Ep. 17 - Purple Reign (Prince Part 3 of 3)

Prince in a 1984 promotional image for the film, album, and tour Purple Rain.

At long last we come to the epic conclusion of our Prince mini-series! (We recommend listening to the previous two episodes if you haven't already.) Picking up where we left off in the last episode, we follow Prince's quixotic quest to become a movie star, see how Prince was almost replaced in his own movie, track the unlikely success of the film and album Purple Rain, learn how Prince gave us that 'Parental Advisory' sticker on explicit albums, witness the building of a 65,000 square foot compound with microphones in every room, find out how Prince became a symbol (literally), and so much more.

(Content Warning: strong language, sexual content and innuendo.)

Kevin Smith's Prince Story

Everyone who ever met him has a Prince story, but for our money Kevin Smith's Prince story takes the cake. In this episode we played several excerpts from his story, which originally appeared on the 2002 DVD An Evening With Kevin Smith, featuring question and answer sessions that the comedian and filmmaker Kevin Smith held with his fans at various American colleges.

The whole Prince story is over 30 minutes long, but well worth watching. The only version online we could find is broken into four parts. You can find them here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Prince's Movies

Prince made three theatrically-released feature films, Purple Rain (1984), Under the Cherry Moon (1986), and Graffiti Bridge (1990). Here are the trailers for all three:

Songs Referenced

Here are the songs we played short fair-use excerpts from in the episode:

Sources Cited

Johnson, Cheryl "C.J." "I-Witness News: Visit from Prince," Star Tribune, October 12, 2003, page B4.

Karlen, Neal. This Thing Called Life: Prince's Odyssey On and Off the Record. (New York, St. Martin's Press, 2020)

"Prince's Early Years," Prince.com, https://becoming.prince.com/

Shabazz, Rashad. Prince's Minneapolis: A Biography of Sound and Place. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2026

Smith, Kevin. An Evening With Kevin Smith. Directed and performed by Kevin Smith, View Askew Productions, 2002. DVD.

Swensson, Andrea. Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017)

Podcast Credits

'Minnesota Unknown is produced, hosted, written, and researched by Alex Weston, Hannah Norton, and Josie Bergmann. This episode was edited by Alex Weston. Our theme song is by Union Shakedown. This episode is copyright 2026 by Minnesota Unknown, LLC. All rights reserved.

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