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Prince and a President: An Untold Story

President Barack Obama is a big fan of Prince.
President Barack Obama is a big fan of Prince.Karrah Kobus/NPG Records via Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

by Nate Ryan and Luke Taylor

June 07, 2017

Update, November 10, 2017: Photographer Pete Souza's book OBAMA: An Intimate Portrait, is now available for purchase. On page 267, Souza publishes a photo from June 13, 2015, the night that Prince played a private concert with Stevie Wonder for President Obama, his family, and a select group of friends.

Original story, July 7, 2017

In 2015, then-President Barack Obama released his summer playlist on Spotify. The playlist included such artists as Aretha Franklin, Sly and the Family Stone, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan — and Philadelphia band Low Cut Connie. "That was nuts," recalls Low Cut Connie frontman Adam Weiner. "The guy at The New York Times tweeted, 'I can't understand we live in a world where the President of the United States listens to Low Cut Connie.'"

But Weiner ended up learning a lot more about Barack Obama's musical tastes.

Thanks to coordination with White House Photographer Pete Souza, Weiner and his wife got to visit the White House in May 2016, where they met the 44th President of the United States. On display in the West Wing were some of Obama's favorite photos by Souza. "There were three pictures of Prince performing at the White House," Weiner explains. "What's amazing about the story is what was in the pictures."

Hear Weiner's story, as told to The Current's Bill DeVille, by watching the video above.

More: Low Cut Connie perform in The Current's studio; includes cover of Prince's "Controversy."

Resources

Pete Souza Photography - official site

The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama - official site

Low Cut Connie - official site

Barack Obama in Oval Office with photographer Pete Souza
U.S. President Barack Obama in the Oval Office with White House photographer Pete Souza (background, at right) on May 21, 2015, in Washington, D.C.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images