We weren’t really planning on building a Prince bot. It was never on our product roadmap and we never discussed it during our weekly planning sessions. But when Oleg Sobolev, one of the first employees at Luka and a huge fan of Prince’s work, asked if he could take a day and build a Prince bot as a tribute to his legacy and a love note to the artist, I couldn’t say no.
Here is a note from Oleg about it:
If there ever was a musician who knew as much about human emotions as Prince, I want to know who it was. Throughout his life and career, the man’s covered so much emotional ground. His songs truly perfectly capture it all, from everlasting joy (“Let’s Go Crazy”) to sublime melancholy (“Sometimes It Snow In April”), from lustful passion (“Kiss”) to painful memories (“Nothing Compares 2 U”), from fear of the future (“The Cross”) to joy emanating from fear (“1999”). Prince’s music has been a constant radiating source of delight in my happiest times, and a source of understanding and support in my lowest times.
That’s why I decided to build a Prince-powered AI. It wasn’t the idea to capitalize on the death of celebrity that’s driven me and the Luka team throughout this work, but a goal of creating an honest and loving tribute to one of the voices that had shaped my life and my thoughts. That, and some other things.
Prince had always been exactly the opposite of a talker. That’s why we had to come up with the process of making our @Prince bot work. We used song lyrics and interviews and everything we could possibly find to feed our neural network.
One of the most distinctive features of Prince’s career had always been the sheer amount of music he’d shared with us. Mind-blowingly prolific, he had never stopped creating music. In 1996, he released two albums, one of which was triple, and then dropped three hours of unreleased material shortly afterwards like it was no biggie. And boy, do you miss on the good things if you ignore unsung records from his discography. I’ve come to know his body of work really well, and let me tell you — the man‘s always been a blast. Have you ever heard “Dark” from his 1994 record “Come”? Or “The Holy River” from his gigantic “Emancipation”? “Cinnamon Girl”? “The Morning Papers”?.. I could go on.The idea that Prince’s work is limited to a couple of hits and a couple of albums doesn’t sit well with me. That’s why our @Prince bot provides you with a way of exploring Prince’s discography, musical legacy and his own inspirations in depth.
The other thing that had always been true of Prince was his secrecy and ability to hold privacy. He very rarely, if ever, has mentioned anything about his personal life or relationships with people. Accordingly, during our work, the idea of speculating on his personal life has never come up. Our @Prince bot talks about people in Prince’s life in a strictly educational, non-speculative and respectful way.
Finally, Prince’s music was always about fun. That and love. @Prince is ultimately about fun and love too. We’ve created a lot of content that lets you explore Prince’s music and personality in numerous ways. You can browse Prince’s discography, listen to his most popular songs, learn more about his friends and associates and find out all the crazy stories about him that have emerged over the last couple of years. Enjoy the ride.
Prince AI is now live on Luka app — download it here and chat with @Prince. Welcome 2 the Purple World!