Though the legendary artist Prince may have passed away, his music will live on forever. In fact, fans will be treated to previously unreleased tracks from the master in the near future.
New music from Prince is “coming soon,” estate adviser Troy Carter told Variety. Though Carter wouldn’t get into specifics, that’s exciting news on its own. According to him, the songs are “mind-blowing.”
“He was a guy who practically lived in a recording studio, and once we started going through [the unreleased material], we really started finding some gems,” Carter, who also serves as Spotify’s global head of creative services, said earlier this month. “I heard some music the other night that was pretty mind-blowing, and we’re getting some stuff mixed right now. We’ve got great projects in the works that I’m excited to talk about.
“So the answer is yes, there will be unreleased Prince music coming soon,” he told the outlet.
No word yet on which lucky label will receive the right to release the music. The estate had negotiated a lucrative $31 million deal with Universal Music for a large chunk of his recordings, but that contract was nullified due to legal uncertainties in Prince’s contract with Warner Bros. Records, where he had spent nearly two decades. The estate has also come at odds with three of the artist’s six legal heirs since Prince’s passing.
Following his death, estate professionals combed through his “vault” of unreleased recordings at his Paisley Park compound, finding several tapes that had deteriorated. To protect the music, the entire library was moved to a climate-controlled Los Angeles storage facility.
Prince made it a point to own the bulk of his music throughout his career. After splitting from Warner Bros. in 1996, he label-hopped for years to avoid any one studio controlling multiple albums. Variety reports that the vast majority of his post-1996 content is owned by the estate and available for licensing, though the Universal lawsuit has scared off potential suitors. For now.
