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Powerline is an unreleased song from 1990, and likely produced by Prince, who also played most of the instruments.
While specific recording dates are not known, basic tracking took place in early 1990 with Robin Power on lead vocals. The writing credit for the track is shared by Carmen Electra and Levi Seacer, Jr., but the original tracking took place before Prince first met Carmen, in November 1990.
It is possible it was tried with another female lead vocal before Carmen Electra recorded the track sometime in 1991 or early 1992 (at one of Record Plant, Los Angeles, California, Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California or Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota).
It was included as the ninth track on a configuration of her album, then titled On Top (with the artist credit "Carmen"), compiled on 15 June 1992. The song was ultimately rejected from the album, however, and the album was renamed Carmen Electra.
Her version contains samples from James Brown’s tracks Cold Sweat (released as a single in 1967) and Funky Drummer (released as a single in 1970, also sampled on the released version of Good Judy Girlfriend).
A sample of Carmen Electra saying "Alright, stop the music, stop the music" from this track was later used on an unreleased mix of MPLS.
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