When nineteen-year-old Prince took the stage to perform “I Wanna Be Your Lover” on American Bandstand, those who watched couldn’t reconcile how Prince’s funky disco-pop sounds had hailed from a place like Minneapolis. But the Minneapolis Sound, Prince’s signature pop-musical fusion of funk, R&B, rock, punk, and new wave, did not emerge from a vacuum. The place and space of Minneapolis shaped the musical ecosystem that made Prince famous. And in turn, a complex array of social forces shaped the city’s soundscape.
An expert on place, race, and culture, geographer Rashad Shabazz reveals the hidden history of the Minneapolis Sound, Prince, and his beloved city. More than a biography of Prince, this is a biography of the city and the world of sound from which Prince emerged. Shabazz traces the history of the Minneapolis Sound alongside the city’s history, from colonial contact and through periods of Indigenous removal, white settlement, mass migration, industrialization, music education, suburbanization, and systemic racism. This complex history, combined with the exceptional talent cultivated in Minneapolis’s small Black communities, gave rise to a groundbreaking genre, the otherworldly legend that was Prince, and music that captivated the world.
Prince's Minneapolis: A Biography of Sound and Place by Rashad Shabazz will be published February 17, 2026. University of North Carolina Press provided an early galley for review.
First off, how about that cover design by Lindsay Starr? So cool and evocative of the artist who happens to be my all-time favorite. I adore Prince's sound and the effects he had on the music scene of Minneapolis. I was eager to learn from this book how the scene had an effect on Prince.
Shabazz goes into great depth regarding the history of the city as well as how music played a role in the city's culture right from the very start. He clearly did his homework in this area. It is a great level set before getting into Prince's life in chapter 6. From that point on, it is steeped in the artists' musical history.
The author does a solid job in summarizing each of the albums up to and including Sign O' the Times, giving each of the tracks their due. For readers not as well-versed in Prince's catalog, I hope the words inspire them to make some listening treks. They are in for a treat.
Curiously, the book ends with the completion of Paisley Park, Prince's multi-studio compound outside of the city. While the artist's history and association with Minneapolis continued for decades after that point, ending here comes across as the place where Prince began to isolate himself and thus no longer feel as much influence from the city (and vice versa). I was left wanting more.
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