Photo: Press
The much-delayed and heavily criticised new biopic of late R&B star Aaliyah has finally arrived on screen. Watch the trailer for Aaliyah: The Princess Of R&B below.
Handling the legacy of a R&B icon who died aged only 22 was never going to be easy task but TV network Lifetime seem to have gone about it in the most hamfisted manner. Their biggest problem has been the fact that Aaliyah's family have refused to co-operate with the filmmakers so that none of the star's music can be used.
Label president Jomo Hankerson said that the scale of the production simply wasn't big enough to pay tribute to Aaliyah. He told reporters: "We want a major studio release along the lines of What's Love Got to Do With It, the Tina Turner movie."
Now the first results can be seen and yet again fans are unhappy. Although the hackneyed dialogue is problematic, the main problem is the decision to use Iggy Azalea's 'Goddess' on the soundtrack. Regardless of your opinions of Azalea herself, using a white artist who has been accused of co-opting black culture to soundtrack a black musical icon could be considered seriously problematic. As Entertainment Weekly put it " it’s like somebody making a Robert Johnson biopic and using Eric Clapton for the soundtrack."
Watch: First trailer for Aaliyah: The Princess Of R&B Below
Disney's Zendaya was originally cast as Aaliyah but quit the production in June after deciding she was no 'morally ok' to continue. "The main reasons were that the production value wasn't there, there were complications with the music rights, and I just felt like it wasn't being handled delicately considering the situation." Her replacement Nickelodeon's Alexandra Shipp was then criticised for not looking enough like the late singer.
The film is based on Aaliyah: More Than a Woman, a 2001 book by Time music critic Christopher John Farley.
Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B will be shown on 15 November on Lifetime in the US.
Below: Gone Too Soon - Artists Who Died Too Young
