Of course he's androgynous. That's why the "symbol" that he changed his name in the 90's (before changing it back when his publishing contract expired) contained a combination of the male and female symbols. He has a very feminine side about him but also a very ghetto ruff side where he can be real macho and agressive.
He's a typical Gemini in that sense. He has said before that he feels there is alternate person inside of him that is female. Sexually he's hetero though, and for most of the 80s and 90s was an infamous womanizer, usually dating 4 or 5 celebrity females at the same time, everyone from Kim Basinger to Madonna to Marvin Gaye's daughter Nona.
As for not knowing he's black, LMAO! He may not be Wesley Snipes skin tone but he is quite clearly black. He's actually very visible within the black empowerment community and is good friend with people like Spike Jones and Dr. Cornell West....they gave him a NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) award for his dedication to the black community a couple of years ago.
Back in the 70's Prince's afro gave The Jacksons a run for their money:
A lot of people are confused about his ethnicity because he has been been pretty racially ambigous in the past. Even in Purple Rain the movie, the character of his mother was white even though in real life both his parents were black. I think it was subtle marketing in order to stop him from being easily categorised before people even heard his music. Obviously within his music there is a lot of guitar and other elements that many ignorant people would classify as "white", but he is such a musical genius that he has covered almost the entire canon of contemporary music within his work.....from pop to funk to rock to hip-hop to gospel to power ballads to psychedelica to reggae to electronica/techno to almost operatic pieces....he's even done country-esque songs, and classical music at times. He can almost literally do anything when it comes to music and I cannot think of a single other artist that can do that...and of course, plays all the instruments and has produced every single one of his albums since the beginning of his career and released an album on average every year since 1978, and they are all incredible.
Greatest artist of all time? Subjective, based on individual taste but to me yes.
Most important figure in black music of all time? Without a doubt. Even legends like Quincy Jones have followed paths Prince has set. Many of the production techniques, vocal styles and arrangements of "Thriller" (which I'm just using as an example being as it's the biggest selling album of all time) came from Prince, as despite the media-created rivalry, Michael was ALWAYS a huge fan. Why do you think he wanted Prince to duet on 'Bad'?
It's not surprising that 'Purple Rain' was recently voted the greatest album of all time by the media. Eat that, Beatles and your seargent pepper lol.