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2Pac - Troublesome 96 (Original) (Alternate Version) (CDQ)

On March 26, 2026, The Guardian published an Aaliyah photograph from Eddie Otchere’s 1996 London session. The image ran in a gallery for his photozine Wu-Tang Clan 1994–2004, among unpublished frames of Lauryn Hill, Nas, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and other musicians. Eddie captioned it: “Unpublished photograph of Aaliyah in London’s Kensington hotel on Kensington High Street in 1996.” This came from his second shoot with her, after their first London meeting in 1994.

In a 2018 Dazed interview, Eddie recalled first meeting Aaliyah in London in 1994, at a hotel in Swiss Cottage. Aaliyah was in town for an album junket. Eddie was in his second year studying photography at the London College of Communication. He and his friend Andrew Green lived locally and tag-teamed these assignments, Andrew working the interview and Eddie taking the pictures for Touch magazine. “He would do the story and I would do the pictures – that was our thing.”

Touch showed little enthusiasm for the story, and Eddie wasn’t sure whether it ran. He photographed people he liked, collected records and sought out artists who were on his radar and whom he wanted to meet. He said he wanted to get a measure of Aaliyah and meet her. Aaliyah, in his words, was “just another pop act on Jive Records,” though he remembered that “she always had that voice.” “Whenever she would ‘um’ and ‘ah’, it would always be in key. That’s now become my measure of an artist.”

In PAPER Eddie put the first shoot at “roughly November, late 94,” at the Swiss Cottage Hotel, where he photographed her on the rooftop. Eddie walked in to find Aaliyah at a table with her press person and Andrew. Eddie put himself at 19 and Aaliyah at 15. He watched the usually cynical Andrew soften and get “all gooey” in her presence, something Eddie found beautiful and surreal. The interview went well. Eddie started photographing Aaliyah at the table with color film, but he said it “wasn’t working well for that camera,” so he loaded a black-and-white roll and asked her to stand outside.

Eddie and Andrew were newly back from New York, so Aaliyah’s oversized styling felt familiar. He observed the Tasmanian Devil chain around her neck, the oversized white tee, manicured nails and the “baby whispers” in her hair. He called the chain “a signifier of who she was,” her swagger “beautiful and endearing,” and the full look “a beautifully crafted American silhouette.” He remembered the period as simpler in terms of dress, saying you wore a top from a department store and that Americans weren’t wearing European brands such as Gucci. American brands were American and European brands were European.

He remembered the 1994 Aaliyah with her head tilted back, big glasses and hip-hop swagger, calling those looks genuine. Talking about regional American style, Eddie mentioned photographing Ice-T earlier and described his look as “strictly LA.” He liked how regional American style was at the time and joked that “all New Yorkers wear Timberlands.”

Eddie called her “groomed like a pop star” and well versed in the professional conversation expected from her. Once she got the script out of the way, he said, “she could be herself.” He got the feeling she was less comfortable around adults and more at ease around her peers. Eddie and Andrew were only a few years older. On the balcony with the three of them by themselves, he found her “much cooler.”

For the second shoot, Eddie asked Aaliyah to come downstairs and meet him at reception so they could hang out. “It was just us and we shot by the piano.” Back upstairs, Eddie pinned an African cloth from his mother’s collection behind her and called the setup a “semi-studio vibe.”

Eddie said the “semi-studio vibe” meant Aaliyah “could relax and be playful.” She was “completely working it.” Eddie called her “good with the camera,” comfortable with herself and generous during the shoot. He said she was “enjoying the journey – to tell her own story and speak about her artistry.” Eddie also spoke of her sense of “performing, acting, and behaving in front of the camera.” “You could sense that straight away.”

The 2026 caption gives the cloth a little more history. It was African batik from Eddie’s mother’s collection, and Aaliyah’s mother was in the room when he hung it behind her. “Her mother was in the room and appreciated the touch. We all agreed: family first.”

In GOAT, Eddie recalled the first shoot as a young photographer trying different film stocks: “I had bought all these hard-to-find films to try to record her beauty, her elegance.” He saw the job as documentation at the time and named the oversized Nike polo photograph as his favorite image from that session. Rappers around him could feel like “comic book characters”; Aaliyah struck him as “just a young suburban girl who seemed so sincere and genuine.” By their next meeting, his preparation was different. “The second time we met I was much more prepared.”

Eddie described Aaliyah as having “blossomed into an incredible artist” and becoming “a much more mature artist.” He also remembered photographing her again in the 1990s and encountering an “older, more mature, more confident, more vivacious self.” At 15, Eddie said her aura “wasn’t physical”; he felt it when she spoke. Her voice was musical, soft and lovely, and he remembered that a few spoken words could sound like singing. When he photographed her again, he remembered “watching that aura unfold.”

That recollection also mentions “Try Again,” released in 2000, so part of the passage reaches beyond the 1996 shoot. Eddie said her music became “more aligned to who she was in the later years.” “They really felt like her songs.”

Eddie loved the photographs of Aaliyah wearing a camouflage bandana. “She was rocking the camo bandana, so this juxtaposition of pattern came out beautifully.” His aim was straightforward. “It was just about capturing someone who was absolutely beautiful.” In a comment on her presence before the lens, he said she “embodies the hip-hop swagger.”

One image came from what Eddie called his “go-to negative,” producing “this weird green hue with an unusual mid-tone, low-contrast print.” He thought the black-and-white Aaliyah portrait was shot on a Minolta X300 with a 24 mm lens. Eddie called it “not the most expensive camera.” “I still get gassed thinking about the grain of Aaliyah’s skin, just the smoothness of it.”

He spoke about her confidence: “It’s calming to be around someone who’s so sure of themselves—but not arrogant, just confident.” “You just point the camera at them.” He also spoke of his 1994 photographs and Eric Johnson’s 2001 Aaliyah photographs when discussing her growth over time. He described looking back at “what remains in film, no Photoshop.” “It just is what it is. She’s frozen in time.”

Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop brought Eddie back to the 1994 Aaliyah roll. He called the contact sheet “essentially a linear narrative,” saying, “One picture after another, in real time moving forward, it’s the way we experience time.” Eddie said he “must have finished off the film” at home by asking his mother to stand for a few photographs so he could finish the roll and process it. When Vikki Tobak gave him the finished book years afterward, Eddie found his mother in its pages too: “Bang, bang, bang – and history.”

Eddie named his first daughter Aliyah and his second daughter Erykah. “After Aaliyah, after hearing that voice in key, that was it for me,” he said, tying the name to what he called “the beauty of song.” He slipped in a joke as well: a name starting with A puts you near the front of the queue in English schools. By 2018, Aliyah was working as a photographer, touring with Raye and, as Eddie joked, “getting more jobs than I do.”

He gave the choice another line: “I wanted to gift her presence to my children: ‘You’re in the same line as Aaliyah,’ you know?” Aaliyah’s music kept a place in his life too. Eddie named “It’s Whatever” as his favorite from her final album, praised a stripped beat cut of “4 Page Letter,” called “Try Again” phenomenal from the dark synth to the choreography, and singled out the bass line on “If Your Girl Only Knew.” He spoke about Ginuwine, Timbaland and Missy, saying “they solidified that whole sound,” and praised the range in their repertoire.

Eddie said that sometimes he played at weddings and liked to drop an Aaliyah song. “It works every time.” He said the kids, grandparents and grandkids were all on the floor. “The best we can celebrate is what she gave to us.”

“Everyone is dancing as we are one.”

Fan of funky production. Just fire.

You know where this was sampled :) Aside from that, 70s music buffs should definitely know Linda Clifford, specifically for “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “Runaway Love.” This one wasn’t a radio hit on its own though. It’s a relatively obscure album cut from her 1979 album Here’s My Love. Do you know "I Just Wanna"? It was a good song. It was released as a single and charted very well.

She also sang “Red Light” for the 1980 film Fame (yes, the Irene Cara one)! Linda recorded for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records, and Curtis produced some of her work and collaborated extensively with her. They recorded a full duet album together, The Right Combination, released in 1980.

And here's for the instrumental lovers (no ill never forget 🤗)

Starts with Mickey & Sylvia’s Love Is Strange. Sampling in this jam includes Linda Clifford’s Never Gonna Stop. The chorus interpolates the synthpop classic Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics. It is reworked in the hook. De La Soul’s Plug Tunin and MC Lyte’s I Cram to Understand U (Sam) are here too.

Miss her.