RESERVOIR EVP RELL LAFARGUE TALKS TO BILLBOARD ABOUT DRAKE/AALIYAH ALBUM
Reservoir Executive Vice President Rell Lafargue spoke to Billboard this week to discuss Blackground's collaboration with rapper Drake in releasing new music from the late R&B singer Aaliyah. Reservoir and Blackground have been working together since entering into an agreement this past July that sees Reservoir exclusively representing the masters in Blackground's catalog and administering the company's music publishing component, Black Fountain Music.
A video broke this morning in which Drake confirmed that he is working on a project to feature Aaliyah's vocals, and Billboard.biz followed up with their exclusive official story this afternoon, including quotes from Rell and Blackground executive Jomo Hankerson.
An excerpt from the Billboard piece:
Reservoir Media Management EVP Rell Lafargue estimates that there is enough leftover material for two posthumous Aaliyah albums, while Hankerson says that approximation might be "a little premature." Talks between Blackground and Reservoir began roughly 15 months ago for the latter to acquire the 500-song catalog that includes Aaliyah's archives, music from Static Major and albums from JoJo, Timbaland, Magoo and Tank. As part of the deal, Reservoir, a boutique publishing company with top 40 hits from 50 Cent, Madonna and Justin Timberlake, will market Aaliyah's music to television and film, as well as release songs to online services like iTunes and Spotify where much of her music cannot be currently found. Additionally, the company will assist with licensing of songs for covers and sampling (Lafargue notes that there are talks of Dr. Dre sampling "Rock the Boat" for a new song).
"Part of taking new music to market is to release old music as well in different forms. There are tons of old interviews, video, things that were shot before her passing will be part of any and all repackaging. There are alternate takes and different remixes that never got released," says Lafargue. "The one thing that was just confirmed, the demand, was Aaliyah's 10-year anniversary of her passing. The ratings on the BET special were huge for that network and there's a demand for it. I believe that we recognize the demand and want to give her fans what they want."
Click here to read the full exclusive article on Billboard.biz..
