Written on 25 August, 2016, on Facebook.
Strange. In the past few days, I’ve taken to replaying Aaliyah—“Try Again,” “More Than a Woman,” “We Need a Resolution”—only to make an unexpected discovery today: that today, August 25, is the 15th anniversary of her death. She died in a plane crash, in 2001. Even though I must have seen her with Jet Li in Romeo Must Die, I remember Aaliyah more as a singer, as I imagine most people would, than as an actress. I remember that her songs were my introduction to pop music, that were it not for her I may never have had an ear for pop music. Aaliyah affected me. Aaliyah contributed to the beauty of my childhood and was, until her death, my favourite musician.
2001. And then, in 2003, Beyonce, already turning my head with Destiny’s Child, landed with “Crazy in Love” and replaced her. And then, in 2007, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” happened and every other love folded into some aging archive. But without Aaliyah, nothing would have happened, nothing of the magnitude of pleasure I derive from music.
This is to the slender woman in black whose dance moves I once imitated in front of the TV. Even if her face is fading from my memory.
Image from Flickr.
