Remembering Aaliyah: 1979-2001

One late Saturday afternoon, just two weeks before her death, twenty-two-year-old Rosetta Stone Aaliyah walked from a black Mercedes-Benz to a small helicopter for a short flight from New Jersey to East Hampton, New York. She was on her way to the summer house that Jay-Z shared with her boyfriend of a year, Damon Dash, Jays partner in Roc-a-Fella Records. She wore a dark-green hoodie and matching shorts so small they showed off most of her long, curvy legs, down to the little treble-clef tattoo on her right ankle. She wore all-white Nike Air Force Ones with white socks. Around her neck hung a small Roc-a-Fella pendant. In her left arm she clutched a large, fluffy pillow in a black pillowcase. She got on the helicopter, nuzzled into Dashs shoulder and went to sleep. I was there reporting a story on Jay-Z, and I was struck by Aaliyahs presence, the way she was in person, as she was onstage Rosetta Stone V3 sexy without losing her girlish sweetness. Throughout the weekend, she was quiet but not quite shy, quick to flash her wide, bright smile, quick to laugh at Dashs jokes and quick to dance with him in the middle of the living room when Michael Jacksons Off the Wall came on. On Sunday, she slept hours longer than everyone else, on a bed strewn with rose petals. She and Dash seemed very much in love.Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born January 16th, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to Detroit with her family at age five. She grew up singing with her mother, and at eleven opened for her aunt Gladys Knight in Las Vegas. She studied dance at the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts and earned a 4.0 GPA. At fourteen, Aaliyah released an album produced by Chicago RB kingpin R. Kelly, called Age Aint Nothing Rosetta Stone English but a Number, which sold more than 1 million copies. Reports surfaced that she had married Kelly when she was only fifteen and he was twenty-seven; Aaliyah denied it, although a marriage certificate was found in a Chicago county clerks office.In 1996 came her second album, One in a Million, which sold 2 million copies and launched its producer-songwriter team, two largely unknown figures named Timbaland and Missy Elliott, to stardom. Aaliyah began modeling for Tommy Hilfiger and taking acting lessons, which led to a starring role in Romeo Must Die (2000) as well as the role of Akasha in Queen of the Damned, slated for release next spring. She had also been cast in both of the upcoming sequels to The Matrix, which she had started shooting this summer in L.A.Her third record, Aaliyah, released in July, Cheap Rosetta Stone V3 was already gold when she flew to Abaco Island in the Bahamas to finish the video for the albums third single, "Rock the Boat," directed by Hype Williams.