Prince has been one of the most respected artists in the world for decades now, but it wasn’t always so. As a hungry and ambitious musician out of Minneapolis, there were a few years there when Prince was just another performer with some great songs and a whole lot of promise, just like many others. In 1980 Prince opened for Rick James on his Fire It Up tour, a tour that was not without its share of acrimony and represented, in the eyes of many, a symbolic passing of the mantle from one “punk-funk” superstar to another.

Source: The night Rick James almost beat up Prince, bitch! | Dangerous Minds