What was the downfall of the musician Prince? Is there an "Illuminati" plot against famous black men? by #KylePhoenix

 

That whole emergency plane landing for emergency OD care a week before his death, contrived conspiracy too?

Are people who are Black ever just humans, foolish, flawed, mortal or has oppression made us mythic gods that a secret cabal seeks to destroy?

I loved Prince. Cried when he died, some days I just spontaneously sob for him, for the loss but like Whitney, Michael, others if you surround yourself with people who will only tell you yes and are mute on your self-destructiveness, you will implode.

People mock Oprah and Gayle and Stedman but that's what they do for her, act as reality soundboards, help her discern her bullshit from roses. Prince eschewed that. The majority of his staff were models, pretty and vacuous because business management, particularly music is so encompassing and enormous in scope. 39 albums plus hundreds of singles and remixes and videos, literally thousands of products to manage or at least keep an eye on. That alone is draining.

I've been managing several hundred of my own royalty-bearing products with thousands more in the pipeline and I have to consider lawyers, accountants, managers, investments, salespeople, the list goes on.

And I LIKE business.

I can't imagine the enormity, the overwhelming pressure if you didn't AND you still have to perform, produce, pay bills AND you want to support nonprofits as Prince was with his concert tours.

It's enough to make me want to have a drink when I realize oh that's right there were sales from affiliates in 2015 and I have to track it down.

Business management is not simple and its probably extremely unnatural to musicians, I’ll take it farther and say people of color get and have shitty financial education across the board so being thrust into millions of dollars and employee/band management must be taxing. It's not often said but Bill Cosby, Quincy Jones, and Maya Angelou, mentored Oprah about money, Cosby referring her to Jeffrey Jacobs who designed ownership hence her wealth and never writing "slave" on her face because in the first meeting they designed Harpo so she would transcend slave mentalities of taking the $250k she was originally offered a year, as Harpo, it became $30 million-plus each year for the first four years of the show. But as an owner it meant building, designing a company, taking on and paying back angel investors for the cost of building a production studio.

I say all of that to say Prince was one of the best musicians I believe of the past 200 years, I put him, Coltrane, Monk, Davis right up there with Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky. I've, written about him, taught him in classes and have a retrospective for a whole season of my TV show but business skills take time, trustworthy people, perhaps even a different mentality. I think his letting it all flounder was both a relief and a side effect of using drugs to treat career injuries. He got tired of it all.

His and his lawyers genius stroke move to slip out of the Warner Brothers contract by doing something that has never happened before, existing without a name, tying identity to name, was a masterstroke and unfortunately he gained all rights to his work months before he died....hence the Jay Z deal with Tidal that his sister Tyka fucked up by selling his catalog to Universal Music to try and rectify his financial messes, also why Paisley Park is a freaking museum now, with general and VIP tickets....because he was living check to check for performances assuming he'd be productive forever and that he would have time to fix the general messiness.

I have nearly not the same caliber of wealth but I have had to sit down and plan my own will/demise because I have created monetary bearing instruments that will create money for at least 125 years. My businesses are tied to three of the biggest Amazon, Google and Time Warner/Spectrum.

125 years.

Stop everything you're doing and start planning on that scale. Mind-boggling. Makes you want to go to sleep, take a pill. I have to consider family, friends, future spouses, children, charities. That's a lot.
Money, generating wealth and then managing it, especially if you don't have a formal objective education can be daunting. Poor money and wealth management. Overwhelm. Exhaustion. Hubris. Lack of reliable counsel. Injuries/pain. Excess indulgence.

Michael, Whitney, Luther, Jimi.
They all suffered from the above.
The conspiracy isn't some mystical cabal that thinks if they could just control a pop singer they could rule the Middle East, it's that not everyone has or allows support systems in a healthy way in their lives and that gets magnified, strengths and personal weaknesses, by fame and money.

Now, Bill Cosby, I believe its half setup, half set up accessible from his own fetish. So many, the army....literally an army of women that are accusing him are difficult to understand and measure for one overlooked point:

Anyone can accuse anyone of one behavior being of a different motivation when its beyond the statute of limitations.

I have cousins who sexually abused several in our family, because of SOL and varying jurisdictions I and others can't prosecute them. But by the same token, because they were engaged in sexual contact, they can't sue accusers for slander or libel. A dual blunted, double-edged sword of the justice system.
So in a broad, out there conspiracy possibilities you could accuse someone into BDSM of rape if you could get....a small army of his past sexual partners to say , 30 years ago it wasn't sex play BDSM it was forced confinement, assault and rape.....but the SOL is up....oh, darn.

But if I were framing someone and knew maybe one or two of his past BDSM partners felt he went too far within the SOL I might quietly drum up....a small army to accuse, support the accusations in the public court through media to shoot down maybe some deal I wanted that he was sniffing around.
Oh and I'd simply pay off relatives, let story fester then give "donations" to them in a thousand different ways. There are lots of ways to give money or the effects of money without directly giving someone cash.

I believe Camille Cosby, a learned, strong woman when she says she knew about his cat daddy ways, I suspect like mature adults they had an agreement between them...and perhaps one day we'll see her "army", but that he's innocent of forcibly, malicious....taking advantage, assault, rape. Massive splitting of hairs but unless she's killing babies on Halloween and he's got proof of it over her, it would take that level of distinction for her to stay. They after all as quiet as the Cosby fortune is kept, are billionaires.

What I've learned as I've grown financially and had to consider things is, people are nucking futs and you can construct your own positive or negative reality with ever-increasing amounts of wealth. And your fetishes are weaknesses if you don't manage them with an eye towards discretion and absolute, only you, the other person and the horse know, confidentiality.

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

What's your view on 156M estate of "Purple Rain" singer Prince but only $6M cash for distribution among heirs and $10M was the cost and expenses to get to this? What would have been a better way to do this? by Kyle Phoenix

 

. Prince was tired.

From about 18 to his 50s he’d been famous and therefore rich and then wealthy. His struggle with Warner Brothers and legally changing his name to no name so that neither contracts nor lawsuits could be enforced was sort of his watershed moment about the music industry. His art was music and in order to set up a stage, a venue, pay band members you have to “sell” that music. Whether as tickets or as CDs. And eventually that migrated to videos, DVDs and then digital music/selections.

All of this is exhausting. I say this from micro-similar experience of having books—-in 3 formats—-paperback, hardcover and eBooks; a TV show—-we’re up to episode 670+, having started at 1; videos of both original parts and of the TV shows—-which means the TV show is both digital and sub-divided digital; blogs/articles—-which number close to 3000 now—-the majority monetized but all have to be kept track of.

Months prior to his death Prince did a handshake deal with Jay-Z to move his entire catalogue onto Tidal. The boon of Tidal is that different than iTunes, Spotify, etc.—-the artist (and sub-musicians) get paid first before the music company. Prince had just recovered all of his Masters—-the original legal recordings—-it takes about 20–25 years for an artist to get them back from the music company/label. Prince then re-recorded lots of stuff so that it was his, his alone, under a “new” ownership banner.

With his Tidal deal—-just counting 39 albums—average 10–15 songs a piece—-that was well over 400 songs. Then there are music videos—-probably close to 100; then concert videos/DVDs; then several movies, most prominently Purple Rain. Then there was a Vault of drafts, unpublished, unreleased works——thousands of songs/hours of music.

His net worth hovered between $200 to $300 million including property—-royalties form merchandise including books, pictures, etc., homes, Paisley Park, cars, clothing, furniture, etc..

He also didn’t expect to die. He didn’t have a long protracted illness that would have given him time—-a year—— to put his affairs in order.

So Prince dies.

But he was still touring, owning all of the music, setting up tour dates, hiring musicians and personal staff and security—-most of them under contract for years. So once he dies, the promoter, who has sold tens of thousands of tickets—-demands a refund—-as the ticket holders now get refunds—-for his processing/work fee. All the band musicians have to be paid off from their contracts, stage managers, security, etc.. Say 100 people at an average of $50k a piece, low balling.

Prince, by blood, had one full sister, Tyka. The rest of his 5 siblings were from his father, but not his mother. So it all naturally falls/flows to Tyka without his having a will.

First, she had to lock up everything, account for everything, and get a full audit, accounting of everything, and bills due. She probably had about $10-$20 million in bills to pay off—-which is why a few months after his death, Paisley Park became a museum, at $50 to $125 a ticket. She had to generate “new” money as all of his assets were frozen but bills were still due. Generally when a will is set, someone is the Executor, therefore empowered to dip into the standing checking and savings accounts to pay off bills first, and then distribute the rest to heirs, per a will.

Prince’s half-siblings rush and get lawyers, attempting to be one of his final “bills”—-trying to get paid before all of the “cash” is gone. Tyka tries to sell his full music catalogue to Universal, thereby getting a check for $140 million to split amongst the siblings, after selling everything else to pay bills. But it’s hard to sell “everything” fast—-homes, cars, etc. AND Jay-Z steps in, blocking the completion of the sale, “Prince and I had a deal.”

Legally this is known as a clusterfuck because now everyone has to backtrack—-with the help of a Judge and figure out what Prince wanted done with stuff—-his property—-that may’ve been expressed in work, actions, discussions. The Judge rules Jay-Z is right but Prince is no longer alive to in totality agree to such a massive deal because Tyka still has hundreds of creditors/people tp pay. The Judge then gets a third party, hired by Tyka, to essentially create The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson , put everything into that box, and the estate of the late pop singer Prince, including his catalogue of songs, was valued at $156.4m (£114m), nearly twice an earlier appraisal. The estate's administrator, Comerica Bank, agreed on the figure with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the heirs to Prince's estate.

Now bills/inheritances can get paid.

But the trust, the Estate, Comerica—-everybody for all of their work, they too have to be paid and all of his materials going forward must be maintained, legally protected, housed—-BUT BUT BUT all of those items/productions can help pay for themselves. So they work out essentially a royalty tally based upon past, present and future earnings from each item and then turn to the assembled family members and Tyka, and say: “The Estate will settle with all of you for THIS amount——BUT—-you all have to agree.”

Now everyone, except for Tyka, who is in the Driver’s Seat—-start to evaluate the valuation and the cash out offer being offered.

Comerica and the Estate insist that everyone must agree to the number—-and the half-siblings have to all agree on the same number, probably within a short period of time. If they don’t agree they can keep on suing but their lawyers are like—-”It’s a group payout—-or you fight this by refusing to be a not part of the group, the group can take their bounty and bounce/gang up against you and me, your lawyer, not getting sufficiently paid for this drama, will probably leave you.”

The Estate/Comerica probably to de-incentivize the lawyers from suing forever for a bigger payday—-first had them all agree that the Estate and Comerica’s audit, valuation would be agreed upon. No more counting the chips. Then that the lawyers would be paid, let’s say a flat fee of $1 million from the Estate for all of their years—-at least 5——of work.

Tyka as full sibling has already taken her share—-probably double or more what the half-siblings get, as she proved she’s lived with him for over a decade, he loved and trusted her, and helped her get past her drug addiction. Tyka’s good.

The half-siblings confer and agree to the $6 million or so offered, in cash. Better $6 million in hand than none in the bush. They probably also agree to a percentage of royalties in perpetuity—-maybe 1% of royalties from everything, a year, maybe another $250k, which will be used to offset taxes on their part.

In dirty, sketchy math—let’s call it $50 million to those related to him—a third of the Estate's valuation—-the rest of his $300 million fortune/credit ability (you’re generally worth 2x-5x more because you can always borrow against the value of properties, royalties, businesses, etc. Which is why an auditing, valuation, is so tricky—-what are you concretely worth and what are you potentially worth——and then agree to a range that those two formulas converge at. A form of predictive analysis/actuary work.) was probably used to pay off bills, contracts, settle other potential lawsuits (from promoters) AND buy out musicians royalties, producer royalties, on the music catalogue. Then the catalogue can be leased to Tidal and then sold to another group, Primal Wave.

Primal Wave, owning his catalogue can lease it out, but most importantly had two things—-cash to buy his catalogue and cash to pay off the 5 half siblings and Tyka. Otherwise they would have had to sit and wait every year for a smaller check to come in or none at all. The crisis of the siblings was that they all weren’t on the same page about his Estate, so some just wanted cash to leave and others, wanted to have a voting interest in his estate. Primal Wave then has to buy them all out at a negotiated similar price. There was probably a deadline date for Primal to keep its’ checkbook open.

Prince Precipitated This Mess

To avoid all of this Prince would’ve had to do essentially what his Estate/Comerica did while he was alive—-but the bill may’ve been about $10-$15 million for all of this plus still have available cash to give people inheritances/trusts upfront before death, or a way to pay for all of the expenses after his death. He was also touring and creating during this time, so he would have to do all of that, manage the catalogue and distribute to folk he may not have even liked or been close to. The way you get around this is you leave a nominal amount to folk—-say $1—-this legally shows you knew who they were, knew of them and had made a conscious decision about them. But again, he wasn’t expecting to die so he hadn’t caught up to his own largesse. And he probably helped real relatives along the way—-so what more to give?

Again, the hardest part of such wealth is breaking it up/off to satisfy yourself and others before death—-estate planning—-and then figuring out how to protect your work over decades after your death. The enormity of it is probably what made him shut down and the drama for decades of wrangling with music companies and a thousand other headaches associated to money.

Even now, for my small media, thinking about it, contextualizing it, and then legally constructing that for the future, is daunting.

The only “better way” to do this would’ve been in the 1990s constructing a will while involved in the Warner Brothers $100 million dollar contract negotiation—-because an auditing was done then BUT he didn’t own the entirety of his Masters and there was still 20+ years of royalties plus new music.

Other natural breaks for Estate planning would’ve been his marriages, two of them, to get his house in order. But again, lots of things going on, tired, it would have been costly.

It was probably in his projected sight to do within a decade or so of getting his Masters in 2016, which is why he was making such direct deals with Tidal—-he was taking responsibility for the Masters distribution.

But he didn’t have a draft/lattice framework set up so in a twisted way, the 6 year ordeal was the best way of doing it, in general.

#KylePhoenix

#TheKylePhoenixShow

Amazon.com: Kyle Phoenix: books, biography, latest update

https://www.amazon.com/Kyle-Phoenix/e/B00E3RK6QO?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1652425609&sr=1-1

Kyle Phoenix Presents: PRINCE FILES $22 MILLION LAWSUIT AGAINST FACEBOOK & BLOGGER USERS on The Kyle Phoenix Blog

There is so much that can be said about this Prince lawsuit and we could literally talk about it all day. On the one hand, everyone knows how much Prince hates when people post his videos or songs without paying him or whatever he wants for it at the time. On the other hand, he’s been out for so long that the only way some people are even familiar with him is because of the internet and the uploads.


But we’ll get back to that.


Prince is suing 22 members of Facebook and Googele’s Blogger for copyright violations and wants to see each of them pay $1 million. Here’s the scoop from Spin.com:


“According to the 21-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco (via Antiquiet), the defendants “engage in massive infringement and bootlegging of Prince’s material.” The lawsuit targets Dan Chodera, Karina Jindrova, and 20 anonymous defendants. Chodera and Jindrova allegedly operated a no-longer-online Facebook account that posted a bunch of bootleg Prince videos. The other defendants — “Does” 1 through 20 — are accused of similar infractions, such as pointing to a 1983 Chicago set from WorldofBootleg.blogspot.com. Hey, we’d like to hear that one.


Prince asks for a jury trial, which, though highly unlikely, would have to make for some fascinating courtroom drama. In addition to the $22 million total in damages, Prince wants the defendants permanently blocked from infringing on his copyrights. He also wants them to forfeit any money they may have made from his music — with interest — and to return any “unlawful materials” to their rightful Purple custody.”


Prince is not a stupid man and surely he knows that the chances of any of these people having $1 million to fork over is slim to none, so we’re thinking this is more of a symbolic lawsuit more than anything. He really does not want anyone posting anything having to do with his music that he cannot control…or at least get paid for in the process.


There’s got to be a better fix for this situation. Prince and his team are probably prepared to sue everyone they can find illegally posting his music but maybe a better solution is that he hire a videographer and post them himself to a website that he charges a fee (I know, I know) to become a member. That probably won’t stop it in full but that’s a better way to monitor everything.


What do you think about this lawsuit? Is Prince alienating an entire generation of would be fans by trying so hard to shut people down who post his music?


Enjoy!
www.KylePhoenix.com