Perhaps just as important as Prince putting the Twin Cities music scene on the map for the rest of the world, he blurred the lines within the local scene.
Sometimes those lines were along racial boundaries; other times they were about bold musical experimentation.
Minneapolis was still a moderately segregated city in terms of where the local bands played before 1981, when Prince played his first show at First Avenue (then named Sam's). The African-American groups in town mostly stuck to Minneapolis on the North Side at places such as the Cozy Bar or the Riverview Supper Club.
Prince, however, took over downtown's largest club and drew an unusually multiracial audience as a result, creating a blended party atmosphere that was celebrated on screen three years later in "Purple Rain."
"It's funny to see 'Purple Rain' from that perspective, because you could almost take the audience and the whole vibe of that [first] performance and put it in that movie," said André Cymone, Prince's ex-bassist and childhood friend.
"It was just a really weird time," Cymone said. "Everything was very eclectic. All the black people weren't just into this, and all the white people weren't into that. Everybody was just having a whole lot of fun, enjoying the experience."
Another prominent music figure in Minneapolis' 1980s scene, ex-Hüsker Dü co-leader Bob Mould, remembered Prince's influence during that era in a Facebook post. Mould was returning to First Ave for two shows on Friday and Saturday nights, after which the club once again planned to host all-night dance parties (1:30 a.m. to 7 a.m.)
"Prince was an artist through and through — always pushing himself to new levels, often creating controversy through his actions and words," Mould said.