To say that the year 2016 was a rough year is an understatement. That year, we lost some of the most important and iconic people in Black history, entertainment and culture including Prince and Muhammad Ali
We take a look back down memory lane and celebrate the lives of two great entertainers who many didn’t know had a great relationship.
Singer Prince met Ali for the first time at a 1997 press conference intended to promote The World Healing Honors, a benefit concert raising money for charities that confronted and worked to eliminate bigotry and prejudice around the globe, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“My friend Londell McMillan called me a couple of days ago and asked me, ‘Muhammad wants you to…’ and I said ‘Yes.’ I didn’t even let him finish,” Prince said.
“He could have said, ‘He wants you to mow the lawn’ and I would have been down with it,” admits Prince. “Muhammad is my hero and has been since I was a child.”
It was a little-known secret that Prince was a big sports fan. An admittedly big Chicago Bulls fans and would watch games while he was performing on stage.
The two had a budding friendship and Ali called the Purple Rain singer a “genius” in his message posted to his official social media account on April 22 alongside a picture of the two icons together.
He wrote: “We’ve lost a true original. Prince was someone who cared for others & used his genius to help many.”
Now, we have lost another ‘true original’ in Ali.
Throughout the years since their first meeting, they two still remained friends and crossed paths rarely in humanitarian efforts. But because of Prince’s religion, Seventh Day Adventist, he couldn’t openly say all the good things he’s done.
Both will forever be severely missed.
Besides sports, the two had more in common than you think.
In 1993, Prince changed his name to a symbol, then to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, after a dispute with his Warner Bros record label, who refused to release Prince’s music when he wanted.
The Artist took to performing with the word “Slave” written on his cheek in protest at his label, which…
… owned the name “Prince” – the name with which he was born.
“I had heard that The Artist was a Muhammad Ali fan and had never met him,” said Mr Clark, who now runs David Clark Cause, an organization promoting charitable work around the world.
“We’d known it was an incredibly, incredibly long shot to get someone like him to say “Yes” and travel on his own dime at such short notice.”
There was no question of Prince, or The Artist, or the symbol, saying “No”.
He had grown up idolizing Ali, who had himself changed his name after converting to Islam and denouncing his previous name, Cassius Clay, as his “slave name”. “I didn’t choose it and I don’t want it,” he said.
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