Drake Better Not F**k Up This Aaliyah Album: Oh, & Here’s “Enough Said” (Listen) Posted by Nathan S. on 08/06/12 | Filed under Top Stories, Drake, Aaliyah

Considering I've got a running love affair with Aaliyah that now goes back well over a decade, this "Enough Said" shit has me feeling a little too emotional to write in any coherent manner. I'll have to go old school outline style to keep all the thoughts running through my head straight.

* Any posthumous album is an inherently dangerous thing. It's literally impossible to know if the new music is what the artist would have wanted, even the family co-sign is only a rough guess. (All praise due to Mama S., but if I keel over she's not exactly a good person to be selecting what unpublished "Rap Lines That Make No Fucking Sense" get posthumously posted.)

So even if Timbaland and Missy were producing Aaliyah's upcoming album I'd be wary, but Drake? This guy? Yeah, yeah, he's got an Aaliyah tattoo and has used her sample before, but you know what that makes him? A fan.

* There's literally no one more qualified than Timbaland to be executive-producing this album, but apparently Drake hasn't even reached out to him:

“I know they trying to drop some Aaliyah records, but if [Drake] do it, it should be with me and him, and Missy,” Timbaland said. “I don't know what's going on. The proper way to do that would be for me, him and Missy to be all on the record."

I haven't exactly been the biggest fan of Timbo over the last few years, but in this case he's absolutely right. Watching Drake, who was 10-fucking-years-old when Timbaland was in the studio with Aaliyah recording "One in a Million", take over this project has to feel like your wife divorcing you, taking half your money and then moving in with the pool boy.

If Drake passed would it make sense to do a posthumous album without Noah "40" Shebib? That's exactly what doing this album with Timbaland is like.

* If there's a Birdman feature on this Aaliyah album, I swear to sweet baby jesus there will be rioting in the streets, and I'll be the one in front with the torch and pitchfork.

* New single "Enough Love" isn't the second coming of the apocalypse, it's a decent record and Aaliyah sounds amazing, but in many ways it confirms my fears. This doesn't sound like an Aaliyah record, this sounds like a Drake record that Aaliyah happens to be singing on. Even if he has the best of intentions, with Drizzy at the helm I'm worried this album's going to sound like "hey look, Drake made an Aaliyah album" and not "hey look, there's a new Aaliyah album."

Maybe things will get better from here, maybe Missy will be brought in for a "If Your Girl Only Knew (Remix)", maybe the sun will start rotating around the Earth. We'll just have to wait and see how things unfold, but for now I'll be trying to enjoy "Enough Said' while also muttering "you better not fuck this up Drake" under my breath.

UPDATE 1: Here's a Drake-free version of "Enough Said', courtesy of awesome people on the internet who do shit like this.
UPDATE 2: Aaliyah's brother says the family's not backing the album. The plot thickens.

See Also: VH1 Releases Updated Version Of Aaliyah “Behind The Music” Over 10 Years After Her Passing (Video)