This my my favourite Prince memory, and I feel kind of guilty about it. It was 2005. Several of my friends and I were gathered to watch the Oscars, as happens every year. He was presenting the musical awards. Up for Best Original Song was “Al Otro Lado Del Río,” from The Motorcycle Diaries. And man, did Prince butcher that song title. Brutally. As if Spanish isn’t a phonetic language, as if nominees hadn’t been out for long enough to give him plenty of time to practice. And then, it won. My friends and I cheered, and not just because it was the best of the nominees, but because we’d just gotten to hear him attempt to pronounce it again.

As you can tell, I was not so passionate a Prince fan as many of my friends. I’ve never seen Purple Rain, much less Under the Cherry Moon or Graffiti Bridge, and the only album of his I’ve ever owned was the Batman one. On the other hand, there are songs of his that I actually do really like, and we’re not just talking “Batdance,” here. (I like “The Arms of Orion” better anyway.) And that aside, I was born in 1976. It’s impossible to have a suburban childhood at my age without the influence of Prince.

Oscar-winner, of course. Actually, he was the last winner in the Original Song Score category, with Purple Rain beating out The Muppets Take Manhattan and Songwriter. Doubtless this is why he was a presenter occasionally despite not exactly being the major hit-maker he once was. And, given the ages of the Academy’s members, they might not have been aware that he hasn’t been burning up the charts in recent years.

Prince was an eccentric. Known for it. The purple, the made-but-never-released documentaries (it’ll be interesting to see what happens with them, in years to come), the symbol. Oh, the symbol. I believe it was the LA Times that dubbed him TAFKAP, an acronym of course for The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. It’s what I’d called him for years, until he just went back to his name.

But then, it was his birth name. Prince Rogers Nelson. Being a 5’2″ black guy from Minnesota who grew up with the name “Prince” would doubtless make anyone an eccentric. On the other hand, I think it also has something to do with why he was so successful. He was going to be unusual no matter what he did, so why not be himself and be himself with as much flair as possible?