Whenever we lose a legend there’s always a natural urge to see and hear things from the person, even more so than you did before. You know how the saying goes “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone“, and a lot of times, we have a hard time letting things be…well…gone. Is new music from a person who is no longer with us something you really want to hear? Working with artist, producers, technicians they have never worked with to make a project they never created? If it is, then that’s great! But do you really?
A lot of hoopla has came about the past week over Drake being the co-executive producer of a posthumous Aaliyah album and he released a single from it featuring himself last week. We all know about Drake’s obsession with Aaliyah (which he’s stated himself) so it’s pretty obvious that this is far from a half-assed attempt to make money. The question shouldn’t be over the quality of the music, with Drake, that is never a issue, the bigger question which I think no one is asking is over the music itself and if this Aaliyah project will be true to her sound.
Timberland went on record saying that Missy Elliot & himself should be involved with the project because they were major factors in her sound and development as an artist. This has waged somewhat of a war between Drake fans and Missy/Timberland fans when fact of the matter is, no one would be able to accurately replicate the music that Aaliyah made in the 90′s, not even the people in her own camp.
Timberland is far from the producer that he was in the 90′s, not to say that he’s worst, but he’s different. We haven’t heard those bass and kick heavy beats from him in nearly a decade, he moved away from it. So would he create a new sound meshing Aaliyah on revamped production? Whose to say. Missy Elliot isn’t the producer/artist she use to be in the 90′s either, again, not to say that she’s worst, but she’s different. A lot of her music post Aaliyah was uptempo and her videos were for shock value, very much so different from the gritty and somber feel that Aaliyah presented. Would she be able to channel that energy again?
This project would be a true posthumous album. People have mentioned Biggie’s Ready To Die and Pac’s 7 Day Theory but those albums were made while the artist was still alive and released after their death. Both Biggie and Pac had their hands in the projects, made songs and recorded them, they weren’t just thrown together without them creatively being a part of it. This Aaliyah album is being made years after her death, with unused verses maybe some reused verses. You don’t know the beat she would have chosen, the artist she would have worked with, the title of the songs, and you don’t even know what type of artist Aaliyah would be in 2012.
To match the magic of a legendary artist with an album after their death will always be a difficult thing to do. It didn’t work with Pac, it didn’t work with Biggie, it didn’t work with Big L. It’s just something disingenuous about it with them not being there. It’s sad that we will never get another project from these artist ever again, but that doesn’t mean that we should create our own, we need just appreciate their music even more.
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