Did Prince influence house music?

[10City]

Hi all! There's a discussion going on at a Prince website concerning his influence on the genre. For example:

• "There's some real 'Prince-ly' house tracks from the mid-80s such as Frankie Knuckles - 'Baby Wants To Ride' and Blake Baxter 'Sexuality' - It's not much of a stretch of the imagination to think that Prince could have produced music like this - I think '1999' had a bit of an unsung influence on House music."
  
  "Controversy (the song) has a perfect bpm for house music."
  
  "I've been thinking Prince influenced house music 4 years now. Disco really spawned House, but P's influence added the "electronica" edge to it..."
  
  Do you think any of this holds water?
  
  

[Nano]

To be frank, I think not. Many disco tracks other than Prince's have BPMs similar to those of house music and certainly disco is house's grandfather. It's true that Prince started in the disco genre, but around "1999" he was already looking for other things, and when he abandoned his "rock star" demeanor -around the time of the Black Album- he dived into funk with a vengeance. I would define him as a funk artist; "naked" funk maybe, but funk nonetheless.
House had more to do with the electronica side of disco: Giorgio Moroder, Gino Soccio, latter-day acts like Lime and, of course, old techno-rockers Kraftwerk. Songs like "I feel love" or "Trans-Europe Express" sound a bit like house with today's ears.
That said, I've been a Prince fan since the old disco days.

[SandraDee]

I always thought Jamie Principle's 'Baby Wants to Ride' sounded very like Prince too, but then, 'Baby Wants To Ride' never struck me as 'house' as I thought its beat was too funky & not 4/4 beat as most house was, evolving as it did from gay disco '77-'84.

[DJ Jimmy M]

Prince had nothing to do with house music. All house music is is simply a combo of the classic euro and NYC underground disco sound using modern technology..thats where it all came from. All around, it's still disco music.

DJ Jimmy M