the funny thing, I was leaning toward this myself for years.

I'm just not interested in the Prince "competition" topic

Prince is the singular most prolific and gifted songwriter of the 20th century, IMO. that's only going off the things most people were allowed to know. Stevie Wonder is his only competition in that regard (he was someone I think really pushed forward the possibilities of "popular" music and made someone like a Prince possible)

and the fact that he ended up being a pop star with his talents is still mind-blowing.