Aaliyah released her debut studio album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number, on May 24, 1994 through Jive and her uncle Barry Hankerson’s Blackground Records. Beloved for Top 10 hits like “Back & Forth” and “At Your Best (You Are Love),” it is the late R&B singer’s only studio album available on streaming services—thanks to the inaction of her mysterious uncle.
In a December 2018 Complex report, How Music Got Free author Stephen Witt dug into Hankerson’s shady history as a music executive to explain why the bulk of Aaliyah’s small—but highly influential—discography can’t be streamed or purchased through online services. Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number is the only exception because he didn’t acquire control of her masters until he switched Blackground’s distributors in 1996.
Hankerson made his name in the music industry by discovering and then shepherding the career of R. Kelly, who even then was rumored to be a sexual predator. Hankerson still paired Aaliyah with Kelly after signing her to Blackground when she was just 12 years old. Kelly produced and wrote most of the songs on the album, which was a thinly veiled referenced to their romantic relationship.
Two years later, Hankerson moved Blackground to Atlantic Records from its previous distributor, Jive. In the process, he gained full control of her masters. For Aaliyah’s next album, 1996’s One in a Million, she worked with Timbaland and Missy Elliott to help redefine R&B thanks to her collaborators' signature hip-hop sound. The project went double Platinum and took her career to the next level.
Aaliyah would go into acting and score soundtrack hits with “Are You That Somebody?” and “Try Again” before dropping her final, self-titled album in July 2001. Just six weeks later, she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas after shooting a music video for one of the double-Platinum project’s hits, “Rock the Boat.”
Already an elusive figure, Hankerson retreated even further from the public eye and never made any statements about her death. However, Blackground still boasted acts like Timbaland and Static Major, and in 2003, he found another young star in 12-year-old singer JoJo, who became the youngest singer to chart at No. 1.
Blackground’s eventual downfall wasn’t helped by Hankerson’s curious decision to stay put as the music industry moved onto digital platforms. Starting in 2007, a series of lawsuits ensued from artists like Toni Braxton, Timbaland, and JoJo, who all blamed Hankerson and the label for mishandling their careers.
After a years-long battle to release her third album, JoJo sued in 2013 and was eventually freed from the label. Tellingly, Blackground removed her early catalog from streaming services, and she was forced to re-record her first two albums in order to bring them to streaming platforms.
In 2012, Blackground lost its distribution deal with Interscope Records, and Hankerson sold a stake in the label’s publishing to Reservoir Media Management. For Reservoir’s part, it made unfulfilled promises to release a project of unreleased material and bring Aaliyah’s music to streaming platforms. In 2019, any association with Blackground was removed from Reservoir’s official website.
In spite of the prolonged absence of Aaliyah’s music from online platforms, fans were given a sliver of hope in December 2019 when a private tweet attributed to Hankerson teased the possibility of her music coming to Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL, and Amazon Prime Music on January 16, 2020. Now that the date has long passed, there is no reason to believe that Aaliyah’s full catalog will be joining Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number on streaming platforms.
Unfortunately, there is now an entire generation of music fans who have missed out on being able to readily access Aaliyah’s most influential work. With Hankerson’s continued absence in bringing all her music to streaming services, awareness of her catalog could soon fade into obscurity.
That being said, Aaliyah’s legacy remains alive in the music of some of today’s biggest stars, including Drake, Beyoncé, The Weeknd, and Rihanna. Genius previously broke down how hip-hop remembers Aaliyah:
Read the full Complex report here, and catch up on all the lyrics to Aaliyah’s Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number on Genius now.
