The musical collective formerly known as New Power Generation (NPG) that served as Prince’s backing band from 1990 to 2013 and has long been affiliated with the iconic artist is changing its name to the Minneapolis Sound All Star Band.
The switch is happening because NPG’s ability to use the trademarked name has expired and Global Music Rights, the performing rights organization that handles administration of Prince’s songs, no longer permits tribute acts to perform sets of his material (though NPG considers itself a “legacy group”). But the group sees the change as an opportunity to focus on new music, which they plan to release this year.
“This allows us to evolve and expand,” says NPG’s keyboardist Morris Hayes, who also served as Prince’s musical director. “It feels like the floodgates opened and there are endless possibilities in front of us. The name change was definitely overdue. It feels very liberating.”
Following Prince’s death in 2016, the members of the collective acquired a five-year license in 2017 to continue using the name from Bremer Bank, which had initially handled the Prince estate. The band tried to extend the license with Comerica Bank, which then managed the estate, and with the current administrators, but “the new estate owners also conveyed to the band that the estate would no longer be licensing the trademarked name once the current agreement’s term expired,” says Jill Willis, who manages the LLC that includes several members of the former New Power Generation, including Hayes, rapper /rhythm guitarist Tony Mosley and bassist Sonny Thompson and had the license to use the trademarked name. Willis also worked with Prince, including managing him from 1990-1993.
Since 2022, the Prince estate has been controlled evenly by two companies: Prince Legacy LLC, which is owned by three of Prince’s half-siblings alongside advisors L. Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer; and Prince Oat Holdings LLC, which is owned by music publishing firm Primary Wave, which acquired the interests of Prince’s other three half-siblings. Neither responded to a request for comment.
The band ceased using the trademarked name in 2022 but did continue to perform Prince’s music and frequently billed itself as The Music of Prince, featuring former members of the New Power Generation.
Additionally, NPG had continued to use the name with the permission of the Prince estate when it performed in conjunction with or for the estate, such as Paisley Park’s annual four-day celebration or at a Minnesota Timberwolves game in December.
Coming up with a new name was “somewhat daunting,” Hayes says, “considering what we call ourselves that connects us to Prince, the city and the sound that he and others created in the 80’s. Our manager had been swirling this name around off and on for a couple of years and we all came together on it in the end. We knew we wanted something that perfectly describes our sound and who [and] what we are. We are a definite part of the musical tapestry created by Prince and we want to be a part of the soul of the sound of the Twin Cities.”
Willis says the Minneapolis Sound All Star Band can still perform a handful of Prince songs in its sets, but those songs will not be the focus, given that the band members, separately and together, has been writing new music for the last few years. The new music includes a song based on “the tragic events happening recently in Minneapolis,” Hayes adds, referring to the ICE killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
This is not the first circumstance where artists long associated with Prince have had concerns using names affiliated with their tenure with the artist. In 2022, the estate, still controlled by Comerica, sent a threat letter to Morris Day telling him he could not register a trademark for Morris Day and the Time, the name of the Prince-affiliated band he led for years. However, the new estate stewards did not file an opposition with the federal trademark office after Day applied for a trademark at the end of 2022.
In August 2025, Prince protégé Apollonia filed a lawsuit alleging that the current estate is trying to “steal” her name, even though she has used it for more than 40 years, by registering ownership of the name with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The estate had allegedly claimed that she signed over her rights in the 1980s to the name as part of the Purple Rain movie contract. In September, the estate asked that Apollonia’s lawsuit be dismissed, saying it has no intention of stopping her from using her stage name, but that it needed for her trademark to end so the estate could register a trademark for Apollonia 6. The motion to dismiss is still pending.
Additional reporting by Bill Donahue and Rachel Scharf.
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