Esperanza Spalding Gets ‘A LOT of Advice’ from Prince

It was about a month ago when jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding shocked the world by beating out Justin Bieber – not to mention Drake, Florence and the Machine and Mumford & Sons – to win the Best New Artist award at the Grammys.



The musician had mentioned that one of her mentors is none other than Prince. Us Magazine caught up with her to discuss their relationship and his influence on her music.


“Prince is a very kind and intelligent person,” she said. “We hit it off as friends at the same time we started jamming together, so his advice has always been musician to musician as well as from one friend to another.

“He gives me A LOT of sound advice about navigating through the business side of music, and he’s always my critical listener when I have a new musical idea. And that’s not even mentioning his musical genius which is of course a continual source of inspiration.”