The New Funk Sampling CDs. Coming soon?

In what would be another strange turnaround of events, Morris Hayes, Prince’s principle keyboard player and leader of his NPG band, has alluded to the possibility of Prince finally releasing his sample collection to the general public.

To give you a potted history, back in the 90’s, Prince was truly at the vanguard of the internet, using his NPG Music Club to completely bypass the regular industry model and sell his music and other content direct to fans. You could either just buy what you wanted or you could become a fully paid up member for $77.77 (Prince loves his numerology) a year and get all the music included in the price, along with other member exclusive offers, like priority tickets to gigs that also included entry to soundchecks and exclusive collectibles. I recall going to see him at the Hammersmith Odeon, turning around in my seat to see him sat behind me, talking to him and then watching a 20 minute version of ‘Days of Wild’ that blew my fragile little mind. He then rocked the house at the gig and a few weeks later, in the post, my box set of the ‘One Nite Alone…’ concert turned up, courtesy of my NPG Music Club membership. Heady days indeed.

Well, one of the other offers advertised on the site was a 7 disc ‘New Funk Sampling Series’, a library of hundreds of hits and loops, all lovingly lifted from his repertoire, packaged and released officially on his NPG label. It was advertised on the site and on his ‘Rave In2 The Year 2000’ DVD and was going to sell for around $700, which whilst expensive, gave the owner royalty free access to some of the most amazing samples you were ever likely to hear.

And then it vanished.

Yup, it just disappeared. I emailed the NPGMC and, quite remarkably, the completely denied its existence or that it had ever been promised. It was utterly bizarre. The denials and complete disappearance almost had me thinking that I had dreamed the whole thing!

But then, as Prince withdrew from the whole online thing, it made sense. I mean, here is a man whose lawyers and labels issue take down notices to innocent people who post a video of their little girl on YouTube dancing to ‘Let’s Go Crazy’. Prince became so obsessed with trying to retain complete control over his material, why would he consider giving the very tools of construction to anyone willing to pay for them?

And so, the New Funk Sampling Series quickly slipped into the shadows of Prince folklore. Do a bit of digging on Google and you may find some links to material purporting to be from the set. But, there is no provenance for this.

And then, this morning, just before I started work, I watched a video on YouTube from MOTU, showing off the brilliant MachFive 3 instrument. When it finished, it presented me with that selection of videos that might also interest me and, for once, there was one. A MOTU interview with the aforementioned Morris Hayes. Here it is and please pay particular attention at around 1m28s in…

“… working with Prince on his sample CD collection that, you know, that we’re thinking about getting that all out this year…”

Has Morris just let slip that we’re finally going to see this thing happen?

Well, we can but wait and see. Prince now has more than one online presence. That’s better then the zero presence we’ve been used to for a number of years. After declaring the internet dead, it certainly seems that he’s either had a change of heart or a downturn in financial fortunes that has forced him to embrace the 21st century to make ends meet.

Either way, watch this space. This is potentially massive news.