It\u2019s been two years, but it seems like just yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the dreary Thursday afternoon of April 21, 2016 word began to spread and rumor turned into reality when it was confirmed that Minnesota\u2019s beloved son, Prince Rogers Nelson \u2013 simply known as Prince \u2013 died. And almost as quickly as word spread, memorials paying honor to man who invented the \u201cMinneapolis Sound\u201d went up around town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside of Paisley Park, Prince\u2019s Chanhassen home and recording studio, fans by the thousands gathered to pay their respects to the man who meant so much to so many. On a chain link fence, fans offered up notes, letters, trinkets, musical instruments, works of art and more \u2013 all paying homage to his royal badness. This week\u2019s cover of Insight News<\/em> features a fan painting captured by photographer Dorothy Allen. The photograph is a part on the Minnesota Historical Society\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside of First Avenue \u2013 the venue made famous as the club in the Prince movie, \u201cPurple Rain\u201d \u2013 fans adorned the outside wall with flowers, out of nowhere a piano emerged and Prince\u2019s silver star on the wall turned to gold. It remains the only gold star on the wall of the iconic and historic landmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Uptown, just off Hennepin Avenue, on 26th<\/sup> Street, a purple and white mural of Prince surrounded by doves drew fans in from around the globe. And two years later fans still pilgrimage to these sites and more, paying their respects to the man who many considered the greatest musician of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, for the second year in a row, dozens of events are planned to commemorate the anniversary of Prince\u2019s death, but more importantly, to celebrate his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the events include four days of concerts and discussions presented by Paisley Park featuring the likes of Sheila E., Mayte, Prince\u2019s former wife, Jellybean Johnson, St. Paul Peterson, Susannah Melvoin, and Eric Leeds, all of fDeluxe (formerly the Family), Bobby Z and Matt Fink of the Revolution, and many others. On April 21, the two-year anniversary of Prince\u2019s death, Target Center will host the Paisley produced, \u201cPRINCE: Live on the Big Screen,\u201d a concert featuring clips of Prince, including newly released audio and video of the Purple One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prince prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Liv Warfield will perform two nights, April 20 and April 21, at the Dakota Jazz Club, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis. Several unannounced guests will take the stage with Warfield to jam in honor of Prince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crooners Lounge and Supper Club, 6161 Highway 65 N.E., Minneapolis, presents Love 2 The 9’s, an intimate night of Prince music featuring former New Power Generation members, Tommy Barbarella, Sonny Thompson and Michael Bland along with Jeremy Ylvisaker and Julius Collins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MPLS, a band that performed multiple times for Prince and features Jesse Larson, who played guitar for Prince and Michael Jackson prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Judith Hill, plays Bunkers, 761 Washington Ave., April 20 and several downtown Minneapolis bars are participating in a day-long April 21 pub crawl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are just a few of the happenings in the Twin Cities in honor of Minnesota\u2019s favorite son, but then again, is there any other way to pay homage to royalty?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been two years, but it seems like just yesterday. On the dreary Thursday afternoon of April 21, 2016 word began to spread and rumor turned into reality when it was confirmed that Minnesota\u2019s beloved son, Prince Rogers Nelson \u2013 simply known as Prince \u2013 died. And almost as quickly as word spread, memorials paying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[29,2667,2668],"class_list":["post-4255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-minnesota","tag-prince-rogers-nelson","tag-sheila-e","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4257,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions\/4257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}