Tink Reworks Aaliyah’s ‘One in a Million’ With Timbaland’s Blessing

Timbaland has been very careful with Aaliyah's music catalog over the years. He and the late singer's family are notoriously protective over her discography, and with good reason: Aaliyah has been credited as a driving force behind changing the face of hip-hop. There's no reason to mess with that legacy. While several posthumous releases have come out following her 2001 death, artists generally stay away from reworking her songs. But Timbaland says Aaliyah came to him in a dream and gave him his blessing to allow another artist to do just that. That artist is Timbaland's protégé Tink, and the song is Aaliyah's massive hit "One in a Million."

A few months ago, Tink played her version of "One in a Million" live, and after the performance Timbaland informed the crowd that she had his blessing. He said (via this Instagram post), "I don't touch baby girl's records -- you know that's Aaliyah. I was riding home one day, asleep, she spoke to me in my sleep, and said [Tink's] the one."

And maybe she is. Tink's version of the Aaliyah song, called "Million," is a slightly more frenetic version than the original, as it takes pieces of the Aaliyah track and chops them up. Tink raps over a sample of the song and while some fans may object to the use of Aaliyah's voice (die-hards are a protective bunch, we get it) -- the truth is that Timbaland's blessing carries a lot of weight, and either way Tink does the song justice. She manages to maintain the same seductive feel of the original while seamlessly injecting herself into the track and making it her own.

You can listen to Tink's "Million" here.