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Prince’s Catalogue May Hit All Streaming Services In Time for Grammys

Prince (ashleyniblock/Flickr)

Prince’s music from his days at Warner Bros. Records is returning to streaming services aside from Tidal in time for the Grammy’s. The move follows the singer famously removing of all his tracks from them in July 2015.

A source broke the news to The New York Post Monday, Jan. 30, saying the late icon’s tunes like “Purple Rain” “1999” and “Kiss” will be accessible on Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Google Play and others on the same date as music’s biggest night, Sunday, Feb. 12.

“The switch gets turned on for everybody during the Grammys,” the reference told the website.

Prince’s estate has been working to get the singer’s music back on different streaming services over the past nine months and sources added deals are still being worked out for the Purple One’s music released after he left Warner Bros. in 1996. They include unreleased songs in his secret Paisley Park vault and those released on his NPG label, like 2015’s “Hit n Run Phase One” and “Hit n Run Phase Two.”

Spotify added fuel to speculation of the deals when ads for the company popped up in New York and London Monday, Jan. 30. They noticeably ditched the service’s green color in favor of a Prince-esque purple with the Spotify logo at the bottom. One of Prince’s estate advisers, L. Londell McMillan, confirmed to Billboard a week earlier that a deal was not finalized for the music group and may not be complete by the time the Grammys air.

Prince, who died of a drug overdose in April at the age of 57, made headlines 19 months ago when he pulled his music from every streaming service except for Jay Z’s Tidal. The company, which touts itself as an artist-first service, found itself in the center of a lawsuit from Prince’s estate in November. The executor sued Tidal for making 15 of Prince’s albums available to listeners when his label, NPG Records, only agreed to issue a 90-day license to stream “Hit n Run Phase One.”

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