Suit seeks to block new music by Prince

Co- producer has no right to release EP, singer’s estate says

A year after his death, a new album of unreleased songs from Prince has become mired in legal drama.

Attorneys for the legendary performer’s estate have filed a lawsuit against a sound engineer in hopes of blocking him from releasing Deliverance, an EP of six previously unpublished songs. It is set to be released Friday, on the first anniversary of Prince’s death from a prescription drug overdose.

His estate and Paisley Park Enterprises ( the singer’s primary business entity) accuse George Ian Boxill, who cowrote and co- produced the six tracks with Prince in 2006, of trying to exploit the recordings for personal gain. The title track from Delive

rance is available on iTunes, and the new album features five other Prince tracks: I Am, Touch Me, Sunrise Sunset, No One Else and an extended version of I Am. As of Wednesday afternoon, the album was No. 1 on the iTunes preorder chart.

Prince and Boxill co- wrote and co- produced all of the tracks, and after Prince’s death, Boxill completed the compositions and arrangements, finished the pro- duction and mixed the songs.

“I hope when people hear Prince singing these songs it will bring comfort to many,” Boxill said in a statement.

The songs were written and recorded when Prince was an independent artist, “protesting what he saw as an unjust music industry,” according to a release from Rogue Music Alliance, a record company based in Vancouver, Wash.

The lawsuit filed by attorneys for Prince’s estate contends that Boxill has no right to the recordings because of a 2004 confidentiality agreement that stipulated that all of the recordings, valued at $ 75,000, would remain the sole and exclusive property of Prince. The estate also seeks the return of all the recordings.

In a press release issued by Rogue Music Alliance, Boxill 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.”

A pre- order for the EP was made available Tuesday on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. The EP disc version of Delive

rance was set for release nationwide June 2 at Walmart, Target and other stores.

Prince died April 21, 2016, at his Paisley Park compound in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen at age 57.

CHRIS O’MEARA, AP Prince died at age 57 from an accidental overdose of fentanyl.