This week it was announced that an EP of previously unreleased music by Prince would be put out on Friday (April 20) to mark the one-year anniversary of his passing.
Deliverance is set to come out on RMA (Rogue Music Alliance) and contains six new Prince songs that he made from 2006 to 2008 with Ian Boxill whose credits include music with 2Pac, Gladys Knight, Janet Jackson and others. Boxill recently completed the tracks.
Boxill said “I believe Deliverance is a timely release with everything going on in the world today, and in light of the one-year anniversary of his passing. I hope when people hear Prince singing these songs it will bring comfort to many. Prince once told me that he would go to bed every night thinking of ways to bypass major labels and get his music directly to the public. When considering how to release this important work, we decided to go independent because that’s what Prince would have wanted.”
Well, it may have been what Prince would have wanted but his estate has other thoughts. The estate and Paisley Park have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the release of the EP and have estimated that the value of the tracks to be at least $75,000.
Minneapolis/St. Paul’s Channel 5 reports that the Boxill remains under a confidentiality agreement that make’s Prince the sole owner of the tracks and that he has refused to return the tracks, instead sharing them with other parties which were forbidden by the contract.
The lawsuit looks to block the release, make Boxill return the six tracks and seeks civil liability due to theft.
The six tracks:
Deliverance
Man Opera
I Am
Touch Me
Sunrise Sunset
No One Else
