Just FYI, she wasn?t signed due to Rapist. And the only reason he did the whole album is because Barry was once again being cheap.
He did her first album, universally considered her worst, and then brought her to the brink of failure during that project. She had to start over on OIAM, and she flourished without him.
Like her dad said, she was destined for greatness long before she met him.
QuoteAnd Aaliyah eventually became a part of that roster. On a podcast with Billboard, you said that her uncle Barry Hankerson, who was managing R. Kelly, brought her to Jive?
He had brought Aaliyah to Jive and I think he started bring her to Jive when she was probably around 11 or 12? She was young when she put out the first album, but she was like 11 or 12 when he first started shopping her to Jive. The guy who owned Jive at the time, Clive Calder, he?s also an A&R person by trade. He was basically head of the A&R department. Barry kept shopping her to him and he saw something, but he said, ?She?s not ready, she?s still young, she needs to be developed more.? Barry would go back and develop her more. Aaliyah was in a performing arts high school in Detroit, like the Fame kind of school, but for Detroit. She was always a creative girl, that was her path, singing and dancing. Barry kept bringing her back. I think when she was 14 was when Clive said, ?Okay, we?re ready to take a shot at her.? And they signed her and started to put together her work on that first album...
I?m assuming it was always the plan to have R. Kelly do the producing and songwriting or were there any discussions to bring in other producers or songwriters along the way?
Not that I remember, Robert was going to do the whole record. Clive was a publishing guru, so he and Barry weren?t trying to cut a lot of people in on the album to share the publishing. They said we?re going to do this with one guy and the publishing will be easy to deal with because it?s one person.
https://www.vibe.com/2016/08/age-aint-nothing-but-a-number-aaliyah-week
