More than my songs have to do with sex, they have to do with one humans love for another, which goes deeper than anything political that anybody could possibly write about. Prince, 1981

Released in October 1981, Controversy captures Princes evolving worldview, and brings his songs out of the bedroom and onto the dancefloor and into the streets to protest the political tension that would come to define the era. We need a new breed leaders, stand up, organize, Prince proclaims on Sexuality, setting forth a new mission statement: that the personal (and sexual) is also political, and that the quickest route to liberation is to let your body be free. When Controversy was released, The New York Times declared that Princes black-white synthesis isnt just a picture of what could be, its a prophecy.