I just watched P on the Today show in Austrailia (2004) and the guy said "so you can't read music?" and Prince shook his head and said "no,I have a pretty good ear." This is a surprise to me because in his movies he always had sheet music around and he never samples like other producers (Diddy, cash money, ect.) I was shocked to hear that. Anyway

Peace

Well, this topic has been hotly debated many times, but I think most of the musicians around here know that it's just not necessary to be able to read music in order to know music.

So that doesn't mean he doesn't know what a F#minor7 chord is, or what an A diminished scale is, just that he doesn't read them on a staff of sheet music.

Now, if he played classical music and couldn't read, that would be something.
[Edited 5/31/06 11:12am]

Speaking of sheet music in his movies, check out the stack of charts in Graffiti Bridge - they're all the same song, with different titles on top!