S. Samuel
After Young Money's Drake hyped fans up about plans for a posthumous Aaliyah release last summer, R&B singer Chris Brown is going full throttle with a new record called "They Don't Know" which features the late singer.
Chris Breezy broke the news to fans on Tuesday (May 14) and revealed a music video has already been recorded.
HollywoodLife.com spoke to Chris on May 14 at the Bet Award nominations in LA, and HollywoodLife.com asked who collaborator X is, and he spilled the beans! “I’ll reveal it now! I just actually shot a video and the song is dedicated to all my fans. Its called, “They Don’t Know” and the song features Aaliyah! Never heard before vocals, all new stuff that has never been heard before, its something special for all my fans. I shot it in the hood, I wanted to bring both worlds together in the video and try to uplift the positive side of the community. I mean I come from Virginia, but everyone come from a broken home or broke, I remember when I was!” (Hollywood Life)
Buzz and speculation behind the tribute track surfaced online Monday (May 13).
After hanging out with a group of students at a school this past weekend and playing ball with some fans in Harlem last week, Breezy’s latest entourage consisted of more than a dozen friends who took over a Compton rooftop to film the singer’s music video for a tribute track dedicated to the late R&B star Aaliyah. The single features some previously unheard vocals from the songstress, which can be partially heard on this video, showing Brown on a street in Los Angeles shooting the video. (You may remember that Drake is also a huge Aaliyah fan, and he released a track called “Enough Said” using her sweet sounds in August.) (E! Online)
Last summer, Brown’s music rival Drake talked about working on a posthumous Aaliyah project.
“People should be really excited. People thought it was my single; it’s not my single. It’s all off of an Aaliyah project that me and 40 are commanding and 40’s just doing some incredible, some incredible music right now,” Drake revealed in an interview. “To get 13, 14 new Aaliyah songs, everybody should be excited. It’s not about me. It’s not about 40. It’s about her and her fans and us just getting the opportunity to give you something that we feel is great. And the people around her, everybody from her family to her old management and label, were like, ‘If there’s anyone out that can do it right now, it’s [you] and 40.’ And that was an honor and we’re going to pull in some classic people, anybody who used to work with Aaliyah that was essential in her career we definitely hope to have them involved. So it’s great. You get a new Aaliyah album this year on top of everything.” (Much Music)
While embraced by many, the news caught some Aaliyah friends off-guard including Ruff Ryders’ DMX.
“Drake,” X said when asked what artists he feels are not talented. “He is [talented], he has talent but it’s kind of redundant. It’s kind of the same all the time, sounds the same, to me, personally, it’s like an annoying sound. [noises] It’s like a washing machine. [noises] Or a dryer. [noises] You know what, I don’t even have to explain why. I just don’t like what it is and I’m kind of feeling some kind of way about the fact you’ve commissioned, you’ve been blessed, you’ve been given the opportunity to do the Aaliyah album yet you don’t include anybody that she worked with personally? What part of the game is that? I’ma tell you why I’m mad, son! There’s a reason why I feel the way I feel. How do you do that? How do you disregard what this woman did, what this beautiful angel did.” (MTV RapFix)
