We know he had the original human beat box Doug E Fresh guest on his stuff from about ten years ago.

And I think "Mr. Goodnight" was inspired by "One More Chance/Stay With Me" by The Notorious B.I.G. because the music sounds a lot like that Debarge loop and he is kicking game on top of it.

Of course we know he has rapped on other songs, but

What rap artists inspire Prince??

Chuck D?

Tony M?

his rapping style is similar to rakim's on Y Should I Do That when I Can Do This?. very melodic
[Edited 3/15/09 14:40pm]

Common, Q-Tip, Will I.Am., and I think he was down with 2Pac to some degree.

And I think he sampled NWA and Eric B and Rakim on a coupla joints.

TrueFunkSoldier2 said:

hmmm actually he dosent just rap in one voice its like imitaiting others cuz when i listen 2 18 and ova he sounds like hes doing a snoop dogg inpersonation (and if u dnt believe me listen)

I know he said he listened to Outcast.
[Edited 3/15/09 17:33pm]

Dayclear said:

Now, that's the kind of answer I'm looking for. Rap acts that Prince actually mentioned before.

Whenever I hear Now from the Gold Experience, without fail I hear Arrested Development's influence

Judging by the quality of most his rap forays, I would say Vanilla Ice, truly they were that bad. Tony M's and Scrap D made Hammer look like Ice Cube and Snoop (Real rappers)

Huggiebear said:

hey hey. that wasn't the point of my thread.

i think he is actually influenced by ice cube sometimes.

optimus said:

Yup! Don't tell the Big Dogg!

hisself

Cinnie said:

Prince and Icecube were quite close at some point ( 1994-1996) and Cube directed the Lovesign video where you can see Prince reading VIBE magazine with Icecube on the cover. There´s also an Icecube song where Cube raps " ...bought a house next to Prince", which Prince later sampled in the Good Life remix. Icecube really DID buy a house in Minnesota.
Scrap D and some other guys who used to hang with Prince in 1996 told me that he likes or liked a lot of Wu Tang´s songs back then and all kinds of other rappers.

As much as a lot of people here hate Prince´s collabos with unknown rappers like Tony M and Scrap D, I think that Prince was merely trying to support some people and give them a career start while at the same time making his sound more contemporary. Sure, the outcome was mostly negative but hey, at least he gave them a chance. Of course he could have used more authentic Hip Hop groups from Minnesota like , for instance , Atmosphere or other rappers from the Twin Cities but I guess knowing people on a more personal level was or is more important to him than staying true to Hip Hop ( which he, IMO, doesn´t really seem to get , anyway.....this coming from an old school Hip Hop head
)
Most of his rap inspired songs sound a lot as if he´s influenced by what was currently hot at that time, like Snoop Dogg in the early 90s ( 18 and Over ) but that´s okay because Prince has always been known to suck up contemporary music and give it his own twist, much like he did in the early 80s where he took Punk, New Wave, New Romantics and Synthpop and Rock influences and turned them into his own special and unique sound. As much as we hate it, Prince using rap elements in his music was inevitable and still is inevitable since that is the dominant sound these days. However, as an old school Hip Hop head, I prefer Prince´s music WITHOUT rap elements though the occasional rap inspired song can be cool ( Days Of Wild, 18 and Over, Now or some of the collabos he did).

without a doubt...