Jay Z Places Huge Bid For Unreleased Prince Music

Prince was a prodigious recorder of music, spending hours upon hours (and much of his boundless creative energy) in the studio making music that hasn’t ever been heard by the public, some of it dating back decades. The monetary value of this material is difficult to calculate, but if Tidal managed to retain exclusive rights to the music it would be a welcome source of new users and new income especially in view of the service’s well publicized business troubles. So it’s not hard to see why Jay was willing to put up such a large sum to make that happen. The bid was placed during a meeting between Jay Z, Prince’s sister Tyka Nelson, and her husband Maurice Phillips. But in order to seal the deal, he also has to get signatures from the rest of Prince’s family, who are in charge of the Prince estate. It’s far from a done deal, though, and other streaming services are reportedly putting their own bids for the material, so the Prince catalogue may end up divided among different streaming platforms once an agreement is made. For now, Jay Z, Prince fans, and music streaming subscribers will all just have to wait and see.