Crown ‘Prince’ for Universal expected

Universal Music Group will be partying like it’s 1999 at the Grammys this weekend.

The music giant is close to winning a hotly contested auction for a third piece of Prince-related rights, The Post has learned.

Lucian Grainge’s Universal is expected to pick up the lucrative rights to Prince’s post-Warner Music Group recorded music, sources close to the ne- gotiations said on Wednesday.

Prince’s post-WMG works include a vault of unreleased music that was being shopped by the Bremer Trust, which was formed to represent the performer’s estate.

It would be the third Prince-related win for the Vivendi-owned label.

It already administers the publishing rights to all Prince’s work and recently won rights to sell branded merchandise. Exact terms of the proposed deal could not be learned.

The diminutive late musician wrote many legendary hits in the ’80s and ’90s, producing singles like “When Doves Cry,” and “Kiss” as well as four No. 1 albums and a sales total of 100 million-plus album units.

The Prince estate, run by his six siblings, worked with advisers to figure out how to maximize revenue of the catalog of tunes. Prince died last year at 57 without a will, which has complicated the post-death music rights.

His earlier works are licensed by Warner Music.

Prince closely guarded the rights to his recordings — making it hard for companies to stream his music online.

Roc Nation’s Tidal has streamed his recordings but fought with Universal over whether it continues to hold streaming rights.

Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and others will stream Prince’s WMG content during Grammy weekend.