Minnesota Governor Declares June 7th "Prince Day"
Back in 2015, Prince pledged his allegiance to artist-owned TIDAL by making his catalog exclusive to the platform, stripping it from competing services like Apple Music and Spotify. Early outings and productions for affiliated acts, 94 East, Sheila E. and the gamut of Revolution and The Time breakouts remained, while anything with Prince's name explicitly in the artist section was removed entirely.
A few weeks back rumors of the dearly beloved catalog's return were sparked by the announcement of new partnerships between the estate and Universal Music Group, who secured the exclusive publishing rights to Prince's catalog along with branding and licensing representation from Bravado, a leg of UMG. Now, Billboard is reporting sightings of properly purple Spotify ads in NYC subway stations, which some have taken as yet another hint that good news is on the way. The first wave of reports speculated that a return was slated for the weeks ahead of the Grammys broadcast, where a Prince tribute is rumored to be taking place with Rihanna, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd, according to Pitchfork.
Time will tell. For now, you can hear our Prince, But Not playlist down below (songs written and produced by Prince for other artists.) We'll be sure to keep our eyes and ears to the cloud for more.
