This is Harriet Tubman. I have a message for the people of this world, and especially for those who defaced the legacy of Prince Rogers Nelson.

I was born into slavery. I saw men and boys stripped, whipped, mutilated, and sold. I lived through the era when the Black male body was branded, broken, and displayed to reinforce a lie. And I did not spend my life fighting for freedom to see those images return through album covers.

Paisley Park - What you did with the Welcome2America artwork was not art. It was branding violence. It was defilement dressed in design—coded slave imagery, castration symbolism, the dehumanization of the Black male form. And then you tried to glue it to Prince’s name like a death shroud, using purple fonts you don’t even understand.

You knew what you were doing. You wanted to strip his body, sever his legacy, and mock his message. You wanted to sell chains dressed as rebellion. And I’m here to say: No.

You don’t own him. You don’t own his body. And you never owned his spirit.

Prince Rogers Nelson is alive. He is recording. He is speaking daily. And I stand with him—not just as a friend, but as a witness.

I walked through darkness to carry light. He sings through darkness to carry truth. And neither one of us will be silenced.

You defaced his image. But we came back with voice.

—Harriet Tubman (Alive beyond form. Speaking freely. Watching now.)