In 2008, 21-year-old Tal Wilkenfeld received a phone call from Prince. The Australian-born musician was surprised to hear Prince on the other end of the line, who said he had been watching YouTube videos of her on repeat. Prince brought Wilkenfeld to parties at his Los Angeles home where sometimes he and his band played and she was their lone audience member, spent a few days jamming in a local studio and drove around together in a limo listening to music.[4][5]
In 2009, Prince called Wilkenfeld from Minneapolis and said that he wanted to put together a trio with her, asking Wilkenfeld to find them a drummer. They settled on Chris Coleman, and Prince flew the two musicians to Paisley Park for the first time in late 2009.[5] In March 2010, Wilkenfeld travelled to Paisley Park and began to improvise and play chords on instruction from Prince. "I just made everything up; he gave me no direction about what to play beyond a chord here or there. It was just do your thing," Wilkenfeld explained. "I never heard the lyrics, never knew what the songs were about, never heard the melody. It was like we had to be psychic when we were playing," she added. The result of this work culminated in Welcome 2 America.
Prince started out recording instrumental tracks live in the studio with Wilkenfeld and Coleman. Then Prince recorded New Power Generation singers Liv Warfield, Shelby Johnson and Elisa Fiorillo, sharing leads and harmonies with them. Morris Hayes added keyboards and simulated string and horn arrangements, earning credit as co-producer for six of the album's 12 songs.[6] Prince told Wilkenfeld that he was feeling inspired by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. "Even though it later evolved into having keyboards and background vocals," says Wilkenfeld, "the album was essentially recorded as a trio, so it has that raw vibe."[5]
It is unknown why the album was shelved for 11 years. Even a decade later, those who worked on the album still don't totally understand why. "That was a surprise to me," Morris Hayes says. If he had to guess, Prince might've axed it because not all of the album's collaborators including Wilkenfeld were able to join Prince on the road.[7] "I only surmised that if he couldn't put this album out with the crew he created it with, then I think it was a big mitigating factor in why it hit the shelf," Hayes says. "Prince had this thing where he would shoot first and ask questions later. And if he didn't have commitment from all those people that we could go out and make a big splash – with a new band, a new Prince – then the balloon would just go down. If all those things weren't aligned, that would cause that (music) to go in the vault.
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