(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps. Prince died 10 years ago next week. Growing up in his hometown of Minneapolis during the 1970s, Yvette Thompson had a special connection to him.
YVETTE THOMPSON: Prince was my babysitter from the time I was born till I was, like, 4 or 5 years old.
FADEL: Thompson sat down with her 86-year-old mother, Sue McLilly, for StoryCorps' Brightness in Black project to remember the neighborhood boy with a very different name back then.
THOMPSON: I don't recall using anything other than Skipper. I think I might've called him Prince twice. They lived kitty-corner from us in a yellow house. And my earliest memory is him playing music on the piano that was downstairs. He used to watch TV and play the theme songs that he heard. The "Batman Theme," in particular, sticks in my head. So do you think he was a good babysitter?
SUE MCLILLY: He was a very good babysitter.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: You know, he was very quiet. He would give me a hug, ask me how I was doing. I was young when it happened, but I remember watching him on "American Bandstand." That was the first time I realized, OK, he's really famous now. And I had a poster of him with a trenchcoat on and just underwear. Mom, do you remember you telling me that you didn't care if it was Prince or not, but you wasn't going to have no naked man in the house?
MCLILLY: (Laughter) Yep.
THOMPSON: Prince's mother, Mattie, was my godmother. She loved me like I was her own child. I had some problems in junior high, and she got me right. And he always told me to go to school and that someday it'll pay off for me more than I knew. So I used to always say, oh, maybe Prince put away money for me to go to school.
(LAUGHTER)
THOMPSON: The last time I saw him, I took my oldest daughter, and she got to see Prince live. And he saw us in the front row, and he threw her the towel...
MCLILLY: Yeah.
THOMPSON: ...And she caught it, and he kind of winked like, you're good.
On the day of his death, I was at work, and I remember my daughter calling me, and she said, I need you to sit down. I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to see it on the news in a little bit. Prince died. And I screamed and cried, and I had to wait for my other daughter to come and get me and take me home. It's been almost 10 years. It's weird that it's been that long.
MCLILLY: He was just a special boy, and he will always be my Skipper.
THOMPSON: He'll always be Skipper.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL")
PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION: (Singing) Sometimes it snows in April.
FADEL: Yvette Thompson and Sue McLilly remembering Prince, the babysitter, for StoryCorps in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their interview is archived at the Library of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL")
PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION: (Singing) Sometimes I wish... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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