Less than a year after moving to Minnesota, Sharon Smith-Akinsanya received a job offer from none other than Prince. Smith-Akinsanya managed marketing of the Prince-inspired nightclub Glam Slam at all three of its locations: Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Miami. In 2017, she sat down with Jay Gabler and Andrea Swensson to talk about running the clubs, working with Prince, and remembering the icon's legacy in Minnesota.

Jay Gabler: To start out with, do you want to tell us what you're doing in Minnesota now?

I work with major corporations and I help them do better business with communities of color, because I believe that we all need to work harder in making sure that Minnesota is a great place to live, work, and play for all. So I do a lot of work around diversity workforce recruitment and retention. I produce the People of Color Career Fair, and I have a top resource for Minnesota employers to connect with candidates looking to be hired, at www.poccareers.com.

Andrea Swensson: That's fantastic work. I'm really curious if that's something that you ever communicated with Prince about; if that was a passion of his, and if your experiences being around him and in his company ignited this focus for you.

My work around this area was inspired by my years of being in the radio business. But I can tell you that Prince was a flag-waving Minnesotan. He loved it here, and he was always concerned about the plight of his people. One of the best pieces of music that he wrote that gives you an idea of how he felt was called "Dear Mr. Man." That'll give you a sense of how he felt about what was going on with African Americans, Black people specifically.

JG: You came here to Minnesota in the '90s, am I right?

I did. I want the '90s back! I want them back. It was so cool. There was so much to do, the Minneapolis sound was just crazy. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. I had a boyfriend, his name was David, he played the guitar. He wanted to move to Minnesota because he wanted the opportunity to work for Prince. So, I'm like, "Minnesota? Dude, seriously? There's nothing there but Prince and snow." At the time, I was not a Prince fan. I knew Prince, and I respected him, but I wasn't a fan. But I thought, "Hey, single and no kids, let's rock it."

We come up to Minnesota, and I got a big job. A radio sales job at KDWB. They say, "First thing we want you to do is, we need Glam Slam on the air." So that's how it started. Less than a year later, Prince had asked me to come work with him. There's more to that story, but that's sort of how I got there. Of course I lost my boyfriend.

AS: Did you meet Prince over the course of that year?

Yes. What happened was ultimately we did get Glam Slam to advertise on the radio. Then one night I was in the club, and this was not even a year later. A bodyguard said, "The boss wants to see you." I was like, "My boss is not in this club, trust me." I just wasn't thinking. He did the head nod, and I thought, "Oh, okay." He walked me over to the booth — there was a booth that was Prince's booth, nobody sat there but him. From time to time, we would let people sit there if we knew he was out of town, but that was his spot.

I went over there, and that was the first night that I met Prince, and he asked me to meet with him. He told me I was doing a good job, and he was very short. He asked me, "Will you come meet with me?" So we did that, and he asked me to come join the team. I thought he thought maybe I worked for him already, so I said, "I'm doing this on behalf of a radio station." He said, "No, no, I get it." So, we met and he asked me to come join the team.

AS: So the very first time that you met him, you were hired?

Pretty much, and that's sort of how it goes. He does his research, he identifies and he points you out, and before you know it you're doing stuff. That's sort of exactly how it works. It was an amazing experience, and he had a lot of fun doing work at Glam Slam in Minneapolis and Los Angeles. We also built South Beach.

AS: What year was that, when you were first brought in?

What year did he change his name?

AS: 1993.

So it was '92. Because I was like, "Dang it, I just got here. It's only been a year!" So I was there in '92. And then he changed his name in the middle of it.

JG: Can you explain to people who never were there, what Glam Slam was? Because I feel like people now, they know Paisley Park and they know First Avenue because those are places you can still go to. But people forget, or don't know much about what Glam Slam was, why Prince operated it, and what role it played in his life and career.

Glam Slam was a nightclub inspired by Prince. He didn't legally own it, but it was inspired by him. "Glam Slam," as you know, is one of his songs. Everybody knows that Prince loves a party — that's part of his personality. He loved going to clubs, and he loved going to clubs for a couple reasons. Not only did he like to dance, but he liked to hear other people's music and he wanted to see how the community and the patrons in the club responded to his new music. DJs became a very important part of it. He liked to see people have a good time — he liked music and liked to dance, but he also wanted to see how people would react to his music. He could do that in his own clubs.

He could also see live bands and do rehearsals in front of live audiences. If they weren't at Paisley, he could play at his club. He'd test things out, rehearse and learn. You never knew he was in rehearsal, but it was always rehearsal. So, even though there were shows, they were rehearsals for something else. Then he would videotape those shows and those people and their reactions and watch so that he could get better. He could then coach the band or the dancers or the choreographer, whoever he was working with at the time — because he believed that if you don't tape it, you can't get better. He spent a lot of time looking at those tapes to get better, to watch angles — not only his angles, but other people's angles — because they were always being photographed. Everything was choreographed. Glam Slam was a place for us to have a great time, but also a rehearsal ground and a way for him to test new music.

AS: In that era, it seems as if there weren't as many public events happening at Paisley Park. I get the sense that picked up in the later '90s. Was Glam Slam his playground at that point?

I don't know. He was there a lot, and he played a lot, and we had concerts there a lot. Paisley, at that time, was, "Is there going to be an afterparty?" It was Glam Slam at the beginning of the night. They'd wonder if there was going to be an after party at Paisley because the club closed at 1:00 a.m. That's like noon for Prince. The idea was, "Are we going out to Paisley? Is there an afterparty?" So we'd have to figure that out, and I'd get the phone call, and I'm sure so did a couple other people, and that would mean that we needed to mobilize people to get out to Paisley for the event.

JG: Things must have been successful enough, and he must have been happy enough with how things went in Minneapolis, that he then wanted to open Glam Slam clubs in California and Florida.

I would assume that the same reason for having that club in Minneapolis would be for L.A. and South Beach. He really needed to have a way to listen to his music and have other people listen to his music. Now remember, he's in the middle of a fight with Warner Brothers, so he needs other avenues to get the new music out. I can't get inside of his head, but I'm guessing that was part of it — making sure he had a way to express himself in a vehicle that he could control.

I was in charge of making sure that those clubs did what they were supposed to do. In fact, I finished building South Beach. That was pretty incredible. The opening night was, "Whoa." He was like, "We've got to bring it in on budget and on time." And that's what we did. Glam Slam was very important. We had all sorts of events in Glam Slams. Other people's events, CD release parties, and of course everyone would just wonder if they could spot him. Let alone if he would play, but is he coming tonight? Sometimes we would know, sometimes we wouldn't know. It depended on what he was feeling.

JG: What was the peak of this activity then, when you had all three clubs open? Would that have been around '93 or '94?

I'd say '93, possibly '94. I'd say the peak is when he called me up on the phone. This was after he changed his name, so that will give you some sort of reference point. He called me up, and I swear he was in the bathtub, because I could hear the water. I could hear all this water, like he was just splashing around and he goes, "Sharon, I'd like to have a first birthday party." Silence. "I'll call you back." He hangs up, and that's good because it gives me a minute to think about a first birthday party. I'm thinking, he's every bit of 30-something. But, "artist formerly known as" first birthday party. I had to get it, it took me a minute.

He calls back, and he says, "I'd like to play all three clubs at the same time and run the sound." Click. That was the assignment. That was the biggest challenge, because when you worked for Prince you didn't get the details. He didn't do details. It was vision, and could you get the vision? Then you'd figure out how to execute, which was the most unbelievable experience ever for someone like me who is a marketer. So, you go around talking to the other people like, "You're not going to believe what he just asked me." We're running around trying to figure out what it all means. Then he called back two hours later, "Figure it out yet?" Nope, still working on it. Not only did he want it, he wanted it fast.

Ultimately, we figure it out. We were working on this after hours dance series called Erotic City. It was upstairs in the back room of Glam Slam. We hired dancers and we had beds for seats. It was cool, as far as "Prince cool." So we thought, "We can do this. We can do this in three locations. He can play." We ended up doing it. It was hubbed out of Miami. You remember the endorphin machine? That had been built, so he ran the sound from the front of the house out of that machine. We threw it up on satellite and he was able to be in three places at one time. We were monitoring and DJ-ing and hosting. Kind of like all three of us. So Jay, you would've been in L.A., Andrea, you would have been in Miami, and I was in Minneapolis. So we were getting ready, the place is packed, "How's it going over there?" That's how it was, that was early on. It was awesome.

JG: Was there video as well as sound?

Oh yeah. There were video screens, so you could see him. He wanted to be in three places at one time and people could see him. It was amazing. Afterwards, after I exhaled and cried and everything, it was just like, "Okay, we did it. It happened." Remember, I didn't start off as a Prince fan. I figured out who I was dealing with quite early on. Okay, I get it it now. Oh, this is amazing. I am in the middle of history, because I now get it. We got a musical genius, a creative icon, from Minnesota in north Minneapolis. What are we doing here? Loved all over the world, he could write songs in 15 minutes or less. I got it.

I really wanted to make sure I could help him execute that vision, because it wasn't ordinary. This is not some dude that can play the guitar doing music. This is Prince. I understood it. I appreciated where he was, and it was great. Just watching him work, in terms of rehearsals, and just asking that question is unbelievable, "Can I be in three places at one time?" Think about that. Trying to figure it out is great, but what was even more incredible is that he knew I could do it. That's the learning.

When I think about Prince, it's the learning and the legacy. He would push you to places you never thought you could go. Ever. And that was the beauty; he actually thought we could do it. Going back a little bit, in terms of getting Miami built [Glam Slam South Beach], he called me up and he said, "I need you to finish Glam Slam South Beach, so we need to go to the bank." What happened was, he ended up footing a half a million dollars that I was in charge of. In my name. I was the only person who could write checks, and I think one other person could sign with me. It was the craziest thing. Out of the blue, we are standing at the bank like, "Here you go!" That kind of stuff was incredible. The experience was unbelievable.

At the end of it, I really thought that I should've written him a check for what I learned, and how it is applicable to the work that I'm doing today and ever since I left him. It was a great experience. It was crazy. It was 24/7 and you didn't sleep much. But boy, was it worth it. I figured he's not sleeping either, so we'll just keep it going.

JG: Maybe a little bit in the late afternoon.

But he was always at work, though. He was not a slacker. Some days I'd be like, "Okay, take a sick day, or sleep longer." Because when he was away, you could get work done. When he was there, it was constantly going. It was either a phone call, an email or a message. It kept going, it never stopped because his mind never stopped. By the time you'd get one thing started, he was on to the next thing. We were very excited when he would take a nap.

JG: You're in marketing, and you had these incredible productions to bring together and clubs to open. Was there day-to-day marketing work to get people into the club? Or was that not your domain?

That was my domain, to make sure that the teams that were working on Glam Slams had what they needed to be able to keep the clubs packed. It wasn't so much about advertising; it was more about strategy. What are we doing? What bands are we having? Which dancers are coming? Who have we invited? Prince is doing this, Warner Brothers wants to do that. It was more of what's the calendar? What are we doing that is consistent that we can share?

Once they opened, it took off. It just did what it did. Mostly, it was asking questions about your DJ, your music and things like that. LA was a challenge because of where it was located. It was downtown Los Angeles. In fact, my good friend Johann Sfaellos, with whom I ultimately ended up opening the Lounge nightclub here in Minneapolis, ran Glam Slam in Los Angeles. It was a challenge because there was nothing in downtown Los Angeles, so I'm not quite sure about that location. But, it still did what it was supposed to do, and then all things come to an end.

AS: I'm curious to know a little bit more about the logistics. How many people were working for Prince in this early period of the '90s? And where were you working? Were you at Paisley Park, or were you at Glam Slam?

I worked at Paisley Park, and also was at Glam Slam depending on what we were doing. But I had an office at Paisley, on the second floor by the doves. Every office was filled. We had band members, but I don't know how many people were on payroll. I should know this, because we had to do some work around payroll. I should know the number. But it was so long ago. It was fully staffed. There were people that you could go and talk to about payroll and insurance; it was a team. It wasn't huge. About 50 people, maybe?

AS: A full business.

Yeah, it was full. There were people, and there were people in Los Angeles as well. There was a Paisley Park office in L.A. We had publicity, marketing, and all those people. There were a couple development people and a CEO.

JG: You were saying that all good things come to an end. Eventually this era wound down and this business downsized and the clubs closed. Where was your role in that process? What do you remember about how that happened?

It just happened. I wasn't intimately involved in all of those details. If you know anything about Prince, it just changes. It was like, "Okay, we're done with that." We're onto the next thing. So it could have been as simple as that, or it could have been something else. Glam Slam was still there when I left. Everything was still doing what it did. It wasn't downsized then, but it did. Like you said, there was an era. I'm assuming that Prince just decided, which was what he often did. He may decide, "I'm done. I don't need all these people." It could have been as simple as that, but I don't know.

JG: When was it that you left the organization?

I left almost moving into '95. So, a little over two years as an employee. Obviously, I worked with Glam Slam a little bit longer than that.

AS: As you mentioned before, this was a very pivotal time in his career, as he's changing his name...

And writing "slave" on his face.

AS: What was the reaction within the camp of people that were working with him? What did you have to do to support that? How did everybody feel about everything?

That's a great question. When the release came out, we were a little freaked out. We were like: "What do we call him?" Then we went, "Now, why are we doing this?" Then we went, "Wait a minute. It's real!" Because he legally changed his name. So, okay, it was serious. If that was the case, then how were we going to communicate? That was the first thing, and that's when we got the tools to communicate because we wrote a lot of memos to Prince. It couldn't be "Dear Prince" anymore, you had to stamp it. We had a way to stamp it, and a way to change the keys on the keyboard. We had to adjust.

AS: There was a key that had the symbol on it?

Correct. Sometimes, it was easier just to print out the memo. In this era, he loved faxes. He could grab them and really look, and then respond to you. He responded to everything that I've ever written him — in purple ink, by the way. Or he'd call you on the phone and give you an answer. He ran the business. But the biggest adjustment was learning how to communicate.

I remember being in the hallway once and I was thinking, "I really need to ask Prince this question about a budget on a choreographer." He's walking on his way to rehearsal, and he goes fast. So I'm like, "How am I going to run down the hall fast enough to get in front of him?" Because you can't just say, "Hey dude!" You had to try and get his attention. That was the biggest challenge. I beeline down the hall, and then of course, I fall. And he said, "Did you need something?" Then he just fell out laughing. Because Prince was funny. He was really, really funny. I was thinking, "Is he going to help me up?" I'm going to leave that as a cliffhanger.

JG: It's so impressive that he so thoroughly changed the way that people relate to him. He saw that could be done. That would be hard enough to do now, when we're used to using unconventional characters. But in the early '90s, he was like, "This can happen. I'm going to make this happen."

And he did! We all had stamps. I still have one. That's how we did it.

JG: There was no spoken name that you would use?

No. We referred to him as "the Boss." When we were talking to each other, we'd use that. But to him, no. You'd just start talking. Even when he called you, he never said hello. He'd just start talking.

JG: Was it part of your responsibility to consider dealing with the media?

No, that was the responsibility of Karen Lee, who was in charge of publicity for Paisley Park enterprises at the time. She was in charge of all publicity. She didn't do much around the club publicity, but when it had to do with him, it was under her per view.

AS: It's interesting to go back now and piece together this timeline, because the media reacted so strongly to everything with little information or connection to him. It was a lot of speculation and namecalling, honestly. A lot of wondering if he was just trying to pull one over on everybody.

It was serious. And obviously, if you didn't know him, you would think that was really strange. We were only freaked out because we didn't know what we were going to call him. We knew that, in his head, Prince was dead to him. I remember sending him a memo that said Warner Brothers had asked to do a release party for the Come album. I really had to think through it. How was I going to get that approval when he didn't see himself as Prince? Because it was a Prince album.

I sent him a note that said, "If Prince were here, what would you think he would think about doing the release party at Glam Slam Los Angeles?" I put the stamp on it, and he wrote me back, "He would love it." You had to think it through. How do you do this and still respect him? But we had business to get done at the same time. I had to keep the clubs running. Of course everybody wanted to know, when we did the party, everybody wanted to know if he would be there. But he wasn't Prince. We put together a choreographed piece to do at the event, but he wasn't there.

JG: It seems you've kept in touch with your friends and co-workers over all these years.

Some of us do. We talk about it. I spend a lot of time with Pepe Willie, he's a good friend of mine. We talk about it a lot because it was very painful for us. There's a handful of us that knew Prince, or even had a conversation with him. You're in an exclusive club. When [Prince's death] happened, you wanted to clamor for those people because they would understand what it meant. He meant so much to us.

I spent a lot of time with Pepe because he started with Prince very early on. I had a couple conversations with Kirk [Johnson] when it first happened, just to make sure he was okay because he was so close to Prince. I talked to Levi [Seacer Jr.] a little bit and had some communication with Morris Hayes very little, via Messenger. Then of course some of the dancers and DJs...people that I worked with directly.

The biggest connection was when we went to the memorial. There was a private ceremony, and then there was the other private ceremony. I was honored to be included in that. There might have been 100 people there, maybe. It was the first time that it was revealed that his ashes were in the makeshift Paisley Park. So, we saw that. It was incredible. I really wish that the world would have been able to be there with us.

AS: Have you returned to Paisley Park?

I have not.

AS: I can't even imagine.

I'm struggling with the whole museum thing. The vision I have of Prince's wardrobe is that it used to be on the fifth floor in Glam Slam. Lots of people were sewing and making things, measuring his butt — you know, it was, "Whoa!" Then it moved out to Paisley. I'm just not there yet. I'm not a family member, but I'm just not there yet with the museum. I know everyone is saying that's what he wanted. I will eventually get out there.

AS: You mentioned earlier that Prince had this ability to draw excellence out of people and challenge you. Have you reflected in this last year or so about how he changed you? Or what impact working with him had on you professionally, personally or creatively?

Oh, absolutely. Prince was all about excellence, at every level. It would blow me away. I'm sure you can talk to others who worked for Prince. It was so hard to keep up. He was everything. Okay. I'm a girl, right? I think I look pretty good. I'm not ugly. But he was a guy who would make you feel insecure about how you came to work.

I'm thinking, "Wait a minute. I know he only got two hours of sleep. I'm exhausted! I just want to get in there and get my work done. How is he looking like two million dollars? This is not okay! His makeup was better than mine, his eyeliner is better than mine. It's not fair!" So I would think, "Please don't call me in for a meeting today. It's going to be embarrassing." There was no slacking. No jeans. He was always dressed to the nines. Hence, the song, "Love 2 the 9's." I felt inadequate sometimes. Especially as a female.

One time, he really hurt my feelings. I don't think he did it on purpose, because he was a practical joker. He was funny, it just wasn't funny to me when he did it. We were in South Beach. I used to wear this apple hat. I worked so hard, it looked really good. I could be cool with it if I had a bad hair day. Every time Prince saw me in that hat, he just fell out laughing. It was so funny to him that I would wear it. It was cool the first couple of times. I thought, "He's just being Prince, but I'm just trying to get the work done."

The third time, he was walking down the ramp in Miami, and I'm asking him a question. He's looking at me in the face and he just fell out laughing. It was that last one, that third one that really hurt my feelings. I thought I was looking good that day. It wasn't cheap — it was a cool apple hat! That hurt my feelings, but he didn't intend to. I never changed my hat, by the way.

But, he pushed you to be excellent. How to throw the best party and how to hire the best dancers. What was the choreography of the dance? How do you fill a room for special events in an hour? How are you going to get it done? I learned the hard way. He was doing a party and this was at Paisley, I believe. It was an after party. We needed everybody to come in an hour. It wasn't like after Glam Slam, where you could herd people out. You had to get creative. The only thing I knew to do, which is what we would generally do, was call KDWB. We'd tell KDWB that he was having a party. They would announce it, and we'd be fine. But, it didn't happen that night.

He was playing out at Paisley, and it was a comfortable crowd, but not what he would expect. He was disappointed. He said, "I should never have empty seats." He taught me the art of seat filling. If you can't sell them, you pack the house by any means necessary. I quickly learned that. Because I thought, "We've got to sell tickets, right?" He's thinking, "I'm Prince." It was an hour ago, but that didn't matter.

I got really good at building strong relationships and a network of people who could help me spread the word fast about these opportunities. I created a strategy for the seat-filling piece and a strategy for the ticket-selling piece. And what happened that night never happened again. I do that now with my clients, I never let them see that something is not successful. They deserve to have a smashing success. I'm known for producing flawless events, and a lot of that has to do with what I learned from Prince. And I tape everything.

JG: I can only imagine what's in the Vault. People think about the music, but there is so much video there as well!

Yeah, it's a lot of video because he recorded everything that he did and that other people did. When we did concerts at Glam Slam, the minute that I was done with the event, whoever was on that stage, Prince wanted the videotape instantly. People would come to my apartment to get the videotape. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see the crowd reaction, how that person performed or if he could learn anything. It was constant.

As of this day, I videotape everything that I do. Every single thing. You can't get better if you can't see it. When you're in the throes of doing it, you can't see it. You need to sit back, relax, take a look at it and then critique yourself. The learning was incredible.

Now what I'm interested in is the legacy. Prince loved Minnesota. I told him I would leave, and he said, "You'll never leave." And I didn't. I fell in love with Minnesota and the Twin Cities — although we have work to do, as you know. I do long for the '90s, because they were very cool. But when I think about the legacy, his music, and his philanthropy with wanting young people to learn instruments, I think about a couple of things that he said to me when he was here with us.

You had to read between the lines a lot with Prince. There weren't long conversations, there were pieces of conversations. There were lots of them, but you'd have to move fast, you'd have to think. He'd say, "I wonder why the metronome doesn't shine purple?" Translation: "What am I, chopped liver?" That's my translation, not his.

Or, "I wonder why there's a Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicollet Mall?" I knew Prince well enough to know that he would not have wanted a statue. He would not think that somebody could get him right. He would not want a statue, that's not my point. So please, nobody get him a statue.

What I'm saying is that he'd think, "Why am I not getting my roses while I'm alive?" I'm saying that I agree, because there's no street, there's nothing on Nicollet Mall, not even a purple brick. There's no mural yet. There's no highway, there's no school. Nothing. I can tell you that I think that's inexcusable. I'm not saying that we won't get there because it's still early. But even while he was here. Think about that for a minute, ya'll. You could ask him, "Can we name this school after you? How about a street near First Avenue?" Kirby Puckett got one. People notice. Not just from here, but in other places. I think they have a Prince Street in Los Angeles!

We need to take this opportunity to show him how much we loved him, because he absolutely loved us as Minnesotans. No doubt about it. We're moving too slow on that. How do we honor a global icon that was ours? When we had the first celebration, everything needed to be purple. On April 21, there needs to be purple hamburgers, purple Popsicles, purple lights, purple water. Everything needs to be purple in this joint, okay? Everything!

I want us to do better and be better around the legacy of Prince. I don't want people to be timid about it. Everything won't be right, we won't get it right. Just do it! Don't even ask for permission. Don't wait. Those who love Prince won't do anything disrespectful. Be reasonable. If it's bad, somebody will tell you.

AS: Was it your idea to do the Prince day at the State Fair?

I needed to do something. An opportunity fell in my lap to go and meet with the State Fair to do some things around diversity. I said, "Listen, the city is in turmoil right now. We're falling apart." We had black men getting shot in the street, Black Lives Matter and everybody was just mad. And then, we lost Prince. Everybody knows that music is a universal language. No matter where you're from.

We sat down and had a conversation about doing Unite in Purple. It was on the same night that Charlie Wilson and Fantasia would be performing at the State Fair last year. I think it was the largest opening day on a Friday [August 26th, 2016]. I have all the photos and video from it. It was a sea of purple. People totally got it. It felt really good for me. I'm not a family member, just someone who appreciated what he's done for me personally. I think he appreciated the value that I had and added to his life during the time we were together. To be able to bring that together at the Great Minnesota Get-Together was an honor. It will be something that I will never forget, because it's something that we all can do. Wear purple and come to the fair. How hard is that?

That's why I'm saying that everything needs to shine purple. We had purple stuff on a stick, and the fair really pulled out all the stops to make sure that all the vendors had an opportunity to participate. We had purple tea and popcorn, and it was way cool. The whole thing. It was nice because Prince's entire family was there. For the most part, we had a good representation of the family. They were treated very well with VIP treatment. It was good for everybody to know that they were there. It was a great night. A great celebration and legacy of their brother and our Minnesota son. Prince was ours, and we need to act like it.

Transcribed by Hanna Bubser, edited by Colleen Cowie