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Prince’s former band member says world doesn’t know what they’ve lost

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A former trombonist for Prince says the world doesn’t yet know what they have lost with the pop superstar’s untimely death Thursday.

Roy Agee, who now lives in Nashville, played with Prince from 2012 to 2015.

He said learned about his former boss’ death from a friend.

“I looked it up [online] and apparently there had been a hoax going around that he died months before, so I just chalked it up to that,” Agee said. “But as time passed on, it was confirmed it was Prince and he had died.”

Agee said his three years performing with Prince was amazing and stunning.

“I lost a mentor and I wasn’t close friends with him, but I was friends with him. He knew me and I knew him. We liked each other a lot,” he said.

Agee told News 2 he played ping pong with the superstar a lot, saying with a laugh, “he’s like an Olympic-level ping pong player and I am not, so that was fun.”

When asked what he wanted people to know about Prince, the musician said, “I think what I want the Nashville area to know is that we lost a musician, a true musician today. He’ll be missed in a lot of ways and I know a lot of people will miss him for a lot of different reasons. They [the world] don’t even know what they’ve lost yet.”

Prince was found unresponsive in an elevator at his Minnesota home Thursday morning.

First responders attempted to revive the pop star with CPR but their efforts were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later.

He was 57. His death remains under investigation, authorities said.