When Prince died of an accidental drug overdose in April 2016, the world lost one of music’s most singular talents.
While he’s best known as a virtuoso guitarist — just watch his searing electric guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony — Prince was also a formidable multi-instrumentalist who could command bass, drums and keyboards with equal authority.
But the Purple One had another, far less publicized gift.
Article continues belowBasketball.
And according to guitarist Micki Free, Prince’s skills on the court were astonishing.
“He was like Michael Jordan,” says Free, who played electric guitar with Shalamar and counted Prince among his friends. “He was a freaking amazing basketball player — which shocked everyone.”
Prince’s supposed dominance on the hardwood became part of pop-culture lore thanks to a legendary story told by Charlie Murphy — brother of Eddie Murphy — during a 2004 sketch on Chappelle’s Show. In the segment, “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories,” Murphy claimed that in 1984 the five-foot-three Prince schooled him and Eddie in a game of two-on-two.
But was the story exaggerated for laughs?
Free knows the answer — because he was there.
The guitarist had grown close to Prince in the mid ’80s after bonding over guitars, fashion and nightlife. Both musicians shared a taste for flamboyant clothes and late-nightclub hopping.
In 1984, Shalamar had just scored a U.S. Top 20 hit with “Dancing in the Sheets,” which gained even more attention after it appeared on the soundtrack to the film Footloose. The group also contributed “Don’t Get Stopped in Beverly Hills” to the 1984 Eddie Murphy film Beverly Hills Cop, earning Free and the other soundtrack artists a Grammy.
To celebrate the win, Prince invited Free out for a night on the town.
The evening began at a club where Prince — acting as DJ — was spinning tracks and testing his new music on the dance floor.
I’d run into him at clubs. He’d play songs he was planning to release and watch the crowd to see if people would dance and groove to it.”
— Micki Free
“We would go to clubs together, or I’d run into him at clubs,” Free recalls. “He’d play songs he was planning to release and watch the crowd to see if people would dance and groove to it.”
That night took an unexpected turn when Eddie and Charlie Murphy arrived. Free and Eddie knew each other from their days in New York City, when Murphy was part of the Saturday Night Live cast.
“Eddie and Charlie show up, and Prince says, ‘Let’s go up to my house in Beverly Hills and hang out,’” Free says.
But once they arrived, Prince had another idea.
“You know Prince was a very short man,” Free says. “But suddenly he goes, ‘Let’s play basketball!’”
The suggestion left the room stunned.
“Eddie looked at me like, What the fuck?” Free recalls. “And I looked at Eddie like, Man, I don’t know what’s going on!”
Eddie looked at me like, ‘What the fuck?’ And I looked at Eddie like, ‘Man, I don’t know what’s going on!’”
— Micki Free
The Murphy brothers figured they had nothing to worry about. Prince and Free were still dressed for the club in frilly shirts, flashy clothes and high-heeled boots — hardly the attire of intimidating athletes.
“Charlie Murphy goes, ‘Okay, we’re going to call it the Shirts against the Blouses,’” Free says.
Prince’s bodyguard fetched shorts and basketball shoes for Eddie and Charlie. Prince and Free stayed exactly as they were.
“I remember thinking, Oh my God, this is not going to be good.”
The teams squared off.
“Eddie and Charlie were laughing at us,” Free says. “‘Yeah, this will be easy.’”
Then the game started.
“From the first shot, Prince was nothing but net, net, net,” Free says. “I’m looking at Eddie and Eddie’s looking at me like, What the…?”
Prince took over the entire game.
“It was that serious,” Free says. “I didn’t even shoot once. Prince shot everything — and we beat the shit out of them.”
The stunned brothers had no choice but to accept defeat.
“And when we were done, we went inside,” Free adds. “And Prince’s cook personally made us all blueberry pancakes.”
For Free, the story captures something essential about Prince: the seemingly limitless range of his abilities.
“He was singular,” Free says. “There’s no doubt about it. I’ve never jammed with or played with a musician who was quite as good as Prince.
“He played everything, man — and he was good on everything he played.”
Even basketball.
