PRINCE MAKES MORE MONEY EVEN IN DEATH

Life they say has its many twists!

For some people, even in death, they would still be making money for their estates. If not more than they made while they were alive but as much as even what many who are still living and tugging it out may never achieve even in their lifetime. Well what more can I say but repeat the saying that “you can never tell when it comes to destiny”.

 

We’ve heard about founders of businesses like KFC, The Marriot, Apple, Coca-cola amongst others. And so it goes for the late Prince and his infamous "vault" of unreleased music being shopped around record labels according to US reports with a price tag of $35m, that is, a whooping £29m! Can’t even fathom the naira value at the moment as it would no doubts leame one with a “whooping” headache as well.

The vault which is said to contain  hundreds of hours of live recordings and concert footage  also comprises songs like Rebirth of the Flesh, Electric Intercourse and Extraloveable “which have been widely bootlegged, but never formally issued” as gathered from the BBC.

According to Billboard magazine, all three major labels are understood to be in talks over the material, even as the magazine quoted an unnamed source saying “a deluxe edition of Purple Rain - which was announced in 2014 but never materialised - was now likely to be released in 2017”.

A new greatest hits compilation is also due before the end of the year. The infamous vault is tucked away in the basement of Prince's Paisley Park home in Minneapolis.

 

Accessible by elevator, it is a climate-controlled room hidden behind a steel door, complete with a combination lock and large spinning handle.

The late singer was the only person with the code to open the safe. When he died in April, it had to be drilled open by the company responsible for his estate.

According to the singer's former recording engineer Susan Rodgers, who started the vault for Prince during the 1980s, the facility was almost full when she left in 1987, with songs in there that pre-date his legendary Purple Rain album.

She said the tapes contained everything from late-night jam sessions to intensely personal songs that the artist felt uncomfortable releasing.

"If he wasn't taking care of conducting business... or if he wasn't dating or seeing someone socially, which would be less often than you might think, for the most part, Prince had an instrument in his hands and he was playing music," she said.

Brent Fischer, who composed string arrangements for the star alongside his father Clare, said the archives were vast. "I think over 70% of the music we've worked on for Prince is yet to be released," he told the BBC.

 

"There are lot of songs that were sent to us clearly with the idea that they would never be released. They were almost comical songs that he would work out with his horn players. There was lot of wild horn parts and experimentation with samples."

However, the ownership of the music is unclear. Much of the material was recorded when Prince was under contract to Warner Bros, and he subsequently signed one-off deals with every other major label, several independents and Jay-Z's Tidal streaming service.

The musician died from an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl in April without leaving a will. Courts have still to decide how to divide up his estate, with several potential heirs coming forward in the months after his death.

 

A tribute concert to the star will take place in St Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday, featuring performances from Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, Chaka Khan, Tori Kelly and Prince's first wife Mayte Garcia, amongst others.

WAS PRINCE AWARE HE WAS TAKING FENTANYL, THE BIGGEST PAINKILLER?

And so here I was, reading a post online CNN and then it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe Prince would be alive today if silly mistakes such as mislabeling of drugs were avoided. What a tragedy!

On a second thought, on reading further the reports from the CNN which revealed that a trusted source with knowledge of investigation on Prince’s death gave information to the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the pills which were seized from inside Prince's Paisley Park compound by investigators were as a matter of fact labeled as hydrocodone meanwhile they contained fentanyl which was the drug that reportedly led to the death of the singer, I had a nagging question in my head.

The question that went through my head was “did Prince know about this labeling or was there some sort of foul play”?

 

I didn’t need to read any further as there were speculations that what could have caused Prince’s overdose was “either a pharmaceutical manufacturer mislabeled the pills, or the pills were illegally manufactured and obtained illegally”.

Even though I like the idea of the investigators who have decided to work with the theory that the late Prince may not have known the pills contained fentanyl, I am still wondering why a lot of these celebrities dwell on painkillers. Was Prince also in some sort of pain like we heard about MJ the late “wacko Jacko”? What’s with celebrities and pains anyway?

So far, investigators have not established whether Prince consumed those pills or whether he was aware the pills contained fentanyl and still went ahead to ingest them even though many of us have the opinion that Prince loved life, to a large extent or so we thought.  I don’t think he would have taken that overdose if he knew they were not just hydrocodone -for whatever pains- but also contained fentanyl that became the death of him on the 21^st of April, 2016 as the said fentanyl is reported to be about a hundred times stronger than the popularly abused morphine and up to fifty times the potency of heroin

In our country today, we’ve heard stories of people dying as a result of initial wrong diagnosis as well as wrong medicine prescription/administration by supposed medical professionals. From this report, it means such mistakes are not just peculiar to our country hence the need for a wake-up call for doctors and other medical professionals around the world.

So the question is, “what is the way out of this”?

In as much as many loved Prince to a fault, let’s take an objective look at the issue and some common mistakes as well as other angles to the story as suggested by the report:

If the manufacturer mislabeled the pills, there would have likely been a recall, as fentanyl is an extremely potent opioid medication and a controlled substance. It would be a serious health hazard if a batch was mislabeled and given to the public.

Star Tribune sources said Prince's toxicology report, which has not been released, also revealed the presence of lidocaine, alprazolam and Percocet in his system.

CNN's Dr. Drew Pinsky said the combination of fentanyl, (which is an opioid based drug), and alprazolam (which is a benzodiazepine) could be the key to why Prince died.

"It is all too common for people to overdose if they are taking a combination of a benzodiazepine and an opioid," Pinsky said. "This is what I've been warning was a likely possibility."

At the beginning of the investigation into Prince's death, sources told CNN that painkillers were found inside his Paisley Park compound and they could not find a valid prescription for the medication. The Star Tribune now reports that their source said no prescription for fentanyl has been found in the months since Prince's death. So, a burning question remains. How did Prince acquire the drug?

Fentanyl, the most powerful painkiller on the market, is normally prescribed to cancer patients in extreme pain. It's also used to ease the pain of someone who is dying or as part of anesthesia during surgery.

But illegally manufactured fentanyl pills are readily available across America.

Just last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration published a report saying counterfeit pills are fueling the fentanyl and heroin/opioid crisis in the United States, which has become an epidemic. The DEA issued a national health alert over the rise in fentanyl overdoses in 2015.

That year, the DEA said its National Forensic Laboratory Information System showed "there were approximately eight times as many fentanyl exhibits (confiscated drugs that tested positive for fentanyl) in 2015 as there were during the 2006 fentanyl crisis, clearly demonstrating the unprecedented threat and expansion of the fentanyl market."

Prince's death at 57 years old shocked the world. For months fans mourned the musical genius by showing up by the hundreds to pay their respects. Many left purple mementos on the fence that surrounds the Paisley Park Compound where Prince died.

He was discovered dead inside of an elevator in the complex.

Officials never revealed the amount of fentanyl that was in Prince's system. But the Star Tribune reported that a source said the amount of fentanyl in his system was so high it would have killed anyone, no matter their size.

It has been four months since Prince died and the investigation into his death is still ongoing. The DEA began working the case alongside the Carver County Sheriff's Office from the very early stages. But no one knows exactly why Prince was taking strong painkillers or how he obtained them.

Hmm! Now you have it.

After reading up, I guess you still have that nagging question of “what’s with celebrities and pain(killers)?

Lastly, medical professionals around the world should really wake up and sit up because these drugs don’t just grow legs and walk into the hands of people who use them. They are still given by persons legally and illegally so such persons need to have a rethink given the number of damages reported so far.