August 25, 2001
Eight years ago, on a fateful flight from the Bahamas leaving a video shoot, the life of 21-year-old superstar singer/actress Aaliyah Dana Haughton came to an abrupt end. The plane crash that claimed the songbird’s life was a swift and severe end to what had been one of the most promising careers of the 90s and early 2000s. From 1994 to 2001, Aaliyah remained one of the most consistently enthralling artists in urban music. She out-shined former peers like Brandy and Monica and was poised to make the kind of megastar leap that contemporaries like Usher would make in the years to come.
Her passing left a void in music that many have tried to fill. She wasn’t as bombastic a diva as Beyonce would become, nor was she as brazenly sexual as Janet had been before. While Aaliyah was undoubtedly influenced by the latter, and the former certainly owes her a debt, the beautiful starlet from Detroit was an entity unto herself. She, like Mary J. Blige, was one of the first female artists to successfully meld the edginess and cool of a hip-hop b-girl with the coyness and sex appeal of an R&B chanteuse. Unlike Blige, she radiated a sweetness and girl next door quality that gave her an across-the-board appeal and made millions of little girls across America want to try to emulate the “One In A Million” singer.
The vaccum that her passing created has resulted in the emergence of many artists that have been compared to Aaliyah. Ashanti, Ciara, Amerie, Nelly Furtado, and Rihanna have all borrowed elements of her sound and style. The work Timbaland did on her second and third albums helped cement his reputation as one of the most groundbreaking producers of his era, and her final, eponymous, album signaled an artistic leap forward that would’ve made her one of the decade’s defining artists. But, in celebrating her legacy, her fans shouldn’t dwell on what she might’ve been had she lived, because we will be comfortable with any answer. What we know for sure is that, while she was here, “Baby Girl” was one of the brightest stars of her generation. And in life or death, that can never be taken from her.
Aaliyah
1979-2001
