Watch the 1998 interview with Scary Spice that Prince called ‘the best interview I’ve ever had’

In 1998, Mel B. interviewed Prince in his Paisley Park home. She told Vice that Prince called her up out of the blue one day and said he wanted her to come and interview him in Minneapolis:

He just called me up and asked me. I was like, “Is this a joke? He must know I’m a big, huge Prince fan.” And he said, “No. I haven’t been interviewed in years and I want you to interview me. I don’t want a boring journalist. I want someone who is entertaining people like I do.” So he flew me out to Minneapolis and I stayed there for three or four days.

The interview is languid–Prince looks totally relaxed, toying with an earring. “This is cool,” he tells her. “‘Cause you and I are just hangin’ out talking.”

“In most interviews they ask you questions I find now that people are trying to get me to say something ill about record companies all the time,” he says. “I have no bad feelings about records companies. They work! It’s very obvious that they work by the consolidation of power. So I’m just doing something else right now. And by being free and doing something else it almost wakes you up to the fact that you let them do their thing, you do your thing, no-one’s bothering me now.”

He teases Mel B. for wearing a “pimp watch,” before they talk some more about music–and eventually they head out to the yard and hang out on a swing set.

“I like you. This is the best interview I’ve ever had,” he says at one point. “You’re very complimentary.”