The essays in this special issue of American Music Perspectives were written by authors who participated in “Prince 78–88, The First Decade: An Interdisciplinary Conference,” the 2021 online sequel to the world’s first fully dedicated conference on Prince, which took place at the University of Salford in Manchester, England, in 2017. Both gatherings were organized by Mike Alleyne and Kirsty Fairclough, two of the editors of this issue; both events merged traditional academic approaches with fan-oriented engagements with the artist’s work, critiquing and celebrating a wide-ranging cultural impact that is also explored in Prince and Popular Music: Critical Perspectives on an Interdisciplinary Life (Bloomsbury 2020 & 2022). This book provided a foundational template for posthumous examination of Prince, which encompassed the many layers of his cultural and creative impact. Following Prince’s passing in 2016, several other symposia and conferences organized by other scholars have occurred in the years, and this...
