Obama aide details Prince partnership in estate case

CHASKA, United States: The political activist Van Jones (pix) on Thursday detailed an extensive but quiet partnership with Prince as he asked a court to make him a representative to the late pop star's heirs.
A former adviser to President Barack Obama who has become a prominent commentator on CNN, Jones revealed after Prince's sudden death in April that the reclusive rocker had tapped him to support charitable work discreetly.
At a hearing in a Minnesota court, Jones spoke for the first time about his involvement in legal wrangling over his estate as two of Prince's heirs, including his sister Tyka Nelson, now want him to become their representative.
A Yale-educated lawyer, Jones has spearheaded several projects to reduce poverty including by teaching computer code-writing to young people and bringing environmental jobs to blighted communities.
Sporting a purple tie in the Carver County courtroom, he said that he received an anonymous cheque a decade ago that kept coming back no matter how many times he rejected it.
A lawyer finally told him by telephone, "'Look, I can't tell you who this cheque is from, but I can tell you – favourite color is purple,'" Jones told the court.
He said he received a call soon after: "'Hello, this is Prince. I like what you're trying to build.'"
"People misunderstand him as a musical genius," Jones said. "He had a genius for people, for human beings. The only way he could express that was through music."
Prince, whose estate is estimated to be worth US$200million (RM893 million) to 300 million (RM1.3 billion), died from an accidental overdose of painkillers without leaving a will and with no recognised children. The court has been working through the claims, some of them colorful, of people who say they are his rightful heirs.
Siblings divided
Bremer Trust, a Minnesota institution trusted by Prince, was put in charge of his estate after his death but is seeking to transfer management to Comerica, a Dallas-based financial services company.
The court must decide who will represent the family to Comerica. While two siblings support Jones, the others back Prince's longtime lawyer L. Londell McMillan.
Speaking to the court, McMillan described himself as an expert on the music industry who successfully extracted Prince from a contract with Warner Brothers in the 1990s – when the pop star famously wrote "slave" on his cheek and changed his name to the unpronounceable "love symbol" to protest his conditions.
Jones told the court that he negotiated Prince's return to Warner Brothers in 2014, which brought the artist's master recordings back to him.
But Jones cast himself not so much as a businessman but as a guardian of Prince's social mission.
"I get enough attention in other parts of my life," he quipped.
Jones held a short-lived position advising Obama on the green economy, resigning under pressure from Republicans who objected to his controversial past statements.
After he quit, Jones said that Prince called him up and invited him to his Paisley Park estate. Jones said Prince told him to go to Jerusalem for two weeks and pray and then to write up things he wanted to do, promising to get them done.
"He changed my life," Jones said. "That kept me going because I was depressed."
Jones emerged on Election Day in November as a leading television critic of President-elect Donald Trump, calling his victory a "whitelash" against progress by minorities. — AFP