Prince’s sisters have told the company to immediately return the unpublished work taken from his secret vault
By Kenny Anthony
According to reports, Comerica Bank & Trust hired a firm to “collect” Prince’s unreleased material from his Paisley Park private complex, and the music is said to be worth $200 million (£169m). The tapes were taken without the permission of Sharon and Norrine Nelson, Prince’s half-sisters and two of the six heirs to his estate.
The sisters told reporters that they were not consulted when the decision was being made.
Sharon and Norrine were also in contact with the Associated Press, and this is what Sharon had to say on the issue: “We want the music back home in Paisley Park where it belongs.”
Norrine stated: “It’s extraordinary and unconscionable that the music has been moved from a place that it had been safe at for over 40 years.”
A Paisley Park official told the sisters that a considerable amount of content was seized from Prince’s vault sometime in September.
Prince’s Paisley Park Private Estate and Production Complex
Comerica Bank & Trust released this statement: “In an effort to ensure the preservation of Prince’s audio and visual content, Comerica selected the premier entertainment storage and archive company, Iron Mountain Entertainment Services, on four separate occasions, Comerica discussed the process with the heirs and any suggestion otherwise is not accurate.”
Comerica also added: “After reviewing the storage conditions at Paisley Park and out of concern regarding the consequences of a fire or other loss at the facility, Comerica determined that it was necessary to transfer the audio and visual content to a secure location where all of the original content could be securely stored and digitized as a safeguard against the destruction or loss of any original content.”
Norrine clearly stated that the unreleased songs have been safe and in the same vault for over 40 years. Moving his work to “protect it from potentially being destroyed in a fire” is a deceptive & nonsense fabrication. In reality, they’ve used this as an opportunity to copy his work by digitizing the content.
In addition, towards the end of Prince’s music career, he was often seen with the word “slave” written on the side of his face.
This was during the back and forth conflict with his former record label; Warner Bros. Records. Prince then became independent once he realized that his contractual deal was daylight robbery, and went on to finance himself while producing his own music. Unfortunately, he did not have ownership of his past catalog.
In April 2014, Warner Bros. had a sit down with Prince to “rekindle their broken relationship” and negotiate future music ventures. They offered Prince the opportunity to own all of his previous music, but in return, they asked him to re-master his Purple Rain album just before the 30th anniversary.
Many speculate that this deal was allegedly a conniving ploy by Warner Bros. in order to gain control of his entire catalog, specifically his unreleased material, which is knowingly worth hundreds of millions.
Prince is said to have so much unheard music, he would’ve been able to release an album once a month for a decade.
This situation is somewhat similar to what Michael Jackson experienced with Sony Music. Michael owned the publishing rights to the Beatles catalog, which led to his fallout with Paul McCartney and Sony. After Michael’s death, Sony Corp. managed to own 50% of his shares in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which is the largest music publishing company in the world. Sony/ATV Music Publishing owns the rights to songs from music artists such as Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and The Beatles. The Sony Corp. now have full control of the company, which was formed in partnership with Michael Jackson in 1995.
This is a common theme with legendary Black artists in the entertainment business, especially when they become conscious and attempt to practice sole proprietorship. People may not be familiar with Prince’s pro-Black activism, and along with his activism, he was a big fan of Tariq Nasheed’s best-selling Black history documentary filmseries, Hidden Colors.
Prince’s unreleased content has allegedly been “moved” from his Paisley Park private complex in Minnesota, to an unknown site in Los Angeles. The sisters argue that they should have been given a notice period of 14 business days, and plan to take legal action against the company.
Yall go and get your Brother’s Intellectual Property and Sound/Visual Inventory back…by all means necessary! He’s here in Soul…and will watch over the process of you all doing so.. Damn thieves…WM>NewFace Magazine LV!
Yes !!!!fight them Satanic demons get Prince’s property please fight don’t let them get away with this, it’s what they wanted all along , that’s what Prince was fighting for control of his master’s.. Prince was a brilliant artist musically, intellectually and in business , May he rest in Power!!!!
They, murdered our elder Prince. So, they (Warners Bros)
could pull this theft off. Of getting his unreleased music & keeping his past catalog. Which they owe him. It’s the same pattern with Sam cooke,jimmy hendrix, Michael Jackson & whitney houston.
It’s enough we lost him at a young age and now the people wants to still From his family that’s not right nothing good going to come from it return it please thank u what ever that’s being owed I’m sure u can come to an agreement thank u
As tragic as this incident may be, what are we learning from it? The takeaway is to take time, plan ahead & protect your private assets (art, music, literature, crafts, anything self-created) NOW, just in case the unpredictability of life’s events (i.e. death) come sooner than expected. Quite naturally, we’re all going to pass this life. But we can learn from Prince’s mistakes to our advantage as Melanated People. I would certainly say that his discography and related materials are WAY, WAY MORE valuable that the current $200 million assessment. Why? If the future copyright holders are successful in their acquisition efforts, whether honorable or dishonorable, they will be able to capitalize on Prince’s assured posthumous popularity that will surely bring in HUGE profits via reselling of his most famous works. If you don’t realize your innate value as a creative being (gifts from The Creator), someone else will, and they will exploit them financially with a ruthless fervor. So, take that time to create a will, a private trust, or whatever means you choose to protect your wealth. As Damon Dash has said, we are working for our children’s future wealth via our names. For too long, we have been brainfucked to think that our artistic, creative, and mechanical skills are worthless, irrelevant, and possess no cultural value, only to have others live off of its inherent value & prosper while we continue to complain about poverty, wealth disparities, and how others easily screw us out of our “unprotected” wealth.
(…R.I.P. Prince!…)
280189 395763After study several of the content material in your website now, we genuinely such as your technique of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark web website list and will also be checking back soon. Pls look at my web-site likewise and make me aware what you believe. 33409
793745 771630Significant other, this exceptional website is fabolous, i merely adore it 875792
279441 272101Interested in start up a online business on line denotes revealing your service also providers not only to humans within your town, nevertheless , to numerous future prospects which are cyberspace on numerous occasions. pays everyday 804434
330146 358680You are the very best, Its posts like this that keep me coming back and checking this website regularly, thanks for the information! 196409
53553 948787I dont leave a great deal of comments on a great deal of blogs each week but i felt i had to here. Do you need many drafts to make a post? 5439
562672 990795hey was just seeing in case you minded a comment. i like your web site and the theme you picked is super. I is going to be back. 988533
773626 321327I recognize there exists a fantastic deal of spam on this blog website. Do you need to have support cleaning them up? I can support among courses! 404597