Site last updated: Thursday, April 9, 2026

Log In

Reset Password
MENU
Butler County's great daily newspaper

Aaliyah's music will be available for streaming

Twenty years after multiplatinum R&B singer Aaliyah’s untimely death, her music is finally being released on streaming services — without the blessing of her estate.

While the “Ultimate Aaliyah” hits collection was available for 24 hours on Apple Music in 2017, the music was quickly taken down and updates about streaming went quiet. Until now.

Blackground Records 2.0, a label founded by Jomo Hankerson and Barry Hankerson, Aaliyah’s uncle, advertised that “Aaliyah is coming” on its website Wednesday.

The next day, Spotify tweeted, “Baby Girl is coming to Spotify,” with release dates for multiple albums, starting with “One in a Million” (Aug. 20), followed by “Romeo Must Die” (Sept. 3), “Aaliyah” (Sept. 10) and the posthumous compilations “I care 4 U” and “Ultimate Aaliyah” (both Oct. 8).

Hankerson, who started Blackground Records in the 1990s to release Aaliyah’s music, told Billboard for a story published Thursday that he’s working with distribution company Empire to make her catalog accessible for streaming for the first time.

Her estate, however, opposes such a move, dismissing it as an “unscrupulous endeavor.”

“For 20 years we have battled behind the scenes, enduring shadowy tactics of deception with unauthorized projects targeted to tarnish,” the estate wrote in a statement posted Thursday to Aaliyah’s official Instagram page. “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.”

Hankerson owns the majority of Aaliyah’s catalog, meaning that Blackground Records 2.0 will be able to release her songs regardless of the objections of her estate, which is run by Aaliyah LLC and operated by her mother, Diane Haughton, and brother Rashad Haughton.

However, the estate’s attorney, Paul LiCalsi, said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times that the estate was never even made aware that Blackground Records was planning to release Aaliyah’s albums for streaming.

More in Arts & Entertainment

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

* indicates required
TODAY'S PHOTOS