It’s time I stopped trying to convince myself otherwise. Music is, very literally, my life. It’s my career. It takes up a lot of what I do once my work day is done. Even when I’m doing things that don’t necessarily involve it, there’s music in the background. More than anything else, music is my savior and has been virtually since I was carried out of the hospital.

Michael Jackson and Prince were the tentpole figures in my musical life, and have occupied those places since I was barely old enough to read. Picturing (and then inhabiting) a world without MJ was difficult enough, and I was somewhat prepared for his passing. Prince’s sudden death this morning floored me, and I’m attempting to make sense of a world without his physical existence.

Prince is important to me for many reasons. I’m a child of the ’80s and ’90s, and you couldn’t take part in any kind of immersive musical experience during that time without Prince at least being on the periphery of what you were enjoying. I try very hard these days to not make definitive statements, but it’s hard to argue against Prince being the most talented musician of his generation. Not only was he capable of playing just about any instrument you put in front of him, but he was a genius and an innovator when it came to at least two of them-the guitar and the synthesizer.  He was relentlessly creative, with a drive and determination that seemed both calculated and effortless. He was also a master vocalist, a gifted lyricist, an excellent bandleader and near peerless as a producer (even though some of the artists he worked with seemed to be chosen based on attractiveness rather than talent–but hey, we all have our weaknesses, right?)

Think about everyone that factored somewhere in Prince’s orbit; and not just the usual Time/Vanity/Apollonia axis. Everyone from Patti LaBelle and Mavis Staples to Gwen Stefani and Sheryl Crow to Janet and Madonna to Chuck D and Eve to Adam Ant and George Michael to D’Angelo and Me’shell Ndegeocello owes a direct debt of gratitude to Prince.

I’m trying to think of another artist whose musical output remained interesting as long as Prince’s did. It’s hard to put three or four good/interesting albums together, right? Can you name any current artist (with an output in excess of five albums) whose musical output consistently falls in the good/interesting category? I can think of two-Radiohead and Kanye. Prince’s good/interesting phase started with 1979’s self-titled effort and continued through 1996’s Emancipation. 17 years, 15 albums, 8 or 9 albums not credited to him on which he did everything except sing lead. Add in plethora of B-sides and unreleased tracks whose quality exceeds the singles of 90% of other artists and a slew of outside writing and production credits. Not only is it staggering how prolific he was, but almost all of the material he made during this time was qualitatively sufficient! It’s unreal!

In 1982 alone, he released his commercial breakthrough, 1999, wrote, produced and played almost all of Vanity 6’s self-titled debut and did the same for The Time’s sophomore effort, What Time Is It? Three great albums in one year (during a classic-heavy period in Black music, too.) Is there a precedent? There certainly isn’t anyone who’s been able to do that since.

As a music fan growing up during Prince’s “imperial period” (an apt description to use for him, too), it’s almost staggering to think about how many of my own life benchmarks I can trace directly back to songs of his. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” was already a huge radio hit by the time he popped up on American Bandstand in 1980. His appearance at the time was shocking-he was the first man I ever saw wearing an earring. A year later, the cover of Dirty Mind (later to become one of my favorite albums of all time) scared me to the point when it had to be covered up whenever I walked into my neighborhood record store. I don’t remember much about the summer of 1983, but my sharpest memory might be seeing Prince perform “Little Red Corvette” on Solid Gold (and my mother derisively referring to him as “Princess”.) “Darling Nikki” was the first time I ever heard the word “masturbate”. In the summer of 1985, we were in Miami for a few weeks, and we watched  Purple Rain (notably, my family had a discussion about whether to usher me out of the room when the “purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka” scene came on). The film moved me to the point that I couldn’t sleep. During the next two summers, when I visited my grandparents in New York and was allowed to maybe buy 2 or 3 cassettes, I chose Parade and Sign ‘o The Times and played them relentlessly until I had to abandon them once returning to Michigan.

Pop-culture moments aside, he blew my developing musical mind on a regular basis. Sign o’ the Times is either my favorite or second favorite album of all time (depending on how I feel about Innervisions at any particular time.) I discovered the genius of Joni Mitchell through him. His hits were more forward-thinking than anything else on the radio at the time: “Delirious”, “1999”, “When Doves Cry”, “Kiss”. Has anything ever sounded like “When Doves Cry”, before or since? Would anyone let a dance song with no bass and lyrics that redefined the term “abstract” on the airwaves at all, never mind watch it top the charts for a month and a half? What about “If I Was Your Girlfriend”? Or “The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker”? “Ronnie, Talk To Russia” and “Annie Christian”? “Head” or “Sister”? Not only did the same guy sing all of those songs, but he pretty much wrote, produced and performed them, soup to nuts. That’s a Halley’s Comet-like level of genius–it comes once in a lifetime, if that.

…and don’t get me started on “Adore”, which I consider to be the greatest love song ever recorded. One of my life goals is to have an actual person make me feel like that song makes me feel.

I think what’ll stick with me the most is the fact that Prince never trafficked in binaries. He broke down walls. Prince was capable of playing funk, jazz, new wave, hard rock, melodic pop, neo-classical, quiet storm soul, jangle-pop and hip-hop. And even the subgenres he wasn’t that great at produced a classic or two (“Pussy Control” for one.) You know how a lot of folks separate cliques in high school based on what kind of music they like? Prince was all of those kids. You could play him next to Bon Jovi or Dr. Dre, Pearl Jam, Paula Abdul or Boyz II Men. He fit everywhere. That level of musical diversity is almost impossible to imagine these days. His songs were covered by everyone from La Toya (and Rebbie) Jackson to The Pointer Sisters to Mariah Carey, The Foo Fighters, Warren Zevon and R.E.M, Mitch Ryder and Cyndi Lauper.

That refusal to conform informed every facet of his life. People tried to put Prince in boxes at the outset of his career. Prince’s response: “fuck you, and fuck your God damn box.” He never wavered from that ethos, even if it caused him trouble and/or made him look foolish or hypocritical (which it did on occasion.) Prince blurred lines of race/ethnicity and sexuality more than any artist before or since, especially in the first decade or so of his career. You all know the first few lines of “Controversy”. Prince was a black dude that played guitar better than just about any hair metal dude on white rock radio. He was a straight man that always wore heels, usually wore makeup, rocked a vicious perm for 85% of his career and looked better in women’s clothing than most actual women. He was a disruptor in the best possible way-taking conventional notions of blackness and heteronormativity and flipping them on their heads. The man even spelled differently. He also flouted an all-inclusive philosophy that was welcome to just about anyone (you can now sing that line from “Uptown”). What might get lost in the handful of homophobic pronouncements he made in the last decade or so is the simple fact that the most well-known band members from the biggest commercial phase of his career were a white lesbian couple. IN THE EIGHTIES. That’s some bold shit. He challenged every conventional notion of cool and somehow was cooler than everyone else. Actually, that’s exactly what made him cooler than everyone else.

Prince was responsible for expanding my musical knowledge, and played a big part in my knowledge of self, as well. That lack of binary thinking he espoused in the early years of his career defines a lot of my personal philosophy today, and his openness about sexuality (not to mention his firm belief that overt and even alternative sexuality and spirituality are not mutually exclusive) is something that I’ve taken to heart on many occasions. As unconventional and “freaky” as Prince was, I am given power and courage by the fact that he owned his desires to serve the spirit and the flesh. Even post-Witness conversion; his music didn’t get any less erotic, it just got less explicit. Furthermore, he didn’t give two fucks about what anyone thought about it. It’s also worth noting that he frequently put women in positions of power in his organization, from the aforementioned Wendy and Lisa to engineers Susan Rogers and Peggy McCreary. Even though Vanity, Apollonia and Sheila E. have been reduced to “Prince girls” over the years, he at least gave the illusion that they were autonomous figures back in the ’80s, which was fairly forward-thinking. He didn’t play by the rules, he made the rules, and didn’t apologize for it either.

I could easily make this essay double the size it is, but I’ll conclude after sharing with you the one time Prince and I crossed paths. It was early summer 1994. Prince was in the throes of legal beef with Warner Brothers, and he’d just released a compilation called 1-800-NEW-FUNK on an independent label. I was working at a Tower Records store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and we got word that Prince (then going by that symbol) would be making an appearance at the chain’s East Village location. I don’t even know if we were given a week’s notice, but I somehow maneuvered and got the day off even if I was warned that I’d get no preferential treatment. My cousin Nadia was visiting from Chicago at the time, so I took her with me. I’d just turned 18, she was 16.

There was a line snaking down and around East 4th Street by the time we got there. We were led into the store, and waited. There were no cameras allowed, security was super-tight. Finally, Prince showed up and the line to meet him started moving slowly. As I got closer, I saw that he was very pale. And very made up. Nona Gaye sat to his side, and he was joined by a handful of NPG members. People on line were crying. As we approached him, he nodded at me and then smiled and said hello to my cousin. It was the only time in my life I ever wished I was an attractive girl. As we left the store, I remember seeing a young woman who’d completely lost it. She’d collapsed in hysterics upon meeting Prince and had to be ushered out of the store by security. It’s a moment and experience that will never leave me.

We don’t often get the chance to show true appreciation or gratitude to our heroes. Even when they’re close to us in proximity, there’s some combination of pride and procrastination that prevents us from giving our loved ones their flowers while they’re still here. Of course, there’s also the thought, whether borne out of fear or willful ignorance, that we and our loved ones will be here forever.

But they aren’t. Life is fleeting, and the chances you get to appreciate those who mean something to you dwindle with each day that passes. If you’re lucky, you’ll take something with you that serves as a reminder of the people that you cherish-whether they’re a treasured friend, a close family member, or a musician who is responsible for some of the greatest memories you have and unknowingly served as a blueprint for acceptance, hard work, creativity and living life on your own terms. If they’re lucky, they’ll leave a true mark, a piece of art or a pearl of wisdom that will be analyzed and enjoyed for generations to come.

Prince’s body may be gone, but his art and rebel nature will reverberate in the world long after all of our physical forms depart.  We’re fortunate to have had him in our universe for the time that we did.