Producer Timbaland has brought Aaliyah back from the dead for a new track on his latest mixtape.
The singer, who tragically lost her life in a plane crash in 2001, is among the names listed as guests on Timbaland's Kings Stay Kings.
The hitmaker, who worked with Aaliyah on her biggest hits, claims to have unearthed an unheard track from his former protege, and it will feature on his first mixtape release since Shock Value II in 2009.
Kings Stay Kings will reach listeners on Christmas Day (25Dec15).
This is not the first time Timbaland has resurrected a musician from the dead via a new release, as he worked on Michael Jackson's posthumous 2014 album Xscape.
Timbaland admitted producing Xscape was emotionally draining for him because he kept on thinking of loved ones who passed on throughout the process.
“This was very trying, not because it was just a Michael Jackson [album],” he told told MTV News. “It’s just me still dealing with some feelings of Aaliyah; because it’s still a death. I got Aaliyah, and I got Static [Major], and it makes you think like, ‘Who next?’ You start thinking crazy thoughts. And you just start to thank God for where you at in life.
“I forgot about Michael for a moment. And then when I kept hearing his voice, it was like, I’m doing Michael Jackson. It got emotional. I had to tell my engineer to stop — we gotta go to something else. It took about a week process to really grasp what I’m doing. And once I grasped what I’m doing, I had to call my mom for prayer like, I need some help, I need some guidance on this, ’cause this is hard.”
