ARTIST

Aaliyah

A talented R&B singer and actress, Aaliyah (pronounced ah-lee-yah) may wind up being best remembered as a rising talent whose life ended before she hit her artistic peak.

Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in New York on Jan. 16, 1979 and died in a plane crash on Aug. 25, 2001, after taping the video for her song "Rock The Boat" in the Bahamas. Raised in Detroit, Aaliyah's distinctive first name is Arabic for "the highest" or "most exalted." She started performing early on as a peripheral member of Gladys Knight's troupe. But her uncle managed R. Kelly and it was Kelly who produced Age Ain't Nothing But A Number, Aaliyah's coyly-titled debut album.

If you believe the hype that accompanied that album's release, Aaliyah was 15 years old at the time; if you believe the gossip columns, she and Kelly tied the knot shortly after the disc's release. Apparently, it didn't stay tied for long, and Kelly was gone when it came time to record One In A Million, released in 1996.

Her second album spawned some hits, including "If Your Girl Only Knew," a number one R&B single. Before releasing her third effort, 2001's self-titled album, Aaliyah, Aaliyah appeared on the soundtracks for Anastasia and Eddie Murphy's Dr. Dolittle. In 2000, she co-starred with martial arts expert Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, which was a big box-office success. She served as the soundtrack executive producer for the latter that bore her number one pop hit "Try Again." At the time of her death, she was slated to appear in the film adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen Of The Damned, which was shot in Australia in 2000.

Written by Jim Derogatis