Aaliyah

R&B singer Aaliyah (born Aaliyah Haughton) became an overnight sensation in
1994 with her debut album, "Age Ain't Nothing But a Number", and its two hit
singles, "Back and Forth" and "At Your Best (You Are Love)." Born in Brooklyn
but raised in Detroit, she was influenced by an entertainment background - her
mother was a singer, her uncle an entertainment lawyer once married to Gladys
Knight. She appeared in concert with Knight at the age of 11, and released her
first album just four years later. Paced by the Top Ten hits "Back & Forth" and
"At Your Best (You Are Love)" (the latter an Isley Brothers cover), 1994's "Age
Ain't Nothing But a Number" became a multi-platinum smash. She endured
controversy near the end of the year, however, when news broke of her marriage
at the age of 15 to her producer, R. Kelly.

After severing her ties with Kelly, Aaliyah resurfaced in 1996 with her second album,
"One in a Million". Collaborating with rising production stars Timbaland and Missy
Misdemeanor Elliott, Aaliyah pointed the way for the minimalist hip-hop of the late '90s
with hits like "One in a Million"and "If Your Girl Only Knew." By the end of the decade,
she'd made the move to film, starring in "Romeo Must Die" with Jet Li and agreeing to
appear in the projected pair of sequels to The Matrix.
Just one month after her self-titled third album appeared in 2001, though, she died in a
private-plane crash while returning from a video shoot in the Bahamas.
Aaliyah and seven other passengers were killed instantly, and the ninth later died at a Nassau
hospital. Investigations into the crash showed that the plane had been loaded far past its weight
capacity, and that pilot Luis Morales had recently been arrested for crack cocaine possession
(traces of which, along with alcohol, were found in his system); furthermore, the charter company,
Blackhawk International Airways, had not authorized him to pilot the craft in question. Naturally,
the R&B community reacted with an outpouring of shock and sorrow, and Aaliyah became the
singer's only chart-topping album, eventually going double platinum. "Rock the Boat" and "More
Than a Woman" were both posthumous Top Ten hits on the R&B chart, and Queen of the
Damned was a commercial success upon its release in early 2002, topping the box office
in its first week. As details continued to emerge from the plane crash investigation, Aaliyah's
parents filed suit against Blackhawk Airways, Virgin Records, and several other companies.
At the end of 2002, the posthumous album I Care 4 U entered the charts at number three;
it mixed some of the singer's biggest hits with a selection of unreleased material. The title
track was a Top 20 pop hit, and "Miss You" topped the R&B charts early the next year.

Discography  :

Official website http://www.aaliyahonline.com