Black-ish had access to nearly all of Prince's song catalog for its tribute to the music icon

Vulture

The late singer's estate was very agreeable with this week's Prince tribute episode, especially since creator Kenya Barris and one of the music supervisors already had a connection. Plus, Yara Shahidi's dad was once Prince's photographer. Did the show have to pay a lot of money to use Prince's songs? "I don’t know how the numbers worked, but I don’t think we had to pay extra for this song or that song," says showrunner Kenny Smith. "Like, 'Purple Rain' didn’t cost more than 'Sexy MF.' I just knew we got the budget and it was impossible, so we had to cut another six songs out of it to make the budget."