Aaliyah’s estate releases statement over ‘unauthorized projects’
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
The estate of Aaliyah has a message to those who have tried to release unauthorized projects about the late 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.
Aaliyah’s estate announced last year that it was in talks with various music labels to bring her catalog of music to streaming services.
That has been the hope of many Aaliyah fans for years as the artist’s music is noticeably absent from streaming.
The Instagram account Blackground Records 2.0 recently appeared and linked out to the site Aaliyahiscoming.com.
The original Blackground Records, which released a majority of Aaliyah’s music, was owned by the late singer’s uncle and former manager, Barry Hankerson.
“Protecting Aaliyah’s legacy is, and will always be, our focus,” reads a recent post from the estate’s verified Twitter account.
“For 20 years we have battled behind the scenes, enduring shadowy tactics of deception with unauthorized projects targeted to tarnish,” the estate wrote. “We have always been confused as to why there is such a tenacity in causing more pain alongside what we already have to cope with for the rest of our lives.”
“This unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah’s music without any transparency or full accounting to the estate compels our hearts to express a word — forgiveness,” the statement continued.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
