The title track has been removed due to a legal request by Prince’s estate
As quickly as it was announced, Prince’s new EP, Deliverance, has been removed from streaming services as of Wednesday afternoon (April 19th), according to Billboard. The title track was available for early streaming, but has since been removed from iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Google Play due to Prince’s estate requesting a judge to block the release in conjunction with a lawsuit it filed against the album’s producer and engineer, George Ian Boxill, over control of the songs.
Prince’s estate has released the following message:
“The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson is aware that Mr. George Ian Boxill, in conjunction with Rogue Music Alliance, has issued a press release announcing an intent to distribute previously unreleased Prince master recordings and musical compositions. The Estate has not authorized any such release and is not affiliated with either Mr. Boxill or Rogue Music Alliance. During his unparalleled career, Prince worked with many sound engineers, including Mr. Boxill. Like the other engineers that had the opportunity to work with Prince, Mr. Boxill signed an agreement, under which he agreed (1) all recordings that he worked on with Prince would remain Prince’s sole and exclusive property; (2) he would not use any recordings or property in any way whatsoever; and (3) he would return any such recordings or property to Prince immediately upon request. Mr. Boxill did not comply with his agreement. Instead, Mr. Boxill maintained copies of certain tracks, waited until after Prince’s tragic death, and is now attempting to release tracks without the authorization of the Estate and in violation of the agreement and applicable law. The Estate is taking immediate legal actions to prevent Mr. Boxill’s continuing violations of his agreement and the rights of the Estate and its partners in Prince’s recordings. Any dissemination of the recordings and underlying music compositions, or fixation of the same in any audiovisual work or otherwise, is unauthorized and in violation of the Estate’s rights to the master recordings and musical compositions.”
RMA (Rogue Music Alliance) announced the undiscovered six song EP on Tuesday (April 18th) which was set for release on Friday, April 21st digitally — the one year anniversary of his passing — and June 2nd physically. Those releases are currently up in the air due to this legal request. However, late Wednesday night, we received the track digitally with the original press release still indicating a digital release of Friday. Look for a review of the title song by Rob Perez by the weekend.
Deliverance features new, undiscovered studio recordings from 2006-2008 when Prince was an independent artist, protesting what he saw as an unjust music industry. After Prince’s untimely passing, Boxill continued their work by spending the past year completing the compositions and arrangements, finishing the production and mixing the songs.
