Prince, an Artist Who Defied Genre, Is Dead at 57

[IceWizard]

By JON PARELES
APRIL 21, 2016




Prince, the songwriter, singer, producer, one-man studio band and consummate showman, died Thursday at his residence, Paisley Park, in Chanhassen, Minn., according to a statement from his publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure.

He was 57.

No cause of death has been given.

In a statement, the Carver County sheriff, Jim Olson, said that deputies responded to an emergency call at 9:43 a.m.: “When deputies and medical personnel arrived, they found an unresponsive adult male in the elevator.

First responders attempted to provide lifesaving CPR, but were unable to revive the victim. He was pronounced deceased at 10:07 a.m.”

The sheriff’s office said it would continue to investigate his death. Last week, responding to news reports that Prince’s plane had made an emergency landing because of a health scare, Ms. Noel-Schure said Prince was “fighting the flu.”

Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958, was a man bursting with music — a wildly prolific songwriter, a virtuoso on guitars, keyboards and drums and a master architect of funk, rock, R and B and pop, even as his music defied genres.

In a career that lasted from the late 1970s until an arena tour this year, he was acclaimed as a sex symbol, a musical prodigy and an artist who shaped his career his way, often battling with accepted music-business practices.

“When I first started out in the music industry, I was most concerned with freedom. Freedom to produce, freedom to play all the instruments on my records, freedom to say anything I wanted to,” he said when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

In a tribute to George Harrison that night, Prince went on to play a guitar solo in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” that left the room floored.

Prince’s Top 10 hits included “Little Red Corvette,” “When Doves Cry,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Kiss,” and “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”; albums like “Dirty Mind,” “1999” and “Sign O’ the Times” were full-length statements.

His songs also became hits for others, among them “Nothing Compares 2 U” for Sinead O’Connor and “I Feel for You” for Chaka Khan.

With the 1984 film and album “Purple Rain,” Prince told a fictionalized version of his own story: biracial, gifted, spectacularly ambitious. Its music won him an Academy Award and the album sold more than 13 million copies in the United States alone.

In a statement, President Obama said, “Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly, or touched quite so many people with their talent. As one of the most gifted and prolific musicians of our time, Prince did it all. Funk. R

[Charon]

Very sad. He was in front of an audience a couple days ago. He showed them a guitar. And, he said: I am fine. Don't waste prayers on me yet for a few days.

And, then he passed in his elevator. Very sad.

He was one of us. A chronic pain patient. I remember reading articles by him in recent years that he suffered greatly from leg and foot pain, which probably went thru his entire body, and that he attributed same to wearing heeled shoes and dancing so much. I may have paraphrased it a bit. It was a while ago I read the article.

He was fairly grounded.

I loved Purple Rain. When Doves Cry. RIP.

[CrystallineCrusader]

Another great artist has passed this year. Let the good memories flow.

Two different radio stations in my area were playing back to back Prince hits, and a few DJ mixes featuring Prince samplings.

May his music live on.

[G.Elias]

Said he o'd a few days ago,poor wee guy.

[Charon]

so, when he was allowed off the plane on april 15th, i believe, he was treated for a drug overdose. (he made an emergency landing on that day within forty minutes of the airport. For a hospital.)

he left the hospital within 3 hours as he could get no private room.

I hear he was in bad shape thereafter.

I believe we shall hear it was an overdose. of a PK or two. Just like chyna whom died.

[whatapain]

He Had a place in the Midwest horse country usa that he used to own and stay.
He did a lot of good things for the poor in the area.

[Linville]

Why Over Half of Prince’s Estate Will Go to the Government



It appears that the pop star Prince may have died without a will, leaving behind a multi-million dollar and growing estate. Although Prince has one full sister and five half-siblings, Prince’s family members will not be his biggest heirs.

Both the federal government and Minnesota’s state government will assess so-called “death taxes” or estate taxes on Prince’s assets, taking away more than half his estate. Between his physical assets—cash, investments, home, etc.—and his future royalties, Prince’s estate has been estimated to be between $300 and $500 million.

If Prince were married, he could have passed on the entirety of his estate to his spouse tax free. However, without a spouse, only $1.6 million of Prince’s estate will be free from Minnesota’s death tax and only $5.45 million will escape the federal death tax.

The combination of Minnesota’s top death tax rate of 16 percent, plus the federal government’s 40 percent rate, means that over 50 percent of Prince’s estate will go to the government.
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.  We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed. 

Had Prince known ahead of time that he would die at such a young age, he may have been able to reduce the government’s reach into his estate through tax planning, but with a fortune as large as his, the government’s claim to his estate was inevitable.

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098)][/url]When the owner of a family business dies without leaving behind a large pile of cash or other liquid assets, the family often has to sell the business to pay the death tax.[/color]

While Prince was probably not all that concerned with the death tax—particularly since his early death was unexpected—he probably didn’t change his behavior all that much in response to the death tax. But most people who pay the death tax are not like Prince—they don’t have hundreds of millions of dollars, and some don’t even have a hundred thousand dollars in cash if their assets are all tied up in the value of their family business.

When the owner of a family business dies without leaving behind a large pile of cash or other liquid assets, the family often has to sell the business to pay the death tax. That can have devastating employment consequences. A 2014 [url=http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/09/the-economic-and-fiscal-effects-of-eliminating-the-federal-death-tax]analysis of the death tax by The Heritage Foundation found that its harmful effects on savings, investment, and capital reduces employment by 18,000 jobs each year.

While it’s tempting to think that the government’s reach into Prince’s massive estate isn’t all that harmful to the pop star or his heirs, the death tax has been devastatingto many small businesses and the communities in which they operate.