Aaliyah’s music is back.
Friday saw the re-release on streaming services of “One In A Million”, the studio album by five-time Grammy-nominated star.
The singer, who was born Aaliyah Dana Haughton, died August 25, 2001, at the age of 22 in a plane crash that also took the lives of eight others as they traveled back from filming her music video in the Caribbean.
Her music has been unavailable for years. Fans have complained about it since the beginning. Through a partnership with Blackground Records 2.0, and EMPIRE, her catalog will be re-released on streaming platforms.
It is all happening amidst a backdrop of a seeming battle to control her legacy.
Barry Hankerson, the uncle of Aaliyah and ex-manager of Blackground Records, owned the original Blackground Records. He is now responsible for Blackground Records 2.0.
Aaliyah’s estate recently shared a statement on their verified Twitter account which began “Protecting Aaliyah’s legacy is, and will always be, our focus.”
The estate stated that for 20 years, they have fought behind the scenes and endured shadowy tactics of deception using unauthorized projects to tarnish. “We have been puzzled by the insistence on causing more pain than we have to for the rest of our lives.
The statement said, “This unscrupulous effort to release Aaliyah’s music without any transparency and full accounting to the estate compels us to express a single word — forgiveness.”
Aaliyah rose to fame in the 1990s, with hits like “Back & Forth” and “Are You That Somebody?” Aaliyah also sang “Rock The Boat”
“One in a Million” was her second album. It featured music from her long-time collaborators, Missy Elliot and Timbaland, as well as Slick Rick and other musicians.
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Spotify has updated its “This Is Aaliyah” playlist to celebrate Aaliyah’s album being added to the platform.