Slave is the first track on the third disc of Prince's 19th album Emancipation, the third album to be credited to , and, eleven months before the album's release, Slave was given out as a cassette single at a Paisley Park Studios show on 9 December, 1995 (the same show where the Crystal Ball version of Days Of Wild was recorded and the studio version of One Of Us was premiered).
Initial tracking dates are unknown, but it is likely that the track was recorded in mid-1995 at Paisley Park Studios, Chanhassen, MN, USA. It was included as the third track on a July, 1995, configuration of Emancipation, and as the fourth track on another 1995 configuration. The released version contains a drum pattern during the chorus that is sampled directly from Ain't No Place Like U, which was not included on an earlier, unreleased version of the song. The song contains some lyrical and musical similarities to Slave 2 The System, but the two are otherwise different songs.
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