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The Flow is the 13th track (12th song) on Prince’s 14th album  , the second to be credited to Prince and the New Power Generation.
The track was tried out extensively during soundcheck on 11 July 1990 at Wembley Arena in London, England. Tony M. began adding a rap which ended up being used in the track to The Future during later dates on the Nude Tour (beginning 5 August 1990, IJsstadion Thialf, Heerenveen, The Netherlands).
Basic tracking of the Studio version was done at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota on 11 September 1990, shortly after Prince returned from Japan after the last show of the Nude Tour
The Flow was included as the 13th and final track on the December 1990, configuration of the Diamonds And Pearls album, but was removed for later configurations. This original version features prominent vocals by Rosie Gaines. She was credited with Prince and Tony M. as one of the author of the song at the ASCAP and a chant of "Ain’t no stoppin’ now" (by Rosie Gaines) sampled from an early mix of Daddy Pop recorded earlier in July 1990. This version of The Flow also shares other elements with Daddy Pop such as the groove lifted from Rock Steady and chant of "Michael B. in the house" (the latter two aren’t considered to be samples or references to this track, however).
In December 1990 Prince incorporated the rap into an early version of Live 4 Love, at that point also using the bass-line, that would later be used for the 1992 re-recording as well.
The Flow was re-recorded without Rosie Gaines in early 1992 (likely on 4 January 1992) at Paisley Park Studios.It was included as the 17th track (eleventh song) on a March 1992, configuration of the album and the 17th track (twelfth song) on a late Summer 1992, configuration, before the album’s segues were removed for release. Of note in the re-recording is that a lyric about "the brother" was changed to "the woman" to fit in with the female reporter storyline running throughout the album. It also contains uncredited vocal samples from Brian De Palma’s 1983 film Scarface (this film is also quoted in the extended version of I Wish U Heaven and United States Of Division).
An alternate, longer take, was one of the Vault tracks recorded between 1990 and 1992 slated to appear on the planned Diamonds & Love expected to be released by The Prince Estate in the summer of 2022. This version was recorded in sequence with Arrogance and contains additional verses that were not kept for the released version. One of these additional verses was performed live during the Diamonds And Pearls Tour however. The Diamonds & Love project, which consisted of material spanning both the Diamonds And Pearls and eras, was reduced to the Diamonds And Pearls era, excluding songs recorded after October 1991 (and this track as a result).
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