Prince onstage at the 36th NAACP Image Awards on March 19, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty)
It’s no secret that Prince made a lot of music during his lifetime. Aside from the release of 29 studio albums, four live albums, and 12 EP’s, the Purple One also had a wealth of material that the world was never able to hear.
Now, Prince’s former collaborator and sound engineer George Ian Boxill has compiled six unreleased tracks and has scheduled them to be released on April 21st as an EP titled Deliverance. The EP will consist of tracks recorded between 2006-08, which Boxill completed in the wake of Prince’s death. On Tuesday, Boxill even released the title track online, stoking the flames of excitement for those wanting to hear brand new Prince material. You can listen to it below.
In the wake of this announcement, however, Paisley Park and Prince’s estate have revealed that they are suing Boxhill the prevent the EP’s release, according to NPR. According to them, Boxhill signed a confidentiality agreement in 2004 that stated all of his work with the late singer “would remain Prince’s sole and exclusive property” and that the EP could damage the interests of the estate “permanently and irreparably.” The estate added that Boxhill’s actions would “deprive [them] from choosing what it released to the public and when.”
Boxhill responded to this legal action in a Rogue Music Alliance press release, where he explained: “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.” Check out the tracklist for Deliverance below.
As of right now, the release status of the EP remains shrouded in mystery. From a legal viewpoint, it seems clear cut that Prince’s will pull it (or, at least, delay it) from being released, but the title track and pre-order link is already available on iTunes.
UPDATE: The EP has since been taken off of iTunes.