Frank Ocean Shares Soulful Aaliyah Tribute ‘At Your Best (You Are Love)’
January 16th marked what would have been Aaliyah‘s 36th birthday, and to remember the late R&B singer, Frank Ocean took to his Tumblr to share his stripped-down, soulful rendition of “At Your Best (You Are Love),” an Isley Brothers track from 1976 that was covered by Aaliyah in 1994. The Channel Orange singer’s falsetto shines on his take on the Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number single, and at song’s end, we hear what sounds like an unrelated snippet of new music from Ocean.
Ocean refers to his version as “You Are Luhh” on Tumblr, which is where the “Thinkin Bout You” singer has sporadically been dropping new music as fans await the follow-up to the singer’s 2012 breakthrough Channel Orange. In late-November, Ocean unveiled his lo-fi, atmospheric “Memrise,” a two-minute track that represented the first new solo material from Ocean in nearly two years.
Pharrell Williams, Danger Mouse, Rodney Jerkins and Hit-Boy are among the producers rumored to be collaborating with Ocean on his much-anticipated LP. The singer recently hit the studio with rapper Lil B, Pitchfork writes.
Aaliyah’s version of “At Your Best” was also sampled on Drake’s Thank Me Later track “Unforgettable.” The rapper and producer Noah “40” Shebib were at one point working on a posthumous Aaliyah album featuring 16 unreleased tracks, but following fan outcry and a statement from Timbaland slamming the project, Drake and 40 opted to abandon the album.
“We released [‘Enough Said’], but I was seven songs deep,” 40 said. “[Aaliyah’s] mother saying, ‘I don’t want this out,’ was enough for me. I walked away very quickly.”