Tyka Nelson is giving her retirement/farewell performance Friday at the Dakota. Retirement? She hasn’t performed in the Twin Cities since 2008 at Bunkers. She hasn’t sung in public since 2018 in Australia.
Apparently, she’s retiring from the public role of being known as Prince’s sister.
Remember, she’s the only sibling who shared the same mother and father as Prince. (They had five other half-brothers and sisters.)
“I’m getting older,” said Nelson, 64, who will be performing on what would have been Prince’s 66th birthday. “I really wasn’t a singer. I’m a writer. I just happen to be able to sing. I enjoy singing.”
Enough to record four albums. But she insists she’s a writer. Her current project is a memoir.
“We are not there yet. We’ve got a few more chapters,” said Nelson, who doesn’t have a publisher. “It’s about me and my family.”
In an hourlong phone conversation last week, she spilled some tea about the Purple One, who died in 2016, and her own life. But she was often as elusive/evasive with her answers as he famously was.
On what to expect at the Dakota