Alfred Conteh USA, b. 1975

Nicknamed Minnesota, the man in this portrait by Alfred Conteh relocated a few years ago to the Atlanta area from Minnesota. The story he shared with Conteh is short and sweet. He grew up with Prince, and was in a band with him in high school. He said that back in the 70s everybody around there knew who Prince was, but most didn’t think he would hit it big. By the time Prince’s career took off, Minnesota had other things in play in his life, and the rest is history. He told Conteh, “I could have played with that joker, man.” Minnesota talked about it in a jokey way, but Conteh sensed something else behind the joke. “This was 40 years ago, and he was talking about it like it was yesterday. I think what it was about was regret,” Conteh says. Minnesota’s portrait captures that sense that something did not get resolved. Conteh recalls, “I had a scoutmaster—I was a boy scout back in the day—he used to say, ‘If you ain't got no regrets, you ain't lived life.’ That kind of stuck with me. I didn’t really understand it until I got older. I still don’t understand it 100 percent. There are things you have to get wrong to get right with other things. As a group, we walk hand in hand with that every day.”