Prince reigned supreme at Coachella on Friday as the second weekend of the music and arts festival kicked off.
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Staples, who was once signed to Prince’s Paisley Park Records and contributed to his Graffiti Bridge soundtrack, spoke lovingly about the artist. As stated by Billboard, Staples endearingly informed the crowd, “Yesterday, I lot a dear friend – my son. He’s so cute! He’s so good-looking!’ I say, ‘I’m gonna play it cool.’ He came up, and I [screamed] uncontrollably”, she recalled.
Brooklyn rapper Joey Badass told the audience at his main stage set that Prince was one of his “favorite musicians of all time” as the artist’s unpronounceable love symbol flashed on a video screen. “Cool went out the window”.
And Sufjan Stevens teamed up with Gallant for the moving cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain”. She then asked for a moment of silence, and then performed an a cappella version of the chorus of Purple Rain.
While Prince was rumored to be headlining almost every festival season throughout his career, it never came to be until that one fateful day in 2008.
While Jack Ü brought out AlunaGeorge earlier in the night as their sole special guest, they chose to end their set with a tribute to Prince, changing the lights purple and emblazoning their new stage design with Prince’s iconic logo.
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“From now on, this is Prince’s House”, read a projected message before LCD Soundsystem performed Prince’s 1981 song “Controversy”.
