Prince's former sound engineer Susan Rogers believes fans and historians should be able to access the artist's secret vault of songs. Rogers who created the vault, says it contains decades worth of work.
"Music is an expression of life and let's hear these expressions of Prince's life," Rogers told AFP via telephone interview. Till recently, the vault's existence was shrouded in mystery but has become a hot topic with the death of the "Purple Rain" artist.
Prince who fiercely guarded creative control over his work was an extremely private individual. However, the release of albums in the foreseeable future will be a thorny issue as the singer had no spouse, surviving children or parents. He did not leave a will and it is reported that his sister Tyka Nelson, his closest blood relative will inherit his estate.
Rogers worked with Prince between 1983-1987 and said it would be nice if someone went through all the material in the vault making it available to historians, fans and scholars. "I'd like to see the music put in the hands of the people who knew him best artistically and that would be the musicians who worked with him through different eras," she told the news agency.
The former Prince employee said she would like to see musicians with whom he worked with in the 90s and 80s finish his unreleased work. While it remains unclear if Prince himself wanted his music released, Rogers believes a debate should take place as moral issues are involved.
Rogers began the vault by collecting tapes and cataloging material when Prince was working on "Purple Rain." She claimed it was following those initial days that a temperature-controlled storage room was added to his Paisley Park recording studio.
Meanwhile, Prince collaborator Brent Fischer confirmed to The Guardian that 70 percent of the artiste's work still remains in his vault. To date, Prince has released more than 30 albums, 13 EPs, 104 singles and four live albums in a career spanning four decades. Throughout his career, it is reported that he sold 100 million albums.
Furthermore, it is reported that Prince's estate could earn millions of dollars more if albums were created from his unreleased vault material and sold posthumously. It is estimated that his vault has enough material to produce an album every year for the next century.
Catch a clip of Prince performing "Nothing Compares 2 U" a song he wrote for singer Sinead O'Connor: