By late 1992, Aaliyah was signed to both Blackground and Jive, Hankerson then introduced her to recording artist and producer R. Kelly. When the pair first met Aaliyah sang an a cappella for Kelly which left him impressed with her voice and after that moment he decided that he wanted to work with her. He then became her mentor, as well as the sole songwriter and producer for her debut album. Kelly was the only writer and producer credited on the album because the record label didn't want multiple people to share publishing rights. According to Jeff Sledge "Clive was a publishing guru, so he and Barry weren’t trying to cut a lot of people in on the album to share the publishing. They said we’re going to do this with one guy and the publishing will be easy to deal with because it’s one person". Once the issue over publishing was fixed both Aaliyah and Kelly began recording the album in 1993 when she was 14 and according to Aaliyah it took about eight to nine months to record the album.