Trouble appears to be brewing regarding Prince’s $156 million estate.

There’s no question that Prince is a musical legend. There’s also no question that his legend status extends above and beyond Black music and culture — and has, instead, entered the pop culture zeitgeist . But when one truly considers the numbers achieved by the musical great — and at the time he did it — it makes his accomplishments even more impressive. According to Forbes, Prince Rogers Nelson — as he was called on the day of his birth — sold more than 100 million units of his songs from the day of their first release in the 1970s until the day he died in April 2016. That number, as we will see, spiked significantly in the wake of his death. Despite his musical prowess, however, some songs — and albums — were more popular than others. It’s perhaps unsurprising that “ Purple Rain ” — perhaps his best-known album thanks to the super-smash song, “When Doves Cry” — is the best-selling album of his career. “Purple Rain had 3,107,000 buyers in the Soundscan Era, that is 1992 to date,...