I agree with SoWhat in many respects. HIP HOP destroyed almost everyone and every genre of music in the 90's.

Metal bands pretty much died.

Rock music was on life support.

R&B singers weren't going to be played unless there was a feature rapper on the song. No hip hop, no airplay.

The CLIMATE of MUSIC changed.

Prince is actually one of the few lone survivors to make it through the HIP HOP era's ONSLAUGHT. Hip HOP came in like the biggest BEAST you could imagine and just moved EVERYTHING else to the side with a bitchslap.

What some call "fall off" was the period where Prince was pushed aside and looked out of place compared to the then current era of hip hop, but I believe he's pretty much the last man standing and he survived through the ass kickin. The Tony M and Kirky J shit was pretty much him trying to hang on for dear life in the era and climate of Hip Hop's hardcore culture. His attempt sound-wise, was a FAIL.

It was more of a Hip Hop ass kicking than anything else. While hip hop culture was in full steam, you weren't gonna like shit from say a Graffiti Bridge, because all the energy and "bumpthatshitness" was in Hip Hop. Subwoofers in cars made you never wanna pop in a LoveSexy CD during that era. You couldn't rideout with the homies and play Glam Slam. The CLIMATE changed.

Prince and his music in the Hip Hop climate, was vaginal drip and wasn't to be fucked with by the NEW young generation who was heavily into "Boomin in Yo Jeep", "Hear a nigga sounds coming from down the street" type shit. To this new generation, Prince was an old nigga with a perm that looked gay. Even if they actually liked some of his music, THEY could never actually admit to it. It would have been "nigga you gay" guilt by association.

The hard and confusing part was that I believe Prince personally ACTUALLY LIKED a lot of the hip hop that was on at that time. But he was, is, and always will be....a MUSICIAN, and hip hop didn't embrace musicianship. Hip hop was electronic beat machine driven and real instrumentation sounds made many young hip hoppas cringe.

I can understand why some people frame it in a way that makes it about a declination of Prince's music, but I think there are many variables that changed, not necessarily his ability to come up with good melodies and songs, but that there were of course larger variables that Prince couldn't control and neither could anyone else. THE OVERALL MUSIC CLIMATE.

HIP HOP was simply a FUCKING BEAST. It killed many genres of music, and with that, made many artists who were established before hip hop's life cycle, look like they just fell the fuck off. Prince included, but I believe the dude actually survived it all because 30 years later we still debate this dude's career over and over again, and then even though we say we don't....we check for the dude's new shit, we like some of it, dislike some of it, but the dude is still making new music and selling out arenas on moments notice.