Several new Whitney Houston projects are in the works, including a hologram tour and new album, after the late singer’s estate recently signed a new music deal.
“The hologram has taken precedence over everything,” Pat Houston, the singer’s sister-in-law and former manager, told The New York Times on Monday.
The hologram is already in development, according to the Times, and adds to a growing list of posthumous tours; rock stars Frank Zappa and Roy Orbison have been featured in hologram tours, and the hologram of Tupac Shakur famously joined Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on stage at Coachella in 2012. The Houston tour would feature her original band and backup singers.
The new projects come a week after the Houston estate signed a deal with Primary Wave, a New York-based music and marketing company. The deal valued the estate at $14 million, and will give the company claim to 50% of the estate’s assets, including Houston’s song royalties and merchandising.
Pat Houston said the deal is, in part, to help revive Houston’s image, after the singer was found dead in 2012 in a hotel bathroom at the age of 48.
“Before she passed, there was so much negativity around the name; it wasn’t about the music anymore,” Pat Houston told the Times. “People had forgotten how great she was. They let all the personal things about her life outweigh why they fell in love with her in the first place.”
No dates for the hologram tour or new music have been set.