Tink has said that comparisons to Lauryn Hill and the late Aaliyah made about her by Timbaland ended up damaging her career, and that it “wasn’t really necessary.”
Hitmaka and Tink stopped by The Breakfast Club on Friday (August 12) to discuss some new music they have in the works, and Charlamagne opened the dialogue by asking if she felt that “Tim had oversold” her.
“It was a lot,” Tink said. “The comparisons, I caught a lot of backlash, you know? I dropped the record ‘Million’, and it was a really dope song, but I felt like with him kinda comparing me to her, you know, telling people I’m the next Aaliyah, you can’t play with legends like that. And I had a lot of work to do at the time so it wasn’t really necessary.”
She continued: “And I remember we dropped a record with JAY-Z and Rick Ross … but yeah it was just a lot of things on the business end that weren’t tight and it kinda just affected everything it was like a snowball effect.”
Angela Yee asked how those business interferences impacted her creatively.
“I had albums ready to go,” Tink said. “I had music in the can but the label couldn’t promote my music cause you know we had a album to release. So it was just like everything got put on hold, so as an artist that’s the worst thing. Like, I can’t drop and I got heat? I wanna be in the market too and you got somebody making a schedule for you. So yeah, it just makes you kinda like, kinda frustrated.”
Tink was right in saying Timbaland really showered her in praise early on in her career. During an SXSW appearance in 2015, the producer told the audience that Aaliyah appeared to him in a dream and told him that Tink was “the one.”
After major backlash ensued from Tink’s remix of Aaliyah’s “One In a Million,” the “Selfish” singer parted ways with Tim in 2018 and signed to EMPIRE.
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“I just felt like nobody was paying attention to what I had going on outside of me and Tim,” Tink told Complex at the time. “For me, that was the red flag. I stepped into the deal just hoping that I would be accepted for whatever I created. It wasn’t that type of situation.”
Tink has been rolling out new music all summer long. She dropped “Cater” with 2 Chainz in May, followed by “Goofy” at the end of July. She also announced on Friday (August 12) that her new album Pillow Talk will drop on August 19, with Hitmaka exclusively behind the boards.
Aaliyah fans are always doing too much. Like yes I get your fave died tragically, but others can and have surpassed her in terms of impact, talent, and relevancy. You would never know it tho by the way they’re always going on and on in social media
Noone is comparing her to Aaliyah lm an Big Aaliyah fan always have an always will be so if she felt that way that she was being compared to her that’s her problem all timberland said she might be the next Aaliyah there’s nothing wrong with saying that take it as a compliment an move on noone can never top Aaliyah she is an always will be ONE OF A KIND music today is garbage an l only listen to music if l feel it’s good music to me
^^ case in point. You missed her whole point. She had no real problem with the Aaliyah comparisons, but the Aaliyah fans did and started dragging her for it. That spilled out to the rest of social media, and no one gave her stuff a fair shake over it. Also plenty of people have topped Aaliyah since. She’s an rnb singer who was pretty, and there’s a dime a dozen of that in the industry alone
I had an album to go. Really? These people take themselves too seriously. Nobody was feeling your shit. The end. FOH. At the end of the day, that’s the game. If nobody is going to listen, the label isn’t putting it out. But let these artists tell it, they’re curing cancer or some shit with their wack music.
She didn’t organically build a buzz for herself. The little buzz she had was from Timbaland hyping her up on The Breakfast Club years ago. She never worked to create a fanbase, and her music isn’t appealing to a modern audience. She’s also not attractive and you have to be marketable to be successful. Has nothing to do with her being compared to anyone…No one cares about that.