New Prince Music Drops Friday!

Prince fans around the world were buzzing last night after word got out that a new EP called Deliverance, which contains three previously unreleased songs dating from 2006-2008, will be released on Friday — the first anniversary of the artist’s untimely death. According to Variety, the songs on the EP — 1) “Deliverance” 2) “I Am” 3) “Touch Me” 4) “Sunrise Sunset” 5) “No One Else” 6) “I Am” (extended) — were co-written and co-produced by Prince with his longtime Paisley Park engineer Ian Boxill. After Prince’s death, Boxill completed recording and mixing the songs. In a statement, Boxill said, “I believe Deliverance is a timely release with everything going on in the world today, and in light of the one-year anniversary of his passing. I hope when people hear Prince singing these songs it will bring comfort to many.”

As Rolling Stone reports, the six Deliverance tracks were also written while Prince was working as an independent artist, and fittingly, the EP will be released via the Vancouver-based indie label, RMA (Rogue Music Alliance), which has a bare-bones website that features the words “RMA LOGO GOES HERE,” and underneath, in a smaller font, “Equity For Artists.” That’s pretty much it.

Boxill added, “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.” Here’s where things get interesting — a source close to the situation tells Variety that Boxill claims ownership of the recordings, but the estate may take legal action against him.