Nearly two decades after her death, there was still contention over how to get Aaliyah's music to the world. Her estate announced on Instagram in August 2020 that it was finally in talks with record labels to release her music to streaming platforms. But nothing came of the promise, and in 2021 Blackground Records announced that it was finally going to put her tunes on the internet.
According to the Los Angeles Times, her estate was not happy about the announcement. It made one of its own, saying that "protecting Aaliyah's legacy" was the reason it hadn't allowed her music to be published on streaming platforms for so long. "For 20 years we have battled behind the scenes, enduring shadowy tactics of deception with unauthorized projects targeted to tarnish," the estate wrote on Instagram. That's all a lot of highfalutin language that most likely means that the executors of her estate want to make sure they get their cut of the dough. Despite their disapproval, Hankerson is the owner of most of Aaliyah's music, and the singer's catalogue can now be found on Spotify and other streaming platforms.
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