With a surprising new release, late-legend Prince has released a single titled Born 2 Die from his upcoming posthumous album Welcome 2 America. It truly feels like a throwback to old-school funk, and promises the album to be of utmost greatness. 

I feel like the world still hasn’t fully recovered from the tragic and abrupt passing of Prince in 2016, nor will it ever, honestly. The mark he has left on music will last on forever, and his death felt like an abrupt end to his ever-growing career. He was playing shows just a few days before his passing, promoting his album HITnRUN Phase 2 at the time. We learned, however, that Prince had hundreds of songs and albums in his vault, enough to have continuous releases for years. Needless to say, it was very exciting to finally hear music from the vault.

Born 2 Die is an extremely groovy track, pure and simple. The tight drums, the popping bass, the sensual falsetto vocals from Prince himself, all sprinkled with string pads and horn leads. There’s also a small choir of women singing with Prince that add so much color to the composition. It’s quite a long song, and doesn’t move too much, but it never feels stagnant or boring. Its length is justified with those wonderful instrumental sections that make the song all the more vintage. It makes it very hard to pinpoint exactly when this song was recorded, especially with so little information behind it. Honestly, this could’ve been a recent project with inspirations from old school funk, or it could’ve genuinely been a song recorded in the 70s (at least, Prince’s vocals, because those instruments are just a tad bit too crystal-clear). Speaking of the production, it feels air-tight, with so much space to let the groove really breathe. It really does wonders to portray the genius of the late singer.

Prince has always been a legend, and will forever be considered as one. I really felt like his musical career wasn’t even close to being done, especially after dying at such a young age, so seeing these new releases always feels nice and warm, especially when the songs are as good as Born 2 Die.

Author: Nicholas Gaudet

Music producer and writer from Dieppe, Canada.