I am a huge Prince fan. I stopped listening to his newer stuff after Crystal Ball, but Lovesexy, Purple Rain, Under The Cherry Moon, 1999 and Sign Of The Times are freakin’ amazing to me—the soundtrack to my childhood. I grew up deep in the country, and accordingly I normally listened to rez rock (Journey, AC/DC, Quiet Riot, etc), old country (Oak Ridge Boys, Charlie Pride, Ronnie Milsap, Ricky Skaggs, etc) and pow-wow music (Kicking Woman Singers, Young Grey Horse, Mandaree). But my older sister Neoma formed a good portion of my musical tastes—in addition to her hand-me-down clothes, I also got her hand-me-down musical tastes.

And she loved Prince. Like, really, really loved Prince.

She is a talented artist and she has this amazing picture of him that she drew—whenever I’d sleep in her bedroom I’d look up and there it was. Kinda creepy but also kinda cool.

Anyway, when I was 9 years old I remember she took me down Ben Franklin and hooked me up with my first Prince tape. THEN, she also bought me Controversy (probably my least favorite Prince album) and 1999 (maybe the best one, objectively.)