![]() ![]() 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. Not that I remember, Robert was going to do the whole record. Kelly do the producing and songwriting or were there any discussions to bring in other producers or songwriters along the way? I’m assuming it was always the plan to have R. Him doing the album with Aaliyah was easy, that was a lay up. Even on the first record, there was still a lot of people saying he was trying to be Guy, be like Aaron Hall, and by the second record when he came out with “Bump N Grind,” “Your Body Is Calling,” that stuff started to go away and people started to say, ‘Oh yeah, this dude is the sh**,’ especially when they found out that he was producing and writing everything on his own. Kelly seemed like he had that Midas Touch when it came to R&B music at that time.Ībsolutely, he was starting to produce for a lot of people at that time too, because 12 Play was such a big record. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that that would be a good idea. It was like, ‘Well, of course, why not?’ It wasn’t that deep. Nobody disagreed because Robert was a genius. Barry said, ‘Hey my guy who I’m managing, he’s going to make the record with my niece,’ and that was it. It wasn’t much of a brainstorm because Robert was the creative genius. He was coming off of 12 Play so he was on fire. To be honest with you, it wasn’t really much of a brainstorming session because Barry was managing Robert. When it came time to begin the process for her debut album, what was the brainstorming session like behind it? ![]() 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. She was always a creative girl, that was her path, singing and dancing. Aaliyah was in a performing arts high school in Detroit, like the Fame kind of school, but for Detroit. 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. He was basically head of the A&R department. The guy who owned Jive at the time, Clive Calder, he’s also an A&R person by trade. 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. ![]() On a podcast with Billboard, you said that her uncle Barry Hankerson, who was managing R. The roster was crazy.Īnd Aaliyah eventually became a part of that roster. Kelly of course, UGK, E-40, Mystikal, Keith Murray, we just kept getting more and more great artists as time went on. Even back then there was KRS-One, Will Smith was there at that time, R. Jeff Sledge: I always say that our roster, even up until the end, our roster was the best roster assembled. VIBE: What did you think of the talent that Jive was home to at the time? Sledge, who can currently be heard dropping industry gems on the Pop Life Podcast, recalls how Aaliyah’s debut came to be. 'Hip Hop Treasures' Unearths DMX's Rhyme Book And Other Gems In New Episode ![]()
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