Prince

He stands five foot two in heels and platform boots, and he is the most extravagantly gifted musician of his generation — possibly any generation. Prince Rogers Nelson plays twenty-seven instruments. He releases thirty-nine studio albums in thirty-eight years. He works around the clock, sleeps occasionally, and outproduces entire labels.

Born in Minneapolis to two jazz musicians, he signs his first record deal at eighteen with complete creative control — a contract almost no eighteen-year-old has ever been given. He writes, plays, produces, and arranges every note of his first album. He invents the Minneapolis sound. He invents himself.

He becomes a symbol — literally — when he changes his name to an unpronounceable glyph to escape a record deal. He puts on the most jaw-dropping Super Bowl halftime show in history in pouring rain. He releases music constantly. He dies alone at fifty-seven from an accidental fentanyl overdose in an elevator at Paisley Park, his Minnesota compound. The vault of unreleased music he left behind is reportedly so vast it will be released for the next century.