Jay Z denies alleged $40m bid for Prince’s vault

Published reports that Jay Z made an offer of US$40 million for unreleased songs in Prince’s vaults have been denied by a representative of the late singer.

Earlier this week, TMZ.com reported that Jay Z recently flew Prince’s sister Tyka Nelson and her husband, Maurice Phillips, to New York for a meeting to discuss the idea, and put an official offer on the table.

These were to be streamed exclusively on his Tidal service.

However, attorney L. Londell McMillan, one of the advisers to the Purple Rain hitmaker’s estate, has told Billboard he has “no knowledge of any discussions in that report”.

He added: “There is no sale (of Prince’s music assets), and those responsible for the assets are not in discussions with anyone regarding a sale.”

When Prince died on April 16, he left thousands of unreleased tracks, concert footage and hundreds of hours of live recordings of Prince. Some of the tracks including Extraloveable, Electric Intercourse and Rebirth Of The Flesh have emerged on bootlegs.

Tidal gained Prince’s approval some months before his death, telling Ebony, “Tidal is a new company, it’s brand new. They’re just getting their footing, and I think when there’s a company like that, or the OWN network — situations where we finally get into a position to run things — we all should help. It’s been a lot of fun.”

There were also reports earlier this month that the contents of the vault had been shopped to the three majors, Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music. The starting price was $35 million.

These too have been denied by Prince’s advisers, who say the majors were approached to license, rather than buy, the vault contents.

As reported in TMN, the long-awaited deluxe edition of Purple Rain is expected in early 2017, with a Greatest Hits due for this Christmas.