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Case file s1646 · Music and sport · 2001
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2001
Aaliyah: Aaliyah in Berlin, May 2000
Aaliyah. mika-photography.com. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
25 August 2001
Place
Abaco Islands, Bahamas (plane crash) · Caribbean islands
Field
R&B (Blackground Records) · Music on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (New York) · Common law
Historical event
The move from CD sales to streaming
Religion
Aaliyah: Catholic (recorded as Catholicism on Wikidata; 20th-century Roman Catholics, 21st-century Roman Catholics, African-American Catholics on Wikipedia)
Music and sportNowLatin AmericaCaribbean islands

Aaliyah's uncle owned her masters, and most of her music stayed off streaming for 20 years after her death

Aaliyah Haughton signed to Blackground Records, the label founded by her uncle and former manager, Barry Hankerson. Blackground released her albums One in a Million and Aaliyah. Hankerson holds the master recordings for most of her work. Her 1994 debut, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number, was for years the only Aaliyah album on streaming services. In 2020 her estate said it was talking to labels about putting her music online. In August 2021 a website, "Aaliyah Is Coming," appeared and was traced to Hankerson. On 4 August 2021 the estate said it had faced "shadowy tactics of deception" for 20 years and objected to an "unscrupulous endeavor to release Aaliyah's music without any transparency or full accounting to the estate." Hankerson relaunched the label as Blackground Records 2.0 and partnered with the independent label EMPIRE. One in a Million reached streaming services on 20 August 2021, five days before the 20th anniversary of her death. The other albums were scheduled for September and October 2021. The estate called the deal unauthorized and demanded an accounting of Blackground's past earnings†. Because Hankerson owned the masters, the estate could not stop the release†. No court ruling on the accounting demand was found†. Where the estate and Blackground stand in 2026 was not confirmed†.

What the law took from it

An estate controls only the rights the artist owned, and recordings owned by a label can be released or held back without the family's consent.

Sources
  1. thefader.comPress
  2. okayplayer.comPress
  3. wafb.comPress
  4. thedailybeast.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Aaliyah's uncle owned her masters, and most of her music stayed off streaming for 20 years after her death,” story s1646, https://www.celebrity.estate/aaliyah-2001, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Music and sportNowLatin AmericaCommon lawCaribbean islands