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The (Maybe?) Top 10 Prince Songs

Questlove boils down the best songs by The Purple One


By Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson


June 7, 2026


How do you take Prince’s vast body of work and boil it down to “best” songs, let alone 10 best? What you are about to read is just the tip of the iceberg. We know how that goes for ships. How does it go for music? Maybe about the same. I dove deep into Prince’s catalog and managed to make it back to the surface with 100 songs. But when Prince meets print, that means boiling everything down even further. This is the 1-10 of the 1-100. Don’t stop here. Go see the rest here. You’ll still have quarrels with it (and me), I’m sure, but let the retribution match the contribution (of his revolution).


1. “Little Red Corvette (Special Dance Remix)”

1999: Super Deluxe Edition (1982/2019)

This is the moment Sly Stone hands the baton to a sprinting Prince. Sly invented ­remixing and DIY ­aesthetics back in 1971 with There’s a Riot Goin’ On, and Prince takes that concept to new heights. I used to think of “Little Red Corvette” as just another radio hit — that is, until one night I heard it played and something felt off. The drums were louder, the extra kick drums hit harder, and the whole song felt … Blacker. It took me a decade to unravel it all. In this remix, Prince exemplifies musical code-switching — every Black person knows how to adjust their voice and demeanor depending on the setting. For Black musicians, this often means softening hard or sharp edges with safe, major-key chords. It avoids aggression and wins over audiences. Prince’s songs raised the big question: “Does this kid have what it takes to be a rock star?” But there’s guilt for Black artists when success means crossing over. Will they be welcomed back? He had a solution. Midway through, he flips the bass line from a safe C sharp major to a tougher B flat minor, transforming this rock gem into a darker funk explosion. For the last three minutes (if you were a 12-year-old confused by the LP version), you’re left baffled by his brilliance. He employs this trick several times throughout his career, ­winking at us while playing partisan survival games for all demographics. He’ll use this approach on landmark songs like “Raspberry Beret,” “U Got the Look,” and “1999.” Never has the ­exhausting task of people-­pleasing felt so welcome.



2. “Do Me, Baby”

Controversy (1981)

As a kid, I skipped Prince ballads because, as a drummer chasing musical gold, the fast songs grabbed me first. Ballads were boring — it’s simple 10-year-old logic! What was I going to do, make a ­Quiet Storm mixtape for a crush? Fast-forward 15 years: When D’Angelo learned I didn’t like Prince ballads, he looked at me like I was an alien. We had our first real argument, and I was ready to defend my stance. It wasn’t until Prince passed away that I revisited my albums and bootlegs, realizing how much I had undervalued “Do Me, Baby.” Historically, Black singers toned down their sexuality to appeal to radio and young (white) ­audiences, using falsetto as a survival tool to avoid being seen as threatening. Legendary falsetto soul singers like Clyde McPhatter, Eddie Kendricks, and Philip ­Bailey sang in their upper registers for this reason. Prince, ­however, approached his ­hypersexual image slightly differently. “Do Me, Baby” is clearly a sexual song, groundbreaking in its vulnerability. Up to that point, only female singers expressed orgasms in their music, and male singers were ­typically aggressors. (­Barry White’s smooth, deep voice didn’t exactly convey vulnerability, and James Brown’s ­orgasmic screams ­sounded like battle cries.) What’s brave about “Do Me, Baby” is that it flips the script. It’s not a string of “Do you all night long” ­clichés; it’s about softness, lovemaking, and intimacy. You’d ­expect a guy known for parental-­advisory warnings to be hide-your-­daughters material, but Prince’s sensitivity was a quality the time period wasn’t ready for. Ironically, his ­rival Michael Jackson was the king of subliminal slut-­shaming (starting with “The Love You Save”). All in all, this is Prince’s best vocal ­performance, hands down.


3. “When Doves Cry”

Purple Rain (1984)

This is the one time I will allow myself to humblebrag and tell you that I have heard the complete all-24-tracks-­utilized version of “When Doves Cry.” Very few are in this club. “Messy” is a nice way to describe it. Almost akin to the chaos that Public Enemy would later utilize on Fear of a Black Planet, it was everything and also the kitchen sink. That original felt like an overambitious audition, all screaming guitars and synthesizer lines competing for your attention. Look, Ma, all hands! But Prince’s ability to self-edit in those early years was miraculous. Newbies always have to learn the hard way. Not Prince. In a stroke of genius, he literally got rid of six of those tracks — one bass, two guitars, and the remaining synthesizer stacks — and stripped it down to bare essentials. That let us hear the heart of the song. Prince the drum programmer was peerless during this period. Each riddim more innovative and provocative than the one before. And the bass, or the absence of it? As a 13-year-old, I didn’t fully realize that all Black songs were judged on bass lines. I didn’t put it together that if a song didn’t have a bass, it just didn’t feel Black. The bass (be it bass or 808 textures) was our identifying factor. To release a Black song with no bass line was seen as a cardinal sin. But because I am of the minimalist big-beat hip-hop generation, this music sounded akin to something that could easily go with what Run-D.M.C. and Larry Smith were cooking up, what UTFO and Full Force were cooking up. Throughout his career, Prince provided a blueprint for the hip-hop that would follow. You could say that “When Doves Cry” is the prototype for the “keyboard beats” that the Neptunes and Swizz Beats would lay down a dozen years later. What a time.


4. “The Beautiful Ones”

Purple Rain (1984)

If 1999 was Prince’s attempt to conscript a purple army of cult fans, Purple Rain was a move to design a purple religion for the masses. The most important developments were nuance and editing. There are two things that I have learned about this song that teach me about the entire Purple Rain album. First, all nine songs were much longer in their original state. On his way to release, Prince learned exactly how to give haircuts to them to please both the cult fans coming over from previous albums and his new mainstream fanbase. Those edits and cuts make all of the songs, including this one, more powerful and direct. Also, this is the first time his angry baritone surfaces on record in its full power. I always wanted to know where this particular vocal personality came from. The song makes it seem like he’s appealing to a ­lover, and in the movie that’s the plot point, but that ­never quite made sense to me. (“Wait, they just meeting.…How are they about to tie the knot by the third verse!” — in my brain Prince was talking crazy business.… “There has gotta be something else to this.”) I made a promise to myself not to mention Ezra Edelman’s tragically shelved Prince documentary, The Book of Prince. Not tryna ruffle feathers. However, there’s a revelation in that film about this song that I cannot unhear, a Princelovian bell I can’t unring. What if this song is not about a lover, but about Prince’s rocky relationship with his birth mother? What if it’s sung as a wounded 14-year-old asking his mother to choose between him and his stepfather? I wanted to know where the rage and anger in his gut came from, and I ­believe that’s the origin story. I received this performance in the same way I did “She’s Out of My Life.” It hit me in the gut. I instantly knew this is a rare cathartic moment of ­honesty on display here. No way this is acting.


5. “1999”

1999 (1982)

Let’s start with vocals. One could say that “1999” gave Prince his first opportunity to test out another smart trick in Black pop ­music, which is the Greek ­chorus. That’s where you have a group of people singing in unison, which gives a listener permission to join in. It’s not intimidating. Everyone has the same note. Sly and the Family Stone ­pioneered it. George Clinton took it to its zenith. “1999” is as close to that blueprint as any Prince song. Everyone gets their part to sing, and then they join together, as Prince builds this utopian weirdo world. And when I say utopian, I mean apocalyptic, dancing on the edge of the end of it all. It’s Black nihilism, learning to party in the face of pain and death. Now, let’s move to the music. In my eyes, it’s ironically, unapologetically Black. There’s so much innovation in Prince’s drum programming, more than in any song since Sly’s “Family ­Affair.” He takes a metronomically regular drum machine, puts it through his guitar ­effect ­pedal, and gives it life and personality. The very first beat of the drum part brings you to a new world. By then, the Oberheim synthesizer and Linn drum were already in the hands of Herbie Hancock and Kraftwerk. Gary Numan had done ­incredible things. Prince took them up and perfected them. That’s often the case — the ­pioneer may get the credit, but the first follower gets the glory. Dance on.


6. “Cool”

The Time, The Time (1981)

Prince knew you had to play the middle perfectly. You can’t be who you are all of the time, or else you get typecast. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” landed him in every teen fanzine of the day, so he used Dirty Mind to erase that limited image. In Controversy, he established that he wasn’t too Black or white, too straight or too gay. But Prince didn’t play the middle by staying in the ­middle. He somehow ­managed to get to all of the extremes and balance them off. Prince needed to show a street side. He knew he would. But every good drug dealer gives you a taste before you get hooked. For this version of his funk, his delivery system was the Time, an outfit that I could probably say was the N.W.A of its time. They looked like gangsters, for starters. And Morris Day was something different: I admired singers up to that point, in the sense that I marveled at their talent and poise. Morris was someone I wanted to be: yell a command (in the lyrics or even to his own band) and poof it manifests. He was funny, meaning Richard Pryor funny, not too cartoonish and over the top. And his confidence was believable. The whole thing was aspirational for this 10-year-old. The Time were the guys your parents warned you about, even if your conservative religious parents were also warning you about Prince for different reasons. (“Don’t buy that album by that boy that wears diapers.” —my dad.) “Cool” lays down hip-hop’s blueprint. Morris talks about the cars, girls, owning property. This paved the way for Jay-Z. On a personal note, this song taught me how to dream. The lyrics were my personal bucket list of success. Over the years, as it turns out, I’ve checked every brag in this song except diamonds on my toes. Siri, make appointment with toe jeweler for tomorrow.


7. “I Feel for You”

Chaka Khan, I Feel for You (1984)

“I Feel for You” is undeniably one of Prince’s crowning achievements, but the irony lies in the fact that he had minimal involvement in its later success. He had written the original version, of course, which I initially dismissed as musical filler; it faded into the shadows of stronger tracks on his second album, Prince. The transformative cover that emerged was the brainchild of Arif Mardin, a genius producer who recognized the song’s untapped potential. He and his collaborators (including the System’s David Frank) didn’t merely cover the song, they reimagined it, setting the stage for something truly monumental. This record marked a turning point for Prince, securing him his first Grammy for songwriting and raising intriguing questions about the evolution of R&B. Could an R&B song incorporate big beats, feature a rapper, and simultaneously reposition a towering figure like Stevie Wonder as “the help”? Also noteworthy was the innovative use of sampling, which gave Wonder a second cameo, mixing in bits of “Fingertips,” a hit from his own catalog two decades prior. It was a delicate balancing act — one misstep could have condemned the effort to a desperate bid for relevance. However, it worked brilliantly, showcasing Prince’s unparalleled craftsmanship.


8. “Purple Rain”

Purple Rain (1984)

As an album, Purple Rain presents an almost perfect vision, to the point where I sometimes find myself critiquing it for this very perfection. I appreciate flaws in art; they add a human element. However, it’s essential to recognize what Prince was risking — he was playing Russian roulette with his life and career, along with the futures of those involved in his ambitious concept for a cult film designed to launch them to stardom. Given this context, I must admit that the album feels complete for me after “Baby I’m a Star,” leaving me in a tricky spot with the title track, which I often skip. However, I understand its purpose: It’s an electrifying arena anthem meant to raise lighters high. Prince was chasing the Big Anthem vibe of tracks like his earlier “Free.” But those earlier political songs weren’t mainstream favorites. This was. I often find myself puzzled by the lyrics. Still, the emotional essence here is clear — it’s more about feeling than intricate melodies, an unexpected apology from someone uncharacteristically humble. Prince also excelled at crafting perfect song endings, and this is undoubtedly one of his best. One of his favorite albums was Ask Rufus, by Rufus and Chaka Khan, widely regarded as their career high point. The orchestral contributions from Clare Fischer transformed Black music into something deeply emotive. The last two minutes of “Purple Rain” pay tribute to Fischer’s work, and within a year, Prince would forge a lasting musical partnership with him, leading to groundbreaking artistic explorations.


9. “Sister”

Dirty Mind (1980)

If “Sister” wasn’t a minute and 30 seconds long, it wouldn’t be this high up on the list. It didn’t rise this high because it is his most taboo sexual scenario, though it is, without a doubt. (Again, I’m only counting released material.) The marvel of the song is that he’s able to pack in an entire plot in its tiny run time. It’s like he was so futuristic that he knew more than 40 years ago what Instagram and TikTok would bring. We’re in the age where the mini drama is the new standard. The fact that Prince can paint such a bleak, gripping story in 90 seconds is one for the ages. You have, line by line, an emotional state that moves from regret to naivete to vulnerability to confusion to fear to ­denial, back to regret and ­anger. His narrator is a teenager ­processing abuse and trauma. There’s a psychological ­density here that just isn’t in other songs, and certainly not in pop songs. The shock value is what keeps it lower.


10. “777-9311”

The Time, What Time Is It? (1982)Prince has broken all kinds of rules. I’ll make a song with no bass! Maybe I’ll change the key but somehow maintain the integrity of the original! Maybe I’ll extend this remix out to insane lengths! Maybe I’ll make another song with no bass! In Black music though, there’s one absolute rule. You must establish the one. There’s an agreement that it’s the heaviest rhythm on the four count, the one that grants Blackness. Not emphasizing the one is like defying the laws of gravity. Well, this song, from the second Time album, is gravity-defying. It’s the Blackest song ever created in which the one is never established. Even in the beginning, it starts with the guitar part. Then the drums come in. Handclaps are the only GPS we can use to find a way to respond to it. How do we dance to this madness? It’s like being forced to play Double Dutch with razor ropes fashioned by Hattori Hanzo. It’s that hard to figure out the rhythm of the thing. That’s how it starts. How does it end? Just as amazingly. After Morris Day’s cock-blocking and a guitar solo you don’t see coming, Prince has a Cat in the Hat moment where he makes it all right. He takes the song out with just the drum and the bass fading. It’s a bravura performance in every way. On top of that, it had to work. Prince had been booed offstage by Rolling Stones fans in L.A. the previous October. He needed to bounce back and build back. This is right in the heart of that period: Cleanup in Aisle Purple. This Time album will beget Vanity 6, which will beget 1999. As a final note, Prince didn’t do the drum programming on this song himself. Roger Linn, who built the Linn drum machine, had traveled to the top drummers to have them drum beats into his machine. Dave Garibaldi from Tower of Power provided the one that’s in this song. Both Prince and Tower of Power were managed by Cavallo, Ruffalo & Fargnoli. So for his make-or-break, riskier-than-anything song, Prince used something he didn’t even make — one of many ­reasons why I see him as one of the forerunners of/blueprints for hip-hop.

This condensed list appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of VIBE. See the full list over at Rolling Stone.


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...eh... mine - c71 (Quick first immediate impression):



10. Reflection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yza5PjjfmUo&list=RDyza5PjjfmUo&start_radio=1


9. So Dark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVgXG2v2qx8&list=RDGVgXG2v2qx8&start_radio=1


8. What do you want me to do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nNwEtjpYLw&list=RD1nNwEtjpYLw&start_radio=1


7. And God created woman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5AKTj3wl-Q&list=RDw5AKTj3wl-Q&start_radio=1


6. The Beautiful ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK1Jl8tLzls&list=RDoK1Jl8tLzls&start_radio=1


5. Controversy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gazNwzC4H0&list=OLAK5uy_mA1G8sxOcG_SnFxjmALONi3hPXq_FSsKA&index=2


4. Alphabet Street

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP1kZLGG5gw&list=RDvP1kZLGG5gw&start_radio=1


3. Adore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8fLjiar1c8&list=RDv8fLjiar1c8&start_radio=1


2. Props'N'Pounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkqBJllbtdo&list=RDSkqBJllbtdo&start_radio=1


1. Computer Blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nviNS0IAw&list=RDR_nviNS0IAw&start_radio=1

Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FleLCfv5D2k&list=RDFleLCfv5D2k&start_radio=1


with this tear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVvEfey2bmg&list=RDOVvEfey2bmg&start_radio=1


https://www.complex.com/music/a/bernadette-giacomazzo/prince-estate-posthumous-album-timeless

Music


Prince's Estate Opens the Vault for New Posthumous Album 'Timeless'


From teenage-era recordings to one of his final performances, the 10-track set traces Prince’s evolution with vault tracks like 'Stone' and 'With This Tear.'


By Bernadette Giacomazzo


June 5, 2026


Prince Estate Announces Posthumous Album, 'Timeless,' Featuring All New Material


The Prince vault is opening even wider.

Just weeks after releasing the previously unheard ballad “With This Tear,” Prince’s estate has announced Timeless, a new posthumous album featuring 10 unreleased recordings spanning nearly four decades of the late icon’s career. Scheduled for release on August 28, the project arrives alongside “Stone,” a newly unveiled track recorded in 1995 that was released alongside the album announcement as a new single.

Unlike previous archival releases centered on a specific era or album cycle, Timeless pulls material from across Prince’s entire recording career. The collection begins with “I Am You,” recorded in 1977 when Prince was still a teenager in Minneapolis, and closes with a live 2016 performance of “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?” recorded during the final chapter of his life.

The estate told Billboard that the project was designed to showcase Prince’s creative evolution while highlighting material that never saw the light of day during his lifetime. In announcing the album, representatives described it as a journey through “previously unheard chapters” of Prince’s artistic story, emphasizing the consistency and ambition that defined his work from the late 1970s through his final years.

The album also incorporates “With This Tear,” the 1991 piano-driven recording released in April to mark the 10th anniversary of Prince’s death. That song carried its own history: Prince recorded it at Paisley Park before later giving it to Céline Dion, who released her version in 1992.


The announcement continues a busy year for Prince’s estate. In addition to ongoing catalog updates and streaming restorations, fans are still awaiting a deluxe edition of Parade, the 1986 album tied to Under the Cherry Moon. Prince’s legacy has remained remarkably active since his death, with previously unheard recordings continuing to emerge from the extensive archive he left behind at Paisley Park.

Fans attending this year’s Prince Celebration in Minneapolis won’t have to wait until August to hear more. The annual event, currently running through June 7 across Paisley Park and downtown Minneapolis, will feature exclusive listening sessions dedicated to Timeless.

The gathering is also expected to include rare archival presentations, unreleased material, and appearances by musicians who worked alongside Prince throughout his career.


Timeless Tracklist:

“I Am You” (1977)
“Tick Tick Bang” (1981)
“Heaven” (1985)
“I Wonder” (1989)
“With This Tear” (1991)
“Stone” (1995)
“Calabama” (2003)
“The Guilty Ones” (2007)
“Bestest Friend” (2012)
“How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? (Live)” (2016)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/prince-estate-interview-timeless-complaints-michael-1235617332/

Nothing Compares


Prince Estate Co-Manager L. Londell McMillan on ‘Timeless,’ Fan Complaints, Learning from ‘Michael’


With the new Prince album Timeless out now, McMillan also discussed the future of the Prince vault, the Purple Rain Broadway musical, and much more in our in-depth new interview

By Brian Hiatt

August 28, 2026


“I didn’t always give the record companies the best song,” Prince said in 2014, in his final Rolling Stone interview. “There are songs in the vault that no one’s ever heard. There are several vaults; it’s not just one vault… So much gets recorded that you don’t have time to compile everything. In the future you could put all the best stuff from one particular time period together and then you can release it.”

The posthumous Prince album Timeless, out now, takes the opposite approach, compiling previously unreleased tracks that span each decade of Prince’s career. Highlights include the funky 1977 home recording “I Am You,” the 1981 original version of the relentless banger “Tick Tick Bang,” which he later handed off to the Time, “With This Tear,” a piano ballad he wrote for Celine Dion in 1991, “Calabama,” a 2003 party jam from the Musicology sessions, and the 2007 guitar showcase “The Guilty Ones.” The biggest surprise is the ambitious, soaring “Bestest Friend,” recorded in September 2012, which fans had no idea existed.


Prince died on April 21, 2016, without a will. After years of legal battles, a Minnesota judge signed off in 2022 on a split of the estate between publishing powerhouse Primary Wave and Prince Legacy LLC — a business formed by Prince’s three oldest heirs together with two music-biz veterans, attorney L. Londell McMillan and producer Charles Spicer Jr. Initially, the estate busied itself with releasing expanded versions of albums from Purple Rain to Diamonds and Pearls, with outtakes from the vault included. There was also the demo collection Originals and Welcome 2 America, a finished, previously unreleased 2010 album, which dropped in 2021. But Timeless is the first release of unheard recordings since 2023, and fans grew restless in the interim, circulating petitions and open letters asking for more from Prince’s storied vaults.

In 2017, director Ezra Edelman, who won an Oscar for O.J.: Made in America, began working on a Prince documentary for Netflix. The nine-hour cut he delivered painted a complex portrait of Prince that included allegations of abuse, as chronicled in a detailed New York Times Magazine report. In the face of objections from the estate, Netflix shelved the movie last year, over Edelman’s intense protests.


McMillan, who was Prince’s lawyer for more than a decade, jumped on a Zoom with Rolling Stone to discuss Timeless, his reasoning behind the Netflix decision, the estate’s future plans, and much more.

RS: Let’s start with this release. The fans are very impatient for stuff from the vault, and now you’ve got something for them. Tell me about narrowing down what you had — how you got to “This is the album we’re releasing right now.”


Let me just start by saying this. I think the fans are very patient. I think there are a few very loud ones. And I think that those few loud ones are, I guess, in concert with one or two major journalists — they promote this notion that they’re so overly impatient when there have been many who have been quite patient and appreciative. So I do wanna say that. Because I’m outside. I’m not hiding. I deal with the fans. I’m at the events, I’m on social. I’m engaged. The truth tells a different story than what sometimes people think is happening, right?

And when we talk about there’s been almost 200 previously unreleased sound recordings that’s been put out since he passed, people start scratching their head and they go, “What do you mean? Where? How? What?” And we start to go, “Wait a minute. Did you open your box set and listen to the unreleased material?” And then many of them have said, “No.” It’s sitting on their coffee table.

So I’m very appreciative of those who understand and have been somewhat patient. We’re very excited, but we’re gonna do it at a pace that is indicative of what Prince and his estate deserves. When you release almost 200 unreleased sound recordings, it’s a massive number. It’s a massive number.


And now (the rest) has to be curated in a way with some thoughtfulness and planning. So one of the reasons why we’re making a separate project of just this unreleased material is to pull it out of those box sets so that it doesn’t get shrouded and clouded and hidden by the released material and people forget that music was on there, right? Part of it is that there were some miscalculations previously and that had led to people not understanding that “Wow, they’ve already put out a considerable amount of music.” And now it has to be actually marketed and set out in a way that can be consumed, absorbed, appreciated, focused upon.

And our rhythm of releases are not now necessarily tied to just milestone anniversary events, right? We’re gonna create a pattern that’s more in sync with how Prince did, what he wanted to do, which was whenever he felt was best. With that said, obviously his passing at 10 years somewhat gave us this sense of we should contextualize Prince in the way that we think is best, and what’s the best way to contextualize Prince? The best way to contextualize him is through his music.

And so for 10 years, we gave them 10 unreleased music tracks across five decades, which has never been done before. Prince never even did compilation albums. And we also are ready to release more music later this year and the top of next year and other recordings that we’re working on.


RS: How many tracks did you choose from to narrow down for this album?




We must have listened to about maybe 35, 40 tracks that were serious contenders. And of course there’s quite a bit of music that’s already digitized in our database, and there’s a large amount that’s still yet to be digitized and listened to across the breadth of all of the recording devices. So I would say there may have been maybe double that (which narrowed down to) 35 to 40 serious contenders.




RS:So you first chose 35 finalists, out of about twice that — about 70. What was that universe of 70 you were picking from? Is that just what’s ready to be listened to?



Yeah. They were broken down based on just the timeframes, because we wanted to span each decade, right? They were also broken down based on songs that we felt we didn’t want to compete with other projects that we’ve got in the works. Because there are other projects that are happening, so there are unreleased recordings. Some of those may be more apropos for those releases that we’ve got coming out. For example, we got a 3121 project coming out, right? And so they’re gonna be unreleased recordings that are for that project.




RS: To take an even bigger step back: How many songs have been digitized so far?



So I think we’re about little over 50 percent done, (based on) what we know, because there’s so many disks and so many physical assets. It’s an unknown. We’re not starting with one large number that we all were aware of. There was no one who was with Prince from the beginning to the end of his career. There was no indexing and cataloging in a professional archival way throughout this vault process. In many ways, we’re finding as we go, we’re putting these things together, we’re hiring archivists, we’re trying to gather them all. We’re uncovering as we go. And so I can’t give you an exact number because no one can.




RS: I understand the number that needs to be digitized is unknowable. But I’d assume you know how many you have digitized already — or you don’t want to say?





It’s not as if I have a specific number of sound recordings versus live concert footage versus — I could just tell you that there are tens of thousands of assets, and they’re all not one thing. The assets range from sound recording, concert footage, of all types, all sizes, all formats, photographs. And we’re talking probably hundreds of thousands.

And so… in addition to picking the right songs, you have to pick not just the songs that we have and we can listen to, but also the songs that we have in various formats that we can mix and master so that we can make sure that they’re in the most digitally equipped formats that people consume music today, right? We gotta make sure that we’ve got all of the stems so that we can edit it properly. There’s a lot of music, but not all of it has all of the components that we would want to sonically be able to present. We have to find those pieces, right? Everything is just not in one fixed format.


RS: So you may not have the multitracks for everything. Though now there are digital tools to extract the multitracks from a non-multitrack recording.



We also have to be careful how we use and integrate any kind of tools that are not gonna be authentic to Prince.



RS: In 2014, Prince told me about four full, unreleased albums in the vault — a couple Revolution albums, two Time albums, one Vanity 6. Have you found all that stuff?




When you say found it, we physically have it all. Have we had a chance (for) everyone to look through and listen and go through every single thing? Absolutely not. Let me also say we don’t send an army of people in the vault. The vault is protected like a fortress. We don’t just send everyone. To some (people’s) chagrin, we haven’t thrown everybody in the vault. So have we heard every single thing in the vault yet? Absolutely not. I don’t know if anyone will ever hear every single thing at one time. But we have heard some of those products that you mentioned.




RS: What, if anything, have you learned from the success the Michael Jackson estate has had recently — the Broadway show leading into the film, and the massive surge of interest in Michael? What can the Prince estate learn from that?




What we learned is that great artists and great compositions will stand the test of time. We’re a different type of estate. We don’t sell assets. We preserve them and curate them and present them. He wasn’t a music buyer or seller. Prince was a music creator and producer. I represented both Michael Jackson and Prince, and I love them both. I represented Michael and I preserved his assets when he was gonna lose them to the banks and the private equity investors, as well as he was gonna lose Neverland. So I understand his business and his business model very well.

The musical obviously was not something that was a totally original idea. Numerous major artists have had Broadway musicals, right? And we have ours that we’re excited about that’s coming to Broadway next year in March and April. But I think with Michael, the estate did a great job in protecting his legacy from so many different types of allegations and claims and preserving the purest form of his legacy, which is his great talent.

And (maybe) they learned that from us, actually, given what we did with Netflix prior to them putting out the film, and how we dealt with protecting Prince’s legacy from allegations without any kind of substantiation. (Editor’s note: Edelman’s film drew on more than 70 interviews, according to the “New York Times Magazine.” In the film, ex-girlfriend Jill Jones reportedly accused Prince of repeatedly punching her in 1984. Edelman has stood by the accuracy of his work.)

So I think we are aligned in really just great storytelling, authenticity, focusing on the main thing, which is the music and the talent and the legacy. I think that Michael’s nephew was brilliant in his portrayal of Michael, and so of course it had tremendous box office success. But we’ve put out more music than the Michael Jackson estate in the same period of time, and we’ll continue to put out more music because Prince has more music to give.




RS: Tell me about the musical on Broadway. Lin-Manuel Miranda and his dad have signed on as producers, and it’s being pretty reworked from what people saw in Minneapolis, correct?



The truth of the matter is that Lin and his dad were involved even in Minneapolis. A lot of people don’t know that. And the musical still has many of the core players with the exception of the director and the writer. We’re gonna focus more on the music, and (producer) Orin Wolf and his team, they’re doing a fantastic job.

But I do wanna say this because those who were involved originally, I think they did a terrific job, and their work should be respected, and there’ll still be elements of their work in this project. We wanted to refine the production so that we could shorten it a bit and bring more live musicality to the stage, because that’s what Prince was about. And that’s why I had the production company engage two musicians that played with Prince, Bobby Z and Morris Hayes. I led their involvement in the project so we can have that music authenticity. But (music supervisor Jason Michael Webb) has done a phenomenal job in his creation and oversight of Prince’s music for the musical.

We, I think, have just gone away from a little bit of the adaptative stories that weren’t a part of the Purple Rain story and brought it back to Prince’s story, more so than the adaptations that folks saw in Minneapolis. It was very important for us to go through that process so that we could see what worked, what didn’t work, what we will keep, what won’t be kept. And I learned quite a bit from my partners in the process. I was a little concerned, but I trusted in the process. And the process revealed exactly what we needed to do.




RS: There was a jukebox musical in discussion with Ryan Coogler perhaps as a producer. What’s the status of that?




That’s in production still, and we’re excited to be working with Ryan and his wonderful wife Zinzi and Universal Studios with Donna Langley and Ryan Jones over at Universal.



RS: So it’s more like Mamma Mia!: a story that isn’t about Prince, but using Prince’s songs. Is that the idea?




That’s correct. ABBA and stuff like that.



RS: And a biopic — especially given Michael, everyone wants to know. Any status or update on that?




There have been biopics in discussion for years… You’ll know when the press release comes out, my friend.




RS: But that’s something you’re eyeing, and in progress on?



I’ve always thought that a biopic should precede a huge documentary in the first place. So while many people have theories on why I shut down the Netflix project, most of those theories are inaccurate or false. We were always looking at the right type of film and biopic for Prince because he was the original movie-maker musician. Purple Rain — it was fictional, but it was loosely based on some of his stories of his real life. And of course, we were going to look at doing something that would cover a portion of his life, another portion of his life, right? Again, when people compare Michael to Prince, let’s keep in mind that Michael’s estate started in 2009. And by the way, it still hasn’t formally closed, to my knowledge. Prince’s estate started in 2016 and is formally closed.

There was a seven-year advance of working on various different projects, which we all as music lovers are now very thrilled to see come to fruition. But if you look at the pacing and the timing and the amount of releases, I think people really have gotten this thing twisted. They’re not really paying attention to timing, and they’re not paying attention to the volume of releases. And then if you’re looking at how much money things are generating, they’re not paying attention to (the fact that) Prince hasn’t sold anything. We don’t sell assets. We are curating assets. That’s a big difference.




RS: So in other words, for a movie you don’t sell the rights — you collaborate with a studio. That’s what you’re saying?



Yeah, I’m saying, when you look at how much estates generate, if you sell your recordings or you sell your songs or you sell your catalog, you’re gonna generate more income than if you’re just licensing your catalog. In terms of the movie, I’m not sure exactly how they structured their deal on the movie, but by all measures, the movie was just a phenomenal success. We haven’t put out a movie yet, and I’m very elated that there’s gonna be a Michael II. But I think people were so thrilled to see a movie with Michael that didn’t have such salacious kind of allegations and it focused on the music, and great acting.

But for us, we are also trying to service and share Prince’s music with those core fans that really just have not just a musical connection, they also have just a spiritual connection to Prince, as well as make sure that we don’t just throw things out and sonically lose the generations of the future. Because the musical production and the sonics have to be in sync with how they hear music today. The frequency of production has to work properly when you’re putting out music, and that’s very important that we don’t just turn over the vault catalog and put it out there.

There’s already a lot of music that’s already been out there released and bootlegged and out there by many different players out there. So now for us, what’s gonna make it special is how we curate it and how we present it now and into the future. So for the more obstreperous ones, we’ll just keep doing what we need to do. But keep in mind, he’s got a very insatiable audience, and I’d rather it be that way than not. They say it’s a good problem to have.




RS: I wanted to ask about the Parade reissue. Is that going to be a major thing with a bunch of unreleased stuff, or a smaller-scale thing?



Yeah. Parade is coming and it’s gonna be a bigger project. But that project has to be and will be not just with music. It’s gonna have another number of components. That record is phenomenal. That project is phenomenal. It has to be an overall campaign. Parade is a campaign. We’re not just rushing to a 40th anniversary. We’re gonna do it when it’s the right time, and the right time is very soon.





RS: What’s the overall plan to make sure Prince connects with younger generations, is reintroduced to younger audiences, and keeps and increases the status he’s had?




Yeah, my perspective would be to engage a multi-generational community across music, social, experiential, and other forms of engagement. We can’t expect young people to embrace Prince with older people pushing it down to them. They have to discover it. They have to enjoy it. They have to embrace it and be the ambassadors for his music.

In order to do that, we have to serve it to them in the ways they consume it and in the sonics that they appreciate. Otherwise, you’re gonna lose them in the first two bars. A great song can get lost in an outdated production of a generation. So we’re gonna also at some point have a conversation around what type of music artists and ambassadors for future generations should lead that conversation. But it can’t necessarily be old people talking to young people.



RS: I just want to be clear — you’re talking about perhaps releasing some remixes, with new production?




I’m not being specific and prescriptive on what we’re doing, other than saying we have currently younger people sourcing and sharing thoughts on how they want to best hear, discover, learn, and stream, promote, market Prince. So it’s a challenge of a lifetime and I don’t know many legacy artists that has ever gotten it right.

And so while people want to be sometimes critical, young people are not buying big box sets with huge amounts of unreleased material. So if we’re gonna get young people, you’re gonna have to make the music more accessible. A 10-track CD of music covering his whole generation, and they can hear it, allows us a better conversation with young people than a 60-song box set that costs $125.




RS: Young people aren’t really big buyers of box sets, in general.


No one talks about that. They just keep talking about what they’re talking about. And you know what, Brian? I really think some of these people are intent on just trying to be Prince music provocateurs, right? They’re just trying to provoke. And others are in mourning. And then others are very appreciative. And so if anything in your article, I want you to quote from me is how much we appreciate those who have continued to support and continue to show so much love to Prince through his music, through the museum, through his Prince celebrations, through the concert footage we put out, through the merchandising that we put out. People have invested and spent a lot of money to keep Prince’s legacy alive, and I’m truly grateful.



RS: We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how big the “Purple Rain” moment was in Stranger Things, and how many new fans that made. Are you or anyone actively pursuing opportunities like that? The impact of that was pretty undeniable.




Yeah, we have a team of people that are constantly looking at opportunities and projects internally on both of our teams, as well as our music publisher, Universal Music Publishing, which is obviously one of the largest music publishing administrators in the world. We’re all connected, and they do a fine job as well.


So yeah, we definitely are interested. But let me tell you this, one of the reasons why they came to us is because we’re very selective and exclusive in what we do, right? Many people wanna just flood the market. But I can tell you for sure, if we were flooding the market with Prince everywhere, I’m not so sure people would’ve come to us, because it wouldn’t have been so special. So while we go out there and we do what we think is best for people to hear the music, we also have to stay in the tradition of Prince, which was — he was very exclusive and selective even with the volume of music he created. That’s why he had a vault, because he didn’t just throw everything out.



RS: I’m personally looking forward to hearing more of the live stuff.




The live music? Oh, we got a lot of that. That’s coming too. So we’re curating that with live concerts to be a complement to it. And that was the other thing too. As much music as we put out before we closed out the Netflix deal, you didn’t see a lot of videos to support the music because there were restrictions. But now we’re working on putting those things together. We’re putting these packages together. And to those who are unappeasable, just hang tight. We just got a lot more to go.