It’s five years since pop star Prince unexpectedly passed away from an opioid overdose, and this June his estate will release a never before heard album.
Welcome 2 America was recorded in 2010, around the same time the musician set off on a long tour under the same name. While the tour was a great success, Prince never released the album of the same name.
His estate say the 12 track album captures; “Prince’s concerns, hopes and visions for a shifting society, presciently foreshadowing an era of political division, disinformation, and a renewed fight for racial justice.”
Price was a prolific writer and recording arts and the vaults at his Paisley Park residence are rumoured to contain thousands of unreleased tracks, including entire albums. During his career Prince released 37 albums between 1978 and 2015. He often became frustrated that record companies wanted more time between each of his records, and began releasing records independently through his fan club. Some of his album are three discs long.
Alongside his personal output he also worked with a stable of bands and artists who he wrote tunes for and produced, often under a range of pseudonyms. Prince also had a habit of working on one album and then deciding to actually release a completely different record. Sometimes these lost records would get a release years later, 1987’s The Black Album was finally released in 2004 – others have remained in the vaults.
Alongside the title track, some of the other songs on the record are titled Running Game (Son of a Slave Master), Born 2 Die and One Day We Will All B Free.
Since his passing his estate has released two other albums, Piano and a Microphone saw Prince delivering stripped back takes on some of his hits, while Originals collected Prince’s versions of some of the songs he wrote for other artists including The Bangles, Sheila E, Jill Jones and Martika.
Welcome 2 America is out on 30th June. Take a listen to the title tune.
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