Music Editoras: Last News

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs the Prince estate slowly digs itself out of the legal and procedural morass that ensued after the legendary musician died in 2016 without leaving a will, a standoff between the estate and Morris Day, Prince’s near-lifelong friend and collaborator and frontman of the first Prince-spawned artist, broke into the open last week.At issue is Morris’ use of the name the Time, which an attorney for the estate claims it owns the rights to, citing a 1982 contract between Day and Prince. Day, who says his rights to use the name were never questioned by Prince himself over the many intervening years, blasted the estate on social media last week, and a rep shared the attorney’s letter, which proposes that Day license the name — presumably for a fee.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs the Prince estate moves forward after years of confusion following the singer’s 2016 death, the six heirs are divided into two camps: the three siblings who sold their interests to Primary Wave, and the three who have retained their holdings.With the value of the estate recently determined at $156.4 million, the two parties are now establishing a structure for how to work together. In a ruling on Tuesday, a Minnesota judge decided against Primary Wave’s proposal to create a single holding company.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs the first major pandemic awards show, the 2020 Emmys were fascinating and numbing, joyous and sad, unprecedented in most ways and, to our lockdown-dulled senses, all too familiar in others.While Jimmy Kimmel made many jokes about the situation in his audience-less (and thankless) role as host, if there was one person who made the viewing audience feel like she was performing in an arena filled with people, it was Grammy-winning R&B singer H.E.R., who delivered a powerful version of Prince’s classic “Nothing Compares 2 U” during the show’s “In Memoriam” segment. Images of the many personalities from the television world who have died in the past 12 months were showed while she sang.