Aaliyah’s Cousin Demands $20 Million to End Family Legal Battle

The eight-figure demand marks a sharp escalation from the initial $1.2 million in damages sought when Jomo first sued his father and Blackground Records earlier this year. Jomo alleges that Barry breached a prior settlement agreement, failing to pay a 12 percent share of proceeds generated from valuable recording masters. He further claims that the elder Hankerson manipulated company finances to conceal revenue and inflate expenses, effectively cutting him out of his rightful earnings. Should Barry reject the $20 million proposal, Jomo’s legal team is demanding full access to the company’s financial records to independently verify the assets.

Barry Hankerson has vehemently denied these allegations, mounting a countersuit that characterizes the disputed settlement agreement as fraudulent. The conflict has grown increasingly volatile, with Barry accusing his son of using unreleased Aaliyah recordings as leverage and even attempting to shift blame onto him for the logistics of the singer’s final 2001 trip. While the two were once aligned in the 2021 effort to bring Aaliyah’s catalog to streaming services, that collaboration has dissolved into a public battle over the legacy and control of the music.