Prince was born to 16 year old mother Sharon Johnson with an older sister Zenia and younger half-brother Thelton.
[6] To earn money, he mowed lawns in Shady Acres, played craps, sold stolen cannabis plants, and worked on welding trucks.
[8][9] The initial goal prior to the label was to keep his younger stepbrother known as the rapper Sir Rap-A-Lot out of street life, as well as friends Raheem and Jukebox from skipping school.
[7] After purchasing an abandoned building, he turned the property into a used car dealership, known as Smith Auto Sales on the west side of Houston.
[7] Using local radio stations like KTSU to spread the reach of the label's music,[14] his first deal came in 1989 via Rick Rubin working with the Geto Boys on their 2nd album Grip It!
[15] The controversy lead to Rubin splitting from Geffen and signing with Warner Records with the album being pushed there instead, it tripled the total sales of the project.
[16] Prince signed a deal with Priority Records in 1991 for distribution,[6] releasing the Geto Boys third album We Can't Be Stopped.
At this time a concept for a music distribution label that would have acted dually as a union for recording artists was being planned between Prince, Suge Knight, and Irv Gotti which was eventually cancelled.
[21] During Destiny's Child formative years in the early 1990s, Prince was approached by Mathew Knowles and one of their managers asking if he would join in, but he declined as their sound did not match his more hip-hop oriented label.
[3][16] Jas and Prince Sr. were listed as executive producers or contributors for points on Drake's Thank Me Later, Nothing Was the Same, and other follow up projects as a result of the introduction, as well as entitlement to 33% of his earnings.
[23] On February 13, 2015, Prince uploaded a spoken word diss track entitled "Courtesy Call" as a response to Sean Combs for a conflict he had involving Young Money artist Drake.
[22] In the spring of 2018 after the release of The Story of Adidon, Prince advised Drake not to respond to Pusha T helping deescalate the issue between the two parties.
[32] Prince had the intention of meeting Mike Tyson in Las Vegas to manage the boxer, he was instead approached by Floyd Mayweather Jr. who was also a fan of his label.
[4] Prince has supervised the careers of 15 other boxers, leading some of them to their biggest victories, including Winky Wright, Jared Anderson, Roy Jones Jr., Diego Corrales, Mark Johnson, Duke Ragan, Efe Ajagba and Hasim Rahman.
The company primarily served the Houston area, educating youth about HIV/AIDS prevention and hosting events set up to address the issue of AIDS in the Black community,[35] and has been represented by artists like Lil Wayne.
[39] In 2011, a limited edition DVD box set was released by Rap-A-Lot with appearances from several rappers, including Rick Ross and Young Jeezy and industry execs such as Lyor Cohen, Russell Simmons among several others praising Prince.