Prince | Biography, Songs, Significance, & Facts | Britannica

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Clash with record company and musical collaborations

Prince and Warner Records
Prince and Warner RecordsAmerican singer, songwriter, and musician Prince poses for a portrait with Warner Records chairman Mo Ostin after being signed to the label on June 25, 1977. (more)

Throughout most of his career, Prince’s prolific inventiveness as a songwriter clashed with his record company’s policy of releasing only a single album each year. As a backlog of his completed but unreleased recordings piled up, he gave songs to other performers—some of whom recorded at and for Paisley Park, the studio and label he established in suburban Minneapolis—and even organized ostensibly independent groups, such as the Time, to record his material. His 1996 album Emancipation celebrated the forthcoming end of his Warner Brothers contract, which enabled him to release as much music as he liked on his NPG label.

Later he explored marketing his work on the Internet and through private arrangements with retail chains as a means of circumventing the control of large record companies. In 1999, however, he released Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic under the Arista label; a collaboration with Sheryl Crow, Chuck D (of Public Enemy), Ani DiFranco, and others, the album received mixed reviews and failed to find a large audience.

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