With a burgeoning film career, three platinum albums, and a slew of Top 10 singles (including her most recent hit, "Try Again," the first airplay-only track to reach the Billboard summit), 22 year-old Aaliyah Haughton had accomplished more in her seven-year career than most could hope to achieve in a lifetime. "I've just begun to show you what I'm capable of," she told MTV just a few short months before the tragic plane crash that took her life on August 25, 2001. The young singer was an integral part of the production dynasties that helped redefine hip-hop in the 90s (R. Kelly, Timbaland, Missy Elliott), leaving an indelible imprint on the music industry as a whole (her first hit, "Back & Forth," was even sampled by Madonna in 1994). Aaliyah was Missy and Timbo's soft spot in many ways, exuding a warm vulnerability and down-to-earth accessibility that often eludes her pop equivalents. Aaliyah made her film debut in last year's Romeo Must Die and was set to star in the Whitney Houston-produced Sparkle as well as the already-delayed The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix 3. She completed The Queen of the Damned, a sequel to the film version of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, while simultaneously recording her last album, Aaliyah, which debuted at #2 in July.



Aaliyah first raised eyebrows at the age of 15 when word got out that she had allegedly married R&B singer/producer R. Kelly, then 27. (The couple denied the rumors despite the supposed existence of a marriage certificate.) Aaliyah's debut, Age Ain't Nothing But A Number, produced by Kelly, no doubt benefited from all the media-propagated controversy, but it also marked the arrival of a promising new R&B talent. Tracks like "Back & Forth" and "Down With the Clique" displayed the singer's "jazz personality, jeep mentality, and beats for Soul Train," while a warm rendition of The Isley Brothers' 1976 hit "At Your Best (You Are Love)" exhibited a restrained vocal and ear for harmony way beyond her years. The album deftly blended Kelly's new jack swing with Aaliyah's sultry voice, helping to define the laid back vibe of mid-90s R&B.



In 1996, Aaliyah distanced herself from Kelly and evaded the sophomore slump by aligning herself with up-and-coming super-producer Timbaland, who in the next year would go on to build his own hip-hop family with the likes of Missy Elliott, Ginuwine, and, of course, Aaliyah. The album, One In A Million, sold two million copies and elevated the singer to a new level of diva-stardom. The disc is peppered with hits like the sassy, organ-infused "If Your Girl Only Knew" and the Diane Warren-penned "The One I Gave My Heart To" as well as a funky old-school cover of Marvin Gaye's classic "Got To Give It Up." It also features an impressive list of guest artists that includes Slick Rick, Jermaine Dupri, and then-unknowns Rodney Jerkins and Elliott. Undoubtedly one of the most influential R&B albums of the 90s, One In A Million solidified Aaliyah and the Timbo family as undeniable hip-hop forces.



While there's no doubt that slick production had been key to Aaliyah's musical success, the multi-faceted entertainer's personality glimmers on every track of her third effort, the self-titled Aaliyah. Mostly coquettish snake-charmer, sometimes scorned lover, Aaliyah almost always recalls Janet (only with slightly better pipes). Showcasing a more sultry side to Aaliyah's voice (not unlike Sade, another confessed influence), songs like "Never No More" and "I Care 4 U" are bona fide old-school soul injected with the future sound of hip-hop. With a seductive Middle Eastern vibe, the album's highlight, "We Need A Resolution," maturely presents two perspectives, the yin and yang of passive-aggressive miscommunication. Our female protagonist coyly asks, "Where were you last night," while a backward loop echoes the sentiment through the end of the song. Following in the footsteps of some of today's biggest icons, Aaliyah had learned how to align herself with A-list producers without losing her individuality and, with the decidedly downtempo Aaliyah, she truly made the sound her own.



In the interim between One In A Million and the release of her first feature film, Romeo Must Die, Aaliyah remained in the public's consciousness with the Academy Award-nominated song "Journey To The Past" from the film Anastasia and her smash hit "Are You That Somebody" from 1998's Dr. Dolittle. Aaliyah's arrival on the silver screen as Trish O'Day in Romeo Must Die provided a new twist on the urban soul sister and spawned her first #1 hit, "Try Again." The film's most pivotal sequence finds Jet Li's culturally-minded Han Sing using Aaliyah as his physical weapon against a female assailant. She and Li become one, engaging in a sensually acrobatic dance of destruction in which Aaliyah's feet become an extension of Li's own limbs. It's the kind of graceful amalgam of dance and violence that no doubt grabbed the artful eye of Matrix creators The Wachowski Brothers.



After the success of Neil Jordan's Interview With the Vampire, it was inevitable that subsequent big-screen adaptations of Anne Rice's famous "Vampire Chronicles" would follow. Years after interest in the films waned, director Michael Rymer resurrects his own adaptation of the third book in the series, The Queen of the Damned. If Rice ever had reservations about casting Tom Cruise as her vampire Lestat in Interview, she certainly had none when Aaliyah, a huge fan, signed on to fill the role of Queen Akasha, the vampiric high priestess who is awakened by Lestat's rock n' roll music. On May 25th, USA Today reported Aaliyah as saying: "It was a dream role because Akasha is the queen, the mother of all vampires. She's also Egyptian, and I'm totally obsessed with Egypt and have pictures all around my apartment." One need only look at the stunning video clip for "We Need A Resolution," her latest single, for proof of the seductive grace Aaliyah is poised to bring to Akasha; her lips are bee-stung and blood-tainted, Timbaland's hesitant Middle Eastern beats set hypnotically to her erotic snake-writhing.



Earlier this month, power-producer Joel Silver announced that The Wachowski Brothers' The Matrix Reloaded was pushed to a 2003 release, putting a damper on the already-baited breaths of legions of Matrix fans. Due, in part, to the elegance she exhibited in Romeo Must Die, Aaliyah joined the cast of Reloaded as Zee, a mysterious warrior woman whose role was to significantly increase in the third film of the series. Shooting for the first Matrix sequel has already taken place in parts of San Francisco and Alameda, California, and Aaliyah was slated to return to Australia for filming in January of 2002 although it is unclear as to her existing contribution to the project. Production for the film will inevitably be pushed back even further as it should prove difficult finding an actress worthy of replacing the departed diva.

Sal Cinquemani and Ed Gonzalez
© slant magazine, 2001.