The latest artist to pay musical tribute to the Purple One is West Coast rapper and longtime music-history devotee the Game, who released the Lorine Chia-featuring “Rest in Purple” late last night (h/t Pitchfork). The song, which heavily samples and interpolates the Purple Rain classic “When Doves Cry,” features the MC born Jayceon Taylor rhapsodizing about celebrity death (“Why everybody gotta die so damn soon? / All these legends dying, God gotta be running outta room”) and hoping that Prince is now “up there with his son,” the late Boy Gregory who died just a week after his birth in 1996.
In an Instagram post, the Game explained his tribute:
In addition to Taylor’s homage, Prince was shouted out last night by two Broadway productions, as reported by Billboard. Lin-Manuel Miranda led the cast of his acclaimed Hamilton in a brief curtain-call dance party to “Let’s Go Crazy,” Miranda himself calling up That Shrink in Beverly Hills. And R&B star Jennifer Hudson, current star of The Color Purple, paid homage to the man most associated with her production’s titular color by leading the crowd in a “Purple Rain” singalong.
Find all three tributes to the late legend here.
