In 2015 Prince delivered a pointed statement while taking the stage at the 57th annual Grammy.

Albums still matter, Like books and black lives, albums still matter. Tonight and always.

Prince

The music icon, decked out in fantastic fashion, was there to present the award for album of the year at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It was the same year that the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was trending due to controversy of the Academy’s all white nominees.

When prince died the following year, on April 16, 2016, Alicia Garza an African-American activist and editorial writer and the founder of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement shared something very few people knew – Prince was a benefactor of the Black Lives Matter movement. On their website she was finally able to acknowledge his support.

Early on in the evolution of Black Lives Matter and this new upsurge of Black freedom dreams, (Prince) quietly and yet deliberately made sure that we had what we needed to be successful. I remember asking what we could do to acknowledge him, what could we do to show our gratitude and his response was to keep going. To keep building. To keep moving towards freedom.

Alicia Garaz

There is very little known about how he supported the BLM movement but Donatella Versace has recently shed some light on what Prince intended to do next.

In an interview with GQ exploring the enduring appeal of the Italian fashion brand talk moved towards politics and Donatella Versace shared her political views in support of the #metoo movement in the United States. She also shared another little known fact about Prince, she says he wanted to become more heavily involved with the Black Lives Matter movement.

According to Donatella, in 2016 Prince sat down with her at New York’s Boom Boom Room club and told her he wanted to make his political voice heard.

“He decided to be the face of the Black Lives Matter movement —that’s what he wanted —

Donatella Versace

There’s no further information as to how Prince was going to go about being the face of Black Lives Matter, and tragically, he died that same year.

In an unexpected twist Donatella also revealed Prince wanted her to stand with him and the movement, he told her, “You need to be with me,” Donatella says, and I was ready to do it.”

If only.