Aaliyah’s music finally hit streaming services on Friday, Aug. 20, almost 20 years after her 2001 death in a plane crash. The singer’s sophomore album, One In A Million, dropped on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and other platforms and the rest of her catalog is expected to drop over the next few weeks.
The “Rock The Boat” singer’s catalog is now being re-released via a partnership with Blackground Records 2.0 and EMPIRE. The original Blackground Records, which released the majority of Aaliyah’s music, was owned by the late singer’s uncle and former music manager, Barry Hankerson, who is also overseeing Blackground Records 2.0. Hankerson hit up Instagram to explain why it took so long for Aaliyah’s music to be made available for streaming.
“As the owner of Aaliyah’s catalog and label Blackground Records, I want to thank you all for allowing One In A Million to chart #3 in the world. I can not take the credit for managing Aaliyah as that was never a title I held. That title belonged to Diane Haughton and her husband who managed Aaliyah from the start of her career until her passing. I want to thank Diane, Aaliyah’s manager, for allowing and choosing Blackground Records to become her label. I want to thank Jomo Hankerson for being an integral part of the whole process. We created a signature sound, images, and visuals that will live forever. After 25 years, we are still charting high numbers,” Hankerson wrote on IG.
“Thank you to all of her many fans for keeping her music alive. I’m sorry it took so long, but when you lose a family member so unexpectedly, it takes time to deal with that type of grief. I decided to release Aaliyah’s music in order to keep her legacy alive,” he concluded in the message.
Aaliyah died on Aug. 25, 2001, at the age of 22, in a plane crash. Members of her team were also killed when an overloaded plane went down shortly after taking off on its way back to the United States. They were all in the Bahamas shooting what would ultimately be Aaliyah’s last video, “Rock The Boat.”
