The artist formerly known as Prince produced his first album for Warner at the age of 19 - the youngest person ever to make an album for the label. Since 1978 he has released one and sometimes two albums of new material every year up to 1996's 'Emancipation', a staggering output by the standards of today's pop superstars: over the same period Michael Jackson has released just five new albums. An incomparable writer and producer of other people's recordings ('Nothing Compares to You' by Sinead O'Connor, 'Kiss' by Tom Jones, 'I Feel for You' by Chaka Khan) Prince is a one-off. Liz Jones' biography is packed with quotes and gossipy anecdotes about a serious and important artist. No stranger to self-indulgence, Prince is also creative, sexy and funny. Jones has interviewed record company executives, other musicians and Prince and his entourage to paint the fullest portrait yet of a remarkable rockstar.
In 1977, a shy teenager with an Afro and an attitude signed a record deal. More than thirty years and thirty-nine remarkable albums later, Prince was still touring and making music until his untimely death in 2016. One of the last great superstars, he crossed boundaries of race and sex, created a brand-new sound and earned a reputation as a legendary live performer and a musical genius.
SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM goes behind the scenes at Paisley Park for an exclusive interview with Prince, in which he talks openly about his battle with the music industry, about his first wife, his life and how he makes music. Interviews with family members, friends, fellow musicians, producers, dancers and managers shed light on perhaps the most misunderstood, and most elusive, icon of our time. Tracing Prince's music through jazz, soul, funk, punk and hip-hop and exploring the music industry at large, Liz Jones's masterful biography is the definitive guide to America's funkiest son.
'A chilling story . . . Leaves us with an image that it will be hard for any number of perfect pop songs to erase' Sunday Times
'A fun, gossipy, post-feminist account of Prince's career' Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday Books of the Year
Liz Jones has worked as a journalist for The Sunday Times since 1988 and has written numerous features about pop music and black culture for the paper. This is her first book.
