Prince, one of the bestselling pop artists of all time, died Thursday morning in his home recording studio in Chanhassen, Minn.
The singer had been hospitalized in Illinois last week for what his representative said at the time was the flu, which he had been battling for weeks, leading to the cancellation of two shows on his "Piano and a Microphone" tour. He was released after three hours and returned to his home, Paisley Park, in Minnesota.
Hours after he was hospitalized, Prince tweeted on April 15: "I am transformed."
His publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, told The Associated Press that the music icon died at his home in Chanhassen. No details were immediately released.
Quincy Jones said Prince was "a true artist in every sense of the word." "Gone way too soon," he said.
Added Justin Timberlake: "Numb. Stunned. This can't be real." Katy Perry may have put it best: "And just like that ... the world lost a lot of magic."
Born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis on June 7, 1958, the trailblazing performer sold more than 100 million records over the course of his career, fusing rock, pop, funk and R&B and demonstrating an audacious, idiosyncratic sense of style and a willingness to court controversy. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he won seven Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for best original song score for the 1984 film "Purple Rain."
A highly prolific and restless artist who blended androgynous sexuality with impeccable pop craftsmanship, Prince released more than three dozen albums over his four-decade career. He scored more than 50 top 40 hits around the world since 1979, including such songs as "When Doves Cry," "1999," "Little Red Corvette" and "Raspberry Beret."
Drawn to music from a young age, in part as a way to escape a turbulent home life following his parents' separation, he wrote his first song on his father's piano when he was just 7 years old. While attending Minneapolis' Central High School, he joined his first band, Grand Central, playing piano and guitar while performing a mix of covers and original songs that touched such varied influences as James Brown, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the Family Stone.
Having developed into a talented multi-instrumentalist, Prince produced, arranged, composed and played all 27 instruments on his 1978 debut album, "For You." But it was with his second album, titled simply "Prince," that the singer's career began to explode, with the infectious, brazenly sexual singles "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover" driving the album to platinum status.
Perfectly poised to capitalize on the advent of music videos, Prince ruled the pop charts in the 1980s, releasing a string of wildly successful albums, including "1999," "Around the World in a Day" and the soundtrack to the semi-autobiographical "Purple Rain," in which he also starred, an album that has sold more than 22 million copies worldwide and is regularly ranked as among the best in rock history.
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