HITnRUN Phase One

Prince first used the term Hit n Run to describe pop-up shows that he would perform throughout his career, beginning in the 1980s and continuing in 2014 when he used the phrase to describe a tour with his new band, 3RDEYEGIRL. In the summer of 2015, Prince announced that he would also soon release an album by the same name — and that things were about to get experimental, weird, and super funky.

HITnRUN Phase One was primarily written and recorded in the two years leading up to its release, though at least one song, “1000 X’s and O’s,” dates back to the early 1990s and was originally recorded with the NPG vocalist Rosie Gaines singing lead. Although Prince’s bandmates in 3RDEYEGIRL (Hannah Ford-Welton, Donna Grantis, and Ida Nielsen) do make an appearance on the track “Ain’t About to Stop” (along with pop artist Rita Ora), the album was primarily a collaboration between Prince and Joshua Welton, with only sporadic contributions from other players.

For the first time in his career, Prince worked with Joshua Welton as a co-producer on the album, and Prince spoke at length in interviews about the significant role he played in the creation of HITnRUN Phase One. “He’s like me, younger,” he told Ebony. “You know how you can just feel that something’s gonna work and it feels right, it’s a good fit? I knew the relationship with him was gonna work.”

HITnRUN Phase One was first released exclusively through TIDAL, the streaming music service founded by hip-hop mogul Jay-Z, on September 7, 2015, and was followed a week later by a CD release from Prince’s own NPG Records. The album peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and at 70 on the Billboard 200.