Jay Z may have scored deals with the Weinstein company and dabbled in tv/film producing, but he just can’t seem to get his hands on Prince‘s music catalog.
A few months back, the music mogul offered around $40 million to take control of Prince’s unreleased tracks, but the late singer’s estate wants nothing to do with the rapper. According to reports, the estate sent a letter to Jay’s team last month, saying it had no interest in signing a deal for “Roc Nation to exploit any of the intellectual property assets of the Estate.”
On top of telling one of music’s biggest stars no, the estate also called out Tidal for making fifteen Prince albums available for streaming a couple months after his death. They claim that although Prince made a deal with Jay for the 2015 release of his final album, HitNRun Phase One, those other releases were unauthorized.
Adding fuel to the anti-Jay fire, the estate says it hasn’t found proof of a $750k payment to close that deal that Prince made with Jay Z. Worst case scenario: Tidal and Jay will have to pay up for releasing unauthorized tracks and he can kiss owning Prince’s unreleased tracks goodbye.
