New posthumous Aaliyah single Poison featuring The Weeknd to drop this week

Aaliyah will be releasing a new posthumous single, Poison, featuring The Weeknd this week. 

The news was announced via her old record label Blackground Records' Twitter account. Earlier this year, the late singer's uncle and former manager struck a deal with indie distribution outfit Empire to re-issue all of Aaliyah's albums to streaming services for the first time.

Poison will drop this Friday (December 17) and is apparently arriving ahead of a full posthumous album of never-before-heard material. The track is apparently produced by Mike Dean, who has worked with the likes of Kanye West, Madonna and Lana Del Rey.

This year marked the 20th anniversary since Aaliyah's death, when the R&B singer was killed in an airplane crash following the shoot of her music video for single Rock The Boat. She was just 22 years old.

“Poison” by Aaliyah and The Weeknd is coming out THIS FRIDAY 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/SqzCLvYjAc

— Blackground Records 2.0 (@Blackground) December 15, 2021

MORE: Aaliyah's Official Chart history in full

Following her passing, her final album 2001's Aaliyah (which has served as a direct inspiration for acts such as Beyonce, Frank Ocean and Janelle Monae) saw single More Than A Woman peak at Number 1 on the UK's Official Singles Chart in January 2002. 

But even two decades since her death, Aaliyah's influence on the worlds of both R&B and pop is still palpable - even this year, Normani's comeback single Wild Side was heavily inspired by her iconic 1996 hit One In A Million.

This is not the first time that new Aaliyah material has tried to make its way into the world. In 2014, Drake and his producer Noah "40" Shebib cancelled plans for a posthumous album featuring Aaliyah's vocals from unreleased demos.