him in dreams. He was mining for them all the time, even as he slept.

He found meeting other celebrities very uncomfortable unless he was a fan. He could get bashful or embarrassed, or there could be huge stars and he just wouldn’t give them the time of day. So besides shaking Elizabeth Taylor’s hand I don’t know if he’d be interested in chatting. Once there was a hilarious moment when Bruce Springsteen and Madonna came backstage but Prince’s dressing room was off limits to them, so they had to use the band’s toilet. When he met David Bowie at Paisley Park it was a warm moment, because he felt that they were equals.

Playing with Prince was like being in the purple marines: he might toughen you up or break you down, but he’d bring you to a place you didn’t think you had. For a moment you might even turn into a superhuman like him.

‘Minneapolis was very segregated. He wanted to make music for everybody’

Matthew ‘Dr’ Fink, keyboards for Prince and the Revolution, and the New Power Generation

When we opened for the Rolling Stones quite early on, about 40% of the audience threw food, glass and whiskey bottles [at us]. I saw a fifth of whiskey fly by Prince’s head and he walked off. Mick Jagger persuaded him to do the next show, but the same thing happened. I’ve no doubt there was a racist element. Prince said: “That’s it. I’m done”– but he never said he was too scared to go on. He went: “They’re not our fans. We have our own fanbase and we will draw people in. People are gonna find us and it’ll be great.” He had such confidence and that’s exactly what happened. Minneapolis was still very segregated at the time but he wanted to make music for everybody.

When I first heard his music I asked, “Who’s the band?” On his first two albums he’s the only player, but then gradually he allowed us in. He was dead set against drug taking or drinking – and was vegan later on – and expected us to be as disciplined. I learned early on not to come to rehearsal unprepared or not learn the new song he’d recorded the day before, which you had to learn by ear. We’d rehearse for hours at a time, for months on end, but I wish I had the videos of all the stuff we did in breaks, like making funny videos or making up skits like we were an improv comedy troupe. He could be different personalities, so he could be self-deprecating or ebullient and there would be days when he would be kind of sombre and inside himself, and you didn’t know what was going on inside.

After I was out of the band, in about 1997, right after he’d lost his child, he told Oprah Winfrey about being in psychoanalysis and being told he had multiple-personality disorder. That shocked me, because he was such a private guy and was against doing interviews. From the stories Prince told me about his stepfather and everything he went through after his parents’ divorce, he was traumatised – which I think contributed to the way he poured himself into music. He was relentless. After the Purple Rain tour he told us he was taking two years off. Six months later he called to say: “I’ve made the next album. We’re gonna go again.”

‘His prowess at music and basketball stopped him being beaten up’

Candy Dulfer, saxophonist and collaborator

When I was 18, my ensemble Funky Stuff was asked to open for Prince, which was a dream come true because he was my idol. Then, during our soundcheck, a guy came up to tell us we’d been cancelled. I should have been sad, but I got mad. I wrote a card saying: “Dear Prince. You missed the chance to see a girl blow her ass off on stage.” Sheila E came out in her beautiful clothes and I gave her the card. Then, on the third night, my boyfriend had tickets and “Can Candy Dulfer come backstage?” came over the speakers. I still don’t know how they knew I was there, but I met Prince and ended up on stage. He was impressed that I had chutzpah, and that was the beginning of a beautiful time with him that, with gaps, lasted almost two decades.

He’d phone at 4am, so I’d think my gran had died or something. I was young, cute, probably very gullible, but with hindsight he was such a gentleman. He was androgynous, soft spoken and had a feminine kind of style: he wore high heels and perfume. But you knew right away he wasn’t gay. He just loved female energy. We went to a club called Bunkers and one of his old schoolfriends said: “We used to call him ‘horse head’ because it’s such a big head on small shoulders.” He must have been teased, so only his prowess at music and basketball stopped him being beaten up. Basketball was his way of saying to men: “I may wear high heels, but don’t mess with me.”

Later on, I really got to know him. He’d lost his child, gone through a divorce and lawsuits with the industry, so the band wanted to make him happy. From 2001-2003 was the happiest he’d been in a long time. After he became a strict Jehovah’s Witness out of the blue, he told me: “I had to go really heavy into this religion because otherwise I would have bought a gun and killed myself and the people around me.” It was so heavy, and I said: “I get it that you need something.”

The Musicology tour was beautiful, but then we did some gig at a casino in Atlanta and he slipped and broke his hip. He should have had a hip operation, but as a Witness he wasn’t allowed to, so that’s probably when the painkillers started. I think being in constant pain does something to your mind. He became moody and sometimes not so nice. When drummer John Blackwell’s two-year-old daughter drowned in the pool at home, instead of us all crying and cancelling everything, he cancelled just one or two shows. At the time I thought that was amazingly mean, but I now understand it was tough love, to help us all get back on our feet again.

When Prince passed, I hadn’t seen him in the flesh for 11 years – but my drummer friend Kirk [Johnson] was caring for him in the end and found him [dead] in the elevator. It’s so painful that we only ever cry together. Despite Prince’s darker moments, which we all have, I still love him. The big shows don’t mean nearly as much to me as the human moments. He loved my mother, and would pay thousands of dollars to fly her business class to be on tour with us. When I was tired of watching the videos of the show back every night, my mom would go, “I’ll watch it with him” – and they’d sit and talk for hours.

He loved family and I think was missing a real family. This is going to make me cry, but once when I was being modest or critical about my playing he said: “Stop doing that, because you’re not just putting yourself down, you’re putting your family down.”

‘When we first met, it was like looking into a mirror’

Sananda Maitreya (formerly Terence Trent D’Arby), singer and friend

Prince came out when I was starting high school and I immediately felt an incredible connection beyond the music. He represented diversity, and understood that you didn’t have to choose between James Brown or the Rolling Stones, Funkadelic or the Beatles. I was leaving Jacksonville to be shipped to the military when I saw him on the cover of Rolling Stone. It felt like a victory: you can be who you really are and then bring it to the music.

When I was making my first album he became aware that this new artist was being compared to him and got in touch asking to hear my demos, but I was never gonna out-Prince Prince. When we first met after he came to one of my concerts, it was like looking into a mirror and seeing myself from a different angle. I remember kissing him on the forehead. I had such immense respect for him. He was funny, insightful, a joy to be around, very much an alpha male. I was in awe of him and found myself deferring too much, but I saw him like my big twin brother and I was all ears. He was like a missionary, a wizard, a mesmerising figure. He was surprisingly deep in philosophical and spiritual outlook and didn’t suffer fools. He could see beyond the normal dimensions.

I didn’t have the compulsion to be in the studio all the time like he was, but I think he understood the urgency of his timeline: to get as much work done as possible. After he died, the piano instrumental I titled Prince just came to me. I pictured him in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, in a big coat covered with stickers like luggage – London, Paris, Berlin, Monte Carlo – because, to me, as an artist he was a traveller, who brought all these experiences and left a portion of himself. When Doves Cry sounds as revolutionary today as it did when he dropped it.

‘He told me he didn’t want to live past 35’

LeRoy Bennett, lighting director and friend

I don’t think Prince realised how extraordinary he was and how other mortals weren’t able to keep up. He’d do a two-hour soundcheck, play a show, take us all back to the hotel to watch the video of the show all over again, then he’d play another show after the show. One time, before the LoveSexy tour, I was up for three days. In my first five days of rehearsals with him, he was horrible to me, trying to find my breaking point. I’d go back to the hotel and cry. Bobby Z gave me a big hug and said: “Don’t worry. We all go through this.” Obviously I made it through the test and from that point we were inseparable.

We were similar in the way we thought visually and wanted to push the boundaries of what a show was. When I started on the Dirty Mind tour, 100 people were turning up to 1,000-capacity theatres. Then Rolling Stone did an article on him and ignited a fire: thousands of people were trying to get in. It was chaos, but in an amazing way. On stage, he’d appear in silhouette and people would go crazy. Then he’d do the big reveal and people would go crazier. As he got bigger things got more extravagant. He’d have a fire pole or a bed on stage, which Madonna did after us. He worried about people stealing his ideas, or his crew. I was told I couldn’t tour with Queen. It got a little heavy, then he came into the management office, asked “What’s their song? Prince of the universe?!” and laughed in my face.

He saw me as an extension of himself. I’d go over and cook for him, and he loved driving me round in his car when he wanted me to listen to a new song. After he changed his name to the symbol, the first time I called him Prince he went, “Oh” – but laughed when I said: “What else am I gonna call you?”

I eventually quit, but I’m very grateful that when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame we had an hour and a half to sit down and talk about the things we did, and how we loved and missed each other. When he was about 26 he told me he didn’t want to live past 35: we’re all lucky that we had a couple more decades with him.