Prince’s unreleased album ‘Welcome 2 America’ will arrive this summer
- Publish Date
- Friday, 9 April 2021, 8:15AM
Five years after Prince's death, the artist's estate has announced that it is releasing songs from his previously unreleased album, Welcome 2 America.
"Recorded in 2010 before the 'Welcome 2 America Tour,' the studio album #Welcome2America documents Prince’s concerns, hopes, and visions for a shifting society, presciently foreshadowing an era of political division, disinformation, and a renewed fight for racial justice," the Prince Estate and Sony’s Legacy Recordings said in a statement on Thursday (April 8).
The LP's title track, "Welcome 2 America," was released on Thursday as part of the album announcement.
"Throughout the powerful song, Prince delivers a searing, spoken-word soliloquy set to music about golden parachutes, the superficial nature of social media, reality TV-fueled celebrity culture, and corporate monopolies in the music industry, ultimately concluding that America is the 'Land of the free / home of the slave,'" the estate shared in a press release.
Shortly after Prince completed the Welcome 2 America album, he embarked on a tour of the same name, per Variety. He concluded the tour, which included multiple performances in several U.S. cities, with the historic “21 Nite Stand” at The Forum in Inglewood, California. The deluxe edition of Welcome 2 America will include a never-before-released full concert video of Prince’s April 28, 2011 show at The Forum as well as the complete studio vault album on both CD and black vinyl (accompanied with a hi-resolution digital download), the outlet reported.
60 Minutes correspondent Jon Wertheim was given a preview of the album, as well as the story of its making, for a segment that will air this Sunday (April 11) on CBS.
Welcome 2 America drops July 30.
This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission
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