Aaliyah may be gone but she’s certainly not been forgotten. Eleven years after her tragic death on Aug. 25, 2001, Aaliyah’s impact still resonates throughout today’s music scene and the mere mention of her name still illicits words of reverence, loss and wonder. And with her biggest fan, Drake, catapulting her back into the spotlight with an upcoming posthumous album, talk of the singer has been on the rise as of late. But few people have more meaningful words to say about the singer than her longtime musical partner, Missy Elliott, and her hip-hop comrade, DMX, who remembered Aaliyah on the anniversary of her death.
Elliott, who helped to craft Aaliyah’s landmark One in -a Million and was one of her closest friends, took to Twitter to share her love for Aaliyah.
“AALIYAH u will always be a 1 in A MILLION to your Fans & TheSupafriends Me,Timbo,Magoo,Ginuwine,Playa,Tweet,Nicole. WeLoveU,” she tweeted.
DMX took a more personal route, sharing stories of his friendship with Aaliyah during an interview with The Boombox.
According to X, his close bond with Aaliyah was caused problems with his wife, Tashera Simmons, during the video shoot for “Come Back in One Piece.”
“I had fun shooting that video,” X admitted. “My wife [Tashera Simmons] got mad because there was one scene I was sitting up on the bench and [Aaliyah] was sitting [below] between my legs. I had on a jean jacket, it was a little chilly, and [Aaliyah] just had on a T-shirt.”
“I was rubbing her arms, warming her up … I just felt the eyeballs [from Tashera],” he continued. “A wife can give you a stare that will burn the side of your head. It was like a magnifying glass with the sun on me [laughs]. But I wouldn’t change a thing.”
DMX spoke more solemnly as he discussed Aaliyah’s death and the hole she left behind in both his heart and the world of music.
“Her presence will be felt long after all of us are dead,” he explained. “That’s the thing about a great artist. Music is timeless. Music will never die. She’ll never die. I think it’s only in death do we recognize a person’s true presence.”
“But some people, when they’re gone, physically, they leave a void. And that’s definitely what happened with Aaliyah. She left an emptiness,” he added.
Truer words were never spoken. And, to echo his and Missy’s sentiments, we say, “rest in peace, baby girl.”
Check out some other kind words that celebs have said about the singer in recent times. –nicholas robinson
