Prince‘s back catalogue will arrive on streaming services like Spotify this weekend.
For nearly two years, the late musician’s discography has only been available to stream on Tidal. However, the company’s exclusivity will come to an end in time for the Grammy Awards on Sunday night (February 12).
The BBC reports that Spotify has said every album the Purple One released between 1978 and 1996 will be added to its library, meaning all his biggest hits including ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Raspberry Beret’ and ‘Kiss’ will be available to stream. Napster has also confirmed the news, though Apple Music has yet to comment.
It was recently reported that an announcement about Prince’s music arriving on streaming services other than Tidal would be broadcast during a Grammys tribute to the Purple One. The Weeknd, Rihanna and Bruno Mars are all understood to have been approached for a potential performance.
Earlier this week, Spotify appeared to tease Prince’s return to its streaming library by running adverts featuring its logo bathed in purple in Manhattan.
Do these purple Spotify ads mean what everyone thinks they mean? (That would be, Prince). https://t.co/lfF8JYp1v0 pic.twitter.com/kcqNLqaY6H
— Bring Me The News (@bringmethenews) January 30, 2017
In November, Prince’s estate cleared the way for a wider streaming arrangement by signing a publishing deal with Universal Music for the artist’s entire catalogue.
Until now, Tidal have exclusively streamed a large number of Prince releases after the musician cut a deal with the service in 2015. However, the estate sued the company last year, claiming that only his latest album ‘HitNRun Phase’ was included in the deal.