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The world mourns Prince: Everything you need to know about his life, death and international tributes

What do Barack Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda and The Game have in common? They were all influenced by Prince

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Prince (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
Prince (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

The music industry and fans across the world continue to mourn the death of Prince, who was found dead Thursday in Minneapolis at 57.

An autopsy was performed Friday, though speculation began almost immediately following Prince’s passing. TMZ has been most active in determining the cause of Prince’s death.

Prince had to postpone by a week two back-to-back concerts at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta after contracting the flu. The concerts, held on April 14, would be his last. Paste Magazine’s Bonnie Stiernberg, who reviewed the 7 p.m. early show that evening, mentioned that he seemed as if “he’d made a full recovery.”

Early the next morning, however, Prince’s plane — on route to Minnesota from Atlanta — had to make an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois, where he was rushed to the hospital and treated for dehydration, according to a breaking TMZ scoop.

Thursday late-morning, TMZ released a photo of Prince leaving his local Walgreens. The accompanying report claimed he’d visited the pharmacy four times in the week leading up to his death and that, “People at the store were concerned because he looked much more frail and nervous than usual.”

Then, Thursday night, TMZ reported that, according to “sources in Moline,” Prince had actually been treated for overdose (given the “save shot”) less than a week before his death.

On Friday, British tabloid the Daily Mail alleged Prince had “overdosed on Percocet he was taking for a chronic hip problem he had been suffering for years as he refused to have an operation because of his strict Jehovah’s Witness faith.”

Authorities have refused to release a timetable for the autopsy results.

The day since Prince’s death has been an unending retrospective, profiling the legend’s influence on fashion, identity, feminism, race, and, of course, music.

Given Prince’s enormous scope of influence, tributes came in all shapes and sizes. Celebrities from Barack Obama to Frank Ocean to Magic Johnson reflected on The Purple One’s passing.

He got the Broadway treatment:

Jennifer Hudson (Prince’s friend) led a tribute to the late legend Thursday night during a performance of Broadway musical “The Color Purple,” performing “Purple Rain”:

And not to be outdone, the cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Hamilton” did their own tribute, dancing to an instrumental version of “Let’s Go Crazy”:

Infrastructure in Minneapolis (and around the world) were lit in Prince’s signature purple:

Both Questlove and Spike Lee held tribute parties in Brooklyn. The former spun Prince deep cuts during his weekly DJ residency at Brooklyn Bowl, where he showed video of “Finding Nemo,” in reference to this strange story:

Meanwhile, Spike Lee hosted a block party outside his studio in the Fort Greene neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. It’s estimated that as many as 800 people were in attendance to “dance, sing and shout to his music.”

And, it seems, that Mother Nature may have paid her own tribute, as TMZ reported that a rainbow appeared over Paisley Park, Prince’s Minneapolis compound, early Thursday evening:

Russell Simmons joined “Nightly Show” host Larry Wilmore’s panel for a retrospective of Prince’s influence on the music industry. Watch here.

Other late-night television hosts also paid their respects during Thursday’s lineup:

Among the more obscure tributes, The Game, oddly enough, released the track “Rest in Purple” on Soundcloud late Thursday evening:

And Mike Tyson did this:

Even corporate Twitter rushed to integrate purple into their logos — some did so more tastefully than others (e.g. Four Loko, Cheerios):

 

By Brendan Gauthier

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