Gold Love Symbol Guitar. Used beginning in the mid-1990s for various live performances and music videos. Photographed at the archives at Paisley Park. Maker: Jerry Auerswald.
Prince’s 2016 death from an accidental fentanyl overdose at the age of 57 left a void for millions of adoring listeners worldwide. Yet as the singer once said: “Electric word, life / it means forever and that’s a mighty long time / But I’m here to tell you there’s something else / the afterworld.”
The past few years have indeed provided “a world of never ending happiness”—with new access to unreleased material from the singer’s legendary vault. Prince’s estate has curated several collections of unreleased demos and expanded versions of classic records, such as the eight-disc and DVD Sign o’ the Times (Super Deluxe Edition), released last year.
Prince in concert at the Birmingham NEC, March 1995.
Photo: Graham Wiltshire/Getty Images
Gold Sneakers. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour, including The Forum on April 14, 2011, in Inglewood, California, and throughout the European leg of the tour. Shoemaker: Gary Kazanchyan of Andre No. 1.
On July 30, his estate will release Welcome 2 America, an album Prince recorded in 2010 and then mysteriously shelved. And on July 9, Paisley Park, his longtime recording studio and home near Minneapolis, unveiled an exhibition of hundreds of pairs of the artist’s custom shoes.
“There is a very long horizon, and there’s tremendous amounts of exceedingly high-quality things to contemplate for release,” says Michael Howe, archivist for the estate. “From an artistic standpoint, there’s enough meat on the bones, so to speak, for many, many years.”
How and what to posthumously release depends first on whether Prince expressed interest in releasing it while alive, says Trevor Guy, the estate’s creative director. For example, Prince had mentioned an interest in revisiting his legendary record 1999, which spurred the 2019 expanded version.
The estate has also collaborated with several brands, releasing products including a liquid highlighter and an eyeshadow palette with the makeup company Urban Decay and a clothing collection with the French soccer team Paris Saint-Germain. It declined to comment on the value of these deals.
Money isn’t the only motivation behind the deals, according to Troy Carter, the estate’s entertainment adviser and a former manager of Lady Gaga and John Legend, as well as the former global head of creative services at Spotify. Rather, he says, these deals help expose Prince to young audiences and new markets. “I don’t look at Prince’s estate through the lens of commercialism,” he says. “This is about, how do we preserve the legacy of one of the most talented individuals to ever walk the planet?”
White Fur Boots. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour, including The Forum on May 29, 2011, in Inglewood, California, and throughout the European leg of the tour. Shoemaker: Gary Kazanchyan of Andre No. 1.
Recorded over a short period in 2010, Welcome 2 America’s 12 tracks (11 originals alongside a cover of Soul Asylum’s “Stand Up and B Strong”) were previously unreleased, although Prince performed a few of the songs live over the years. The record is a gorgeous romp through taut funk grooves and spaced-out R&B. Lyrics tackle several of Prince’s longstanding concerns: racism in the U.S., exploitation in the music industry and the seductive perils of technology.
Red Heart Guitar. Used in performances at First Avenue, October 1981, and in promotional images with singer Andy Allo.
The album feels as trenchant now as when it was recorded: On the title track, Prince delivers a sultry monologue about how Americans “distracted by the features of the iPhone” are vulnerable to mass surveillance.
Morris Hayes spent decades playing with Prince as part of his band The New Power Generation, and helped co-produce Welcome 2 America in 2010. “Considering all the things that have happened with the George Floyd situation and what’s going on with what we found out from Snowden, how they’re using technology,” he says, “now is the time.”
White Auerswald Model C Bass Guitar. Used in Welcome 2 promotional images and throughout the Lovesexy, Batman and Graffiti Bridge eras. Maker: Jerry Auerswald.
When he first heard the demos, he was struck by the stripped-down arrangements and resisted adding too much. “It was this weird dichotomy of having this smoothed-out music, but then he’s saying this hard stuff.”
Gold Fender Guitar. Used throughout the Welcome 2 tour, including Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 29, 2010 and January 18, 2011.
The jaunty funk song “Born 2 Die,” for example, describes the struggles of street life against the backdrop of racial oppression. Hayes says it was inspired by Prince watching interviews with the radical professor and activist Dr. Cornel West on YouTube. Hayes recalled Prince telling him about one clip where West compared him unfavorably to Curtis Mayfield. “He said, ‘You know, brother Prince is great. But he’s no Curtis Mayfield.’”
Prince, says Hayes, took this as a challenge. “Like, ‘Oh, really? We’ll see.’ ”
“Prince and I were brothers, man,” says West. “It was in jest because I was saying, I love my brother, Prince. He’s a genius. But he’s no Curtis Mayfield in terms of connecting the spiritual, the artistic and the political in a consistent way. I think that was probably what he was referring to in terms of the video. But we had one-on-one conversations about this all the time. Because as you know, I loved him very, very deeply and had profound respect for him.”
West says he had no idea that Prince recorded the song until Hayes told him about it recently. “I think that ‘Born 2 Die’ would put a smile on Curtis Mayfield’s face from the grave, man,” West says.
A tour was planned around the record; then, in what Howe calls a “very Prince-like maneuver,” the singer decided to shelve the album entirely, without explaining himself to anyone. Howe speculates that it may have had to do with certain session musicians being unavailable for the tour. The Welcome 2 America tour went forward, from 2010 to 2012, though almost no music from the eponymous record was actually performed on it.
Gold Love Symbol Guitar Case. Maker: Jerry Auerswald.
When it comes to excavating the vault, Welcome 2 America is just the beginning. Though Howe declined to provide specific details about the scope, citing a “constellation of nondisclosure agreements” he signed with the estate, he described a tantalizing hoard of material “from all areas of Prince’s creative output,” including audio, video, clothing, photographs and more.
Cuff Links. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour.
“Use your wildest imagination,” he says, “and that’s probably close to the truth.”
More than 300 pairs of Prince’s shoes went on display in a survey of his custom footwear that opened July 9 at Paisley Park—a fraction of the full collection, which numbers more than 1,200. He had a pair of shoes custom-made to match almost every outfit, says Mitch Maguire, managing director at Paisley Park and the show’s curator, nearly all with a three- to four-inch heel.
“You don’t have to spend a lot of time looking at Prince photographs to realize he wasn’t really an off-the-rack kind of guy,” he says.
Rhinestone Armbands. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour, including The Forum on May 29, 2011, in Inglewood, California, and throughout the European leg of the tour.
The exhibition includes iconic pairs such as those worn in the “Raspberry Beret” music video, and a pair painted with the Batman logo in commemoration of Prince’s hit soundtrack to the 1989 film. There’s also a pair of light-up roller skates—“If anybody was going to have a pair of shoes with light-up wheels, it would be Prince,” who was an avid roller skater, Maguire says—and a pair of custom platform flip-flops that he wore around the house.
The shoes, Maguire suggested, are as essential to understanding Prince’s live presence as his instruments. Night after night, “he was dancing, he was spinning, he was jumping off pianos, going into the splits, coming back up, doing it again.” Many of the shoes were reinforced by a steel bracket connected to the heel and the sole to give him more support.
Blue Auerswald Model C Bass Guitar. Used throughout the Batman and Graffiti Bridge eras. Maker: Jerry Auerswald.
“Some of these shoes actually have friction burns on them,” Maguire says, “a direct result of when Prince would go down into the splits.”
Prince always intended for Paisley Park to serve as a museum, allowing in tours while he was still alive. “I don’t mind letting the kids into something that they actually helped preserve,” he once said in an interview. “It’s their continued support of my music that allows these doors to stay open.”
Gold Necklace. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour.
Comerica, the financial-services company, was appointed as the personal representative of the Prince Estate on February 1, 2017, taking over from the prior fiduciary, Bremer Bank. All official releases and exhibitions initiated since then have been produced by Comerica, which has retained Carter, Howe, Guy and others as independent contractors. Its goal is to increase the value of the estate. In a statement, a representative said, “As personal representative of the Prince Estate, Comerica represents the best interests of the estate as a whole—not its individual heirs,” referring to Prince’s five living siblings who are his heirs. Recently, though, another major player has been increasing its stake in the estate.
Gold Sequined Tailcoat. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour.
Over the past few years, Primary Wave Music, a music publishing and music rights acquisition company founded by the music executive Lawrence Mestel, has purchased interests in the Prince Estate from Prince’s sister Tyka Nelson and his half-brother Alfred Jackson. Prince left no will; with settlement of the estate stuck in legal gridlock, Nelson and Jackson sold part of their future inheritance.
Minnesota’s Star Tribune reported that Primary Wave controls a substantial minority share of the Prince Estate, and that it has made unsuccessful overtures to three other heirs. In a court filing in January 2020, the three heirs expressed concerns about “Primary Wave’s efforts to insert itself in the Estate,” noting that they had substantially less funds at their disposal than the company and asking to be reimbursed by the estate for their efforts.
Comerica and Primary Wave have also squabbled in court: After Primary Wave argued in court that its purchases from Nelson and Jackson should earn it a seat at the table in the probate process, Comerica wrote in a filing that “Primary Wave is not an heir and should not be granted the same status and access as the heirs.”
There have not been any official decisions made about who will make decisions for the Prince Estate once the estate’s matters are settled. If things stay as they are, Primary Wave would be the single largest stakeholder; it does not have a majority share, however, and would likely have to make decisions about releases alongside Prince’s heirs.
Love Symbol #1 Zipper Pulls. Adornments attached to the zippers of Prince’s shoes from 1990 to 1993.
Primary Wave appears to have a tenuous connection to the current slate of projects.
“Once the estate is out of Probate Court, [Primary Wave] will enthusiastically work with all of Prince’s heirs to help create organic opportunities to enhance Prince’s unique legacy,” writes Mestel in an email.
Stacia Lang Fashion Sketch. Comic shoes, 1992. “Don’t like,” Prince comments on a yellow Post-it note, “should look elegant not comic.”
“We don’t really interact with them,” says Carter. “They’re not involved in any sort of the entertainment adviser side of the business.”
In a statement, Comerica wrote, “In compliance with protocols established by the probate court, Comerica provides regular updates and opportunities for input to Primary Wave and the other interested parties, which would include with respect to the current slate of Prince Estate projects.”
Comerica declined to comment on Primary Wave’s acquisitions, and said in a statement that it “continues to serve as personal representative of the Prince Estate, consulting with entertainment industry experts to make the best decisions on behalf of the Estate.”
Primary Wave does not seek out artists in the early stages of their careers. Instead, it has spent vast sums acquiring the rights to the catalogs of deceased legends including Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley, Ray Charles and Whitney Houston, as well as living music stars including Smokey Robinson and Stevie Nicks. Its spending spree has been funded in recent years by more than $800 million raised from powerhouse Wall Street capital management firms including Oaktree Capital Management.
Top: From Rave Un2 the Year 2000 pay-per-view concert, filmed December 18, 1999, aired December 31, 1999. Shoemaker: Gary Kazanchyan of Andre No. 1. Middle: Purple with love symbol #2 zipper pull. Shoemaker: Gary Kazanchyan of Andre No. 1. Bottom: Sign o’ the Times era, 1987. Shoemaker: Unspecified.
Mestel is a pioneer of a booming trend: the financialization of music, says Larry S. Miller, director of the music-business program at New York University’s Steinhardt School. Artist catalogs, he says, have become an “attractive asset class for institutional investors” seeking low-risk revenue streams.
When it comes to the long-term value of legacy catalogs, “the rising tide of streaming lifts all boats,” Miller says. There are now several firms following in Primary Wave’s footsteps, including the Hipgnosis Songs Fund, founded by the Canadian-born music-business executive Merck Mercuriadis in 2018, which has spent $1.7 billion buying the rights to more than 57,000 songs.
Gold Sequined Outfit. Worn throughout the Welcome 2 tour, including Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 7, 2011, The Forum on April 14, 2011, in Inglewood, California, and throughout the European leg of the tour.
According to a person close to the matter, the stakeholders hope the Prince Estate will likely be settled before the end of the year. Both Primary Wave and the Prince Estate declined to comment. If that happens, fans will likely have nothing to fear from Primary Wave’s involvement. Miller says: “They’ve proven time and time again to be responsible stewards” of artist legacies, meaning they avoid projects that might anger fans and decrease the long-term brand value of their investment.
In recent years Primary Wave has benefited from hologram tours for artists on its roster, including Whitney Houston and Glenn Gould. Some fans took issue with these tours for perceived disrespect to artistic legacies.
Prince Mannequin Form. Used by the Paisley Park wardrobe department to see the fit of a garment as it would appear on the body.
“We would defer to Prince’s heirs to make that creative decision,” Mestel writes. “We find it highly unlikely any of us would want to do a Prince Hologram.”
Carter says that the Prince Estate would never condone such a tour, noting that Prince himself was opposed to them.
“That whole virtual reality thing…it really is demonic,” Prince said in a 1998 interview with Guitar World, more than a decade before the first holograms started appearing at major concerts.
“And I am not a demon.”
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