Aaliyah’s uncle talks Aaliyah’s 4th studio album and “Poison”

[TaylorSwift 162,325]

Early this morning, Blackground Records 2.0/EMPIRE released “Poison.” Featuring The Weeknd, the song is the lead single from Unstoppable — Aaliyah’s 4th studio album comprised of never-heard-before music. Due in 2022, the album also includes guest turns from Snoop Dogg, Drake, Future, Chris Brown and Ne-Yo.

Aaliyah’s uncle and Blackground founder Barry Hankerson spoke with Billboard about “Poison”, Unstoppable and his quest to achieve Grammy recognition for the singer 

What prompted the decision to release “Poison” as the lead single?
When you put a record out, you try to start off with something that gets everybody’s attention. I’m a fan of The Weeknd, who called me out of the blue on a Friday night about 3 years ago. He inquired about trying to do something with some of these tracks if there was anything that Aaliyah had a vocal on. But then we never got together. So when we started on Unstoppable, I remembered that call and reached out. We were able to work out his schedule and get together with one of his producers, a young brother named DannyBoyStyles. After we talked, DannyBoyStyles chaperoned updating the track. Then he flew to Canada to put the vocals on.

Between the rollout and the release of “Poison,” have you been in contact with Aaliyah’s estate?
No, not at all. We hope they’re happy. Our door and our phone is always available if there are any comments they’d like to make about anything. [...]

Drake, Future, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown and Snoop Dogg are among Unstoppable’s guest collaborators. What else can listeners expect?
The body of work is pure hip-hop and R&B. I think it’s going to be big with urban and R&B stations. Some of the people that Aaliyah liked are on the album. She loved Snoop Dogg, who’s done a great record in collaboration with Future. They’re going in now to refreshen their vocals. Ne-Yo gave us an excellent song; also Drake. Timbaland produced the track that Chris Brown did. It’s vintage R&B with strong vocals. I look for that one to also get a very special reaction from listeners. We’ll probably release one more single before the album comes out.

About Grammy  
Aaliyah was never nominated for or won a Grammy. We can’t figure out how or why that happened. It’s a missed factor that she looked forward to. But there should be some recognition for her leaving a body of work that has caused such dramatic thirst. Maybe a song is a song, but what Aaliyah did took a song to another level. So in the future, we’ll be asking her fan base to make their feelings known by helping us in a campaign for the Recording Academy to honor Aaliyah for her body of work or also by nominating a song or songs from Unstoppable.
(did they tell The Weeknd about it?)

source

 

[River 127,341]

tbh I find it a bit weird that there are singer that Aaliyah never heard of, because they were still kids/teenagers at the time she was alive.

I mean The Weeknd was 11 years old when she died

[Wet Fire 8,360]

Aaliyah's name shouldn't be tied with mediocrities like Drake (based on his last few albums) and Chris ****ing Brown 

[Meat 18,962]

CHRIS BROWN?

[Blown Away 5,218]

It's really sad how they're tarnishing her legacy with this kind of crap. I have no words for this... 

[LaLuna 12,732]

As a huge Aaliyah fan, this is deeply disappointing. Way to tarnish what I assume are perfectly good tracks. I'll stick to the music she released before she passed, thankyouverymuch