Tyka Nelson, Prince’s sister and musician, has died at the age of 64

Tyka Nelson, Prince‘s sister, and a musician herself, died Monday, November 4, according to The Minnesota Star Tribune. She was 64.

Nelson’s son, President Nelson, confirmed her death but did not give a cause. Nelson was Prince’s only full sibling, born two years after her brother on May 18, 1960, to John L. Nelson and Mattie Shaw Nelson.

In the late 1980s, Nelson followed her brother into music and released her first album, Royal bluein 1988. That album featured her two most successful songs, with “Marc Anthony’s Tune” reaching No. 33 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and “LOVE” reaches No. 52.

Nelson has released three further albums: Yellow moon, red sky in 1992, A brand new me in 2008, and Hustlers in 2011. This summer she was scheduled to perform and give a retirement concert at the Dakota in Minneapolis, but she became ill before the performance and dropped out (the show went on without her). In an interview at the time, Nelson told the newspaper Star Tribune she was working on a new mixtape and a memoir.

Nelson also worked closely with Prince in the last years of his life. After Prince death in 2016Nelson and five half-siblings named the rightful heirs to the musician’s estate (Prince had left no will). In subsequent years, Nelson helped search Prince’s famous safe discover and preserve treasure trove of archives material that the musician had stashed away gone, but hoped it would happen someday be released.

‘Prince always wanted people to hear his music’ Nelson said Rolling stone in 2021. “How dare I not do what this man has broken his back for his entire life? There would be no way I would ever perform a single note of his music. I wouldn’t allow that museum to never open and not show people what he envisioned. That man started this mess and I will not leave this planet until he gets every single thing he worked so hard for that has been preserved for all the world to see.”

Nelson remained involved with the estate, but ultimately opted out sell all but two percent of its shares to the Primary Wave management group. (The company also completely bought out the interests of other heirs, Omarr Baker and the late Alfred Jackson.)

“I am a wonderfully grateful person who has had wonderful people in his life,” Nelson told the newspaper Star Tribune about her life – and her role in her brother’s life – this summer. “I miss their wisdom. If I could, I would travel the world and meet people who loved him – I am the last link to him for some people – it’s like I’m giving something back to him. As far as I’m concerned, he stayed because they loved his music. Now you’ve made me cry twice. Don’t do it again.”