Aaliyah’s posthumous album, ‘Unstoppable,’ to be released this month, says uncle Barry Hankerson
New music from Aaliyah will finally be available to fans in the near future.
The late R&B singer’s uncle revealed that the posthumous album, “Unstoppable,” is set to be released later this month.
Appearing on the YouTube talk show “The Geno Jones Show,” Blackground Records co-founder Barry Hankerson offered up details about the new opus.
“About five years ago we realized we had quite a bit of music that we had never put out that was recorded by Aaliyah,” he said. “The vocals were there, and we decided to try to remaster it and to ask other artists that were big fans of her if they would like to participate in being on various songs.”
Hankerson said the December release of the single “Poison” with The Weeknd, is just a taste of other superstar collaborations, including songs with Ne-Yo, Snoop Dogg, Future, Drake and Chris Brown.
Aaliyah, a chart-topping platinum-selling singer/songwriter and promising actress who was raised in Detroit, was killed in a plane crash in August 2001 at the age of 21.
Hankerson, who is the estranged older brother of Aaliyah’s mother Diane Haughton, said that “working with Aaliyah was always a pleasure.”
“She was such a delight to work with ‘cause she was very professional,” he added. “She was very bright. She had an incredible memory, so she could read lyrics and remember them after only reading them once or twice.”
Last summer, Hankerson partnered with Empire Records to finally release Aaliyah’s back catalog to streaming platforms – to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death.
The 74-year-old New York native, once married to R&B legend Gladys Knight, also appeared on the “Dr. Oz” show to reveal that Aaliyah’s mom knew about R. Kelly’s sexual abuse of others.
“I think my sister knew a lot more than what we thought she knew,” he confessed to the stunned talk show host.
Long before the #MeToo movement fueled the award-winning Lifetime “Surviving R. Kelly” docuseries, 15-year-old Aaliyah married 27-year-old Kelly in the suburbs of Chicago in August 1994.
The disgraced Grammy winning superstar was managed by and produced by Hankerson in the early 1990s. Introduced to Aaliyah by her uncle when she was 13 in Detroit, the former Public Announcement frontman produced her breakout debut opus, ironically titled “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number,” in 1994.
On Sept. 27, 2021, A Brooklyn federal jury found Kelly guilty on all nine counts, delivering a verdict that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life.