The New Power Generation Era

Lore & Background

When Prince assembled The New Power Generation in the early 1990s, he was making a deliberate statement: the music would come from a collective, not just a singular genius in a studio. Lisa Coleman, his sister and long-time keyboardist, and Wendy Melvoin, his guitar partner, formed the harmonic backbone, while Morris Day and Jerome Benton—both veterans of The Time—brought a raw, call-and-response vocal energy that reminded listeners of Prince's Minneapolis roots. The result was music that felt communal, sweaty, and alive in a way that the more produced 1980s records had not.

The mid-1990s saw the era collide with Prince's famous feud with Warner Bros. Frustrated by label interference, he dropped his name entirely, adopting a symbol (a combination of male and female gender signs) as his public identity. He channeled his output through NPG Records, releasing albums and singles that the major label could not easily suppress. This period of creative independence, though commercially constrained, produced some of the most fiercely committed fan content in his catalog.

By the late 1990s, the NPG identity began to soften as Prince reconciled with Warner Bros. and the band's lineup shifted. Yet the era left a lasting imprint: it proved that Prince could be a bandleader in the truest sense, and it planted seeds for the collaborative, genre-blurring approach he would refine in the 2000s and beyond.

In Their Own Story

The rehearsal space smelled like rosin and old coffee. Wendy ran her fingers down the E-string, finding the pocket, while Lisa layered a Rhodes chord that hung in the air like smoke. Morris barked a call from the back, and Jerome answered before the rhythm section even locked in. Prince stood in the corner, arms crossed, nodding once. No one needed a count-in. The groove found itself the way a river finds its bed—inevitable, patient, and a little bit wild. Outside, the Minnesota rain tapped the windows, but inside, the New Power Generation was building something that no studio producer could have arranged. It was theirs. It was the band.

Reader's Guide

The New Power Generation era spans roughly the 1990s, with its creative peak in the mid-decade. Sonically, it is defined by deep funk grooves, interlocking bass and drum patterns, layered vocal harmonies, and a live-band feel that distinguishes it sharply from Prince's more produced 1980s work. Think driving bass, syncopated percussion, and call-and-response vocals.

Key personnel include Lisa Coleman (keyboards), Wendy Melvoin (guitar), Morris Day and Jerome Benton (vocals), with a rotating cast of drummers and bassists. The cultural context is inseparable from Prince's 1993–1996 dispute with Warner Bros., during which he adopted the Symbol name and released music via NPG Records, asserting full creative ownership.

Defining releases include Emancipation (1992), Goldnigga (1994), and Crystal Ball (1998), each showcasing the band's groove-centric identity. The era also produced memorable live performances and the defiant "slate" incident, where Prince played a set of previously unreleased songs in protest.

Looking forward, the NPG period demonstrated that Prince could function as a true bandleader, a model that influenced 2000s funk revivalists, neo-soul artists, and any musician who values collective improvisation over studio perfection. The era's insistence on band chemistry and live energy echoes through modern R&B and indie-funk scenes to this day.

Did You Know?

• During the mid-1990s label dispute, Prince legally changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol (a combination of the male and female gender signs) to assert ownership over his catalog.
• Morris Day and Jerome Benton, both of whom had been members of The Time in the 1980s, reunited with Prince in the NPG lineup, bridging two eras of the Minneapolis sound.
• The NPG era is notable for its emphasis on live-band recording, with much of the music captured with the full group playing together rather than being built track-by-track in the studio.
• Lisa Coleman, Prince's sister, served as a musical director and keyboardist across multiple eras, making the NPG period one in which family collaboration was central to the band's identity.