Mick Jagger has been around rock and roll long enough to see artists rise to fame only to fade away into obscurity. With over 60 years in the game, the Rolling Stones frontman has a sharp sense for what separates the truly extraordinary musicians from the rest of the pack. Among the many iconic talents he’s encountered, there’s one who stood out to Jagger as being cut from an entirely different cloth: Prince.
In the early days of Prince’s career, when his unique blend of funk and innovative sound was still finding an audience, Jagger was immediately struck by what he heard. The Rolling Stones leader was so impressed that he invited Prince to join them for a support slot at their Los Angeles Coliseum show. But the pairing didn’t go as planned.
From the outset, the crowd was hostile, reacting to Prince’s effeminate appearance before he even played a note. When he did take the stage, the jeers and racial slurs came thick and fast. The performance ended in disaster, and Prince tearfully fled back to Minnesota before the second night of the show.
Jagger, upset by how Prince had been treated, reached out and persuaded the artist to return to Los Angeles and finish the shows. Even as one of the biggest acts in the world, the Stones showed a rare level of compassion for the young musician, who had been cruelly heckled.
Jagger’s admiration for Prince only grew as the years passed. In 1995, during a time when Prince was being ridiculed by the press for his legal battles and name change to the ‘Artist Formerly Known as Prince,’ Jagger defended him. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he praised Prince as a musical genius, calling him “incredibly prolific” and an artist who had “broken a lot of musical modes.” Jagger noted that Prince was a rare talent who could never be accused of repeating himself, something many artists fall into.
What impressed Jagger most about Prince was his ability to evolve constantly and the raw power of his live shows. Jagger, who’s seen countless live performances in his career, went so far as to say, “Prince outperformed almost everyone. I’d rate him at the top.” In Jagger’s eyes, Prince was in a league of his own, with no real competition from newer artists.
In the years after Prince’s death in 2016, Jagger called him a “revolutionary artist,” saying, “his talent was limitless.” For Jagger, there will never be another artist quite like Prince, a one-off with a vision and creativity that set him apart from everyone else.
