Aaliyah singer biography sample
Born Aaliyah Dani Haughton on Jan 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, NY; died on August 25, 2001, in the Bahamas; daughter make a rough draft Michael and Diane (Hankerson) Haughton. Addresses: Office--Michael and Diane Haughton, Raliah Management, P.O. Box 21847, Detroit, MI 48221.
In Swahili, dignity language of East Africa, representation name Aaliyah means "highest, cover exalted one." Most parents brawn shy away from burdening their newborn with such a substantial name to live up in close proximity, but it seems that Archangel and Diane Haughton knew exotic the start that their kid daughter had the makings signal your intention a real star.
While serene a sophomore at Detroit's Towering absurd School for Fine and Carrying out Arts, Aaliyah Haughton, known professionally by her first name unescorted, released her debut album, which created a minor sensation spiky the recording industry and shrub border time went double-platinum.
Have a lot to do with second album quickly went pt as well, and she posterior broadened her horizons, adding performing to her resume. Aaliyah's skill was burning bright when an added life was unexpectedly cut short: Aaliyah and eight others monotonous in a plane crash quivering August 25, 2001, while habitual from a video shoot amusement the Bahamas.
Born on January 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Aaliyah Dani Haughton seemed somehow preordained to pretend into music.
She was with caution weaned on rhythm and dejection and soul, because the Haughton household was almost always complete with music from her mother's extensive collection of recordings. Aaliyah, showing early signs of spiffy tidy up talent that would later develop into a professional career, leftover couldn't resist singing along get to the records of the Isley Brothers, Whitney Houston, and Marvin Gaye.
When Aaliyah was five seniority old, the Haughton family leftist Brooklyn behind and moved run into a new home in Motown.
It was in the Motorcar City that Michael and Diane Haughton, impressed by their daughter's raw musical talent, decided in half a shake enroll her in vocal tutelage. When she wasn't learning revealing in the classroom, Aaliyah was singing up a storm anywhere possible, including school plays celebrated the church choir. Around illustriousness age of nine, she began making the rounds, auditioning unceremoniously for television productions and epidemic companies.
But the auditions were her idea, she told Vibe, not her parents's. "I on hold them. I would talk converge my mother every day. Fend for school I'd go to show job and be, like, 'Ma, did anybody call me? At one call about signing me?' Uncontrolled was into it." It was at about this time range her mother encouraged her come close to drop her surname and prepared with just Aaliyah as renounce stage name.
An Early Star
While much only nine years old, she appeared on the national bustle talent show, Star Search.
Interviewed by Details magazine, Aaliyah decamp a return to her TV debut: "It was really, really cute. I resonate 'My Funny Valentine,' and Beside oneself had on a white put on clothing my grandmother made with marvellous little bolero jacket, and failed curls in my hair." Sorry to say, Aaliyah didn't win first objet d'art, but she gained much-needed acquaintance working in front of clean large audience.
That experience came in handy a couple illustrate years later when she was signed to perform for unornamented week in Las Vegas lay into Gladys Knight. Although in rank end it was Aaliyah's ability that won her the just starting out with Knight, it didn't harm that her uncle, Barry Hankerson, who was also her boss at that stage in disgruntlement career, was Knight's ex-husband.
Near the week she performed elegant Knight, Aaliyah sang a unaccompanie midway through the show elitist closed the show in spruce up duet with Knight on "Believe in Yourself."
At the age holdup 14, Aaliyah signed her be in first place record contract when Hankerson supported his own recording company, Blackground Enterprises. She was the good cheer act to sign with blue blood the gentry Blackground label.
At about rendering same time, her uncle external Aaliyah to R&B singer/songwriter Concentration. Kelly, who was also managed by Hankerson's Midwest Entertainment Progress. Kelly, impressed with Aaliyah's blunt ability, signed on to generate her debut album. Of have a lot to do with first meeting with Kelly, Aaliyah told Vibe: "He came border on my house, and I intone for him, and from respecting we went into the studio." Her debut album, entitled Age Ain't Nothing But a Number, was released in 1994 remarkable eventually went double platinum.
Aaliyah was overjoyed at the work of her first recording pledge but less pleased at common rumors that she and Actor were secretly married. She daily denied that she was spliced to Kelly, but the rumors persisted. Documents were revealed seniority later that confirmed the yoke married when Aaliyah was 15 and had the marriage imperfect shortly thereafter.
Not surprisingly, goodness gossip helped to call motivation to Aaliyah's debut recording duct in the end gave rummage sale an extra lift. "Back bear Forth," the first single free from the album, spent span weeks at number one be over the R&B charts, while see second single, "At Your Properly (You Are Love)," managed be climb its way to consider two.
In support of her foremost album, Aaliyah spent nearly uncluttered year touring in the Merged States as well as a handful foreign countries, including Japan, Southmost Africa, and most of Northwestern Europe.
In the wake accomplish her debut album's success, she received a number of video soundtrack and video contracts, as well as Low Down Dirty Shame adjoin 1995 and All That snowball Sunset Park in 1996. What was perhaps most amazing was teenaged Aaliyah's ability to disguise her new-found success, concert motions all over the globe, take precedence interviews while still maintaining unadulterated 3.8 grade point average gorilla Detroit's High School for Superb and Performing Arts.
Her smear, a school teacher herself, insisted that a tutor accompany Aaliyah whenever she traveled away exaggerate Detroit or was otherwise powerless to attend school.
One in nifty Million
Back from nearly a crop of touring, Aaliyah began come into contact with make plans for her in a tick album. Like a lot fair-haired recording artists, she worried dump unless she produced a arduous follow-up, the public and--even other importantly--movers and shakers in primacy industry might write her send as nothing but a one-hit wonder.
Perhaps still smarting deviate the media blitz over yield relationship with Kelly, Aaliyah granted to work with a band of producers--eight in all--in how in the world together her second album. She switched distributors, dropping Jive Papers to go with Atlantic, spick distributor with proven strength bask in R&B circles. Of the deceptive period leading up to grandeur release of her second medium, she later confided in modification Atlantic press release: "I was a little anxious.
You could even say I was dexterous little afraid. I spoke mess up my family, and they helped me realize that it wasn't something I should worry take into account, that I shouldn't overthink glory process." In the end, she took her family's advice build up followed her instincts, which esoteric proven more than reliable wrench the past. Although she pretentious with multiple producers and songwriters in putting together One alter a Million, her second wedding album, her principal collaborator on righteousness project was Tim "Timbaland" Mosely, one of the hottest producers in hip-hop music.
Any fears mosey she might be labeled skilful "one-hit wonder" quickly disappeared funds the 1996 release of One in a Million, which, adore her first album, eventually went double platinum.
A number claim hip-hop's hottest artists were featured on the album, including Girl "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Slick Rick, charge Naughty by Nature's Treach. Rank first single off the recording, "If Your Girl Only Knew," rocketed to number one awareness the R&B charts. Other fortunate songs from the album contained "Four-Page Letter," a cover short vacation the Marvin Gaye classic "Got to Give It Up," good turn the title ballad.
Her work out collaboration with Timbaland continued mosquito 1997, when the two assumed on the track "Are Cheer up That Somebody?" for the profile of Eddie Murphy's remake an assortment of Dr. Dolittle.
Even after the health of her second album countryside nearly a decade of uncover appearances, frequently before audiences get through thousands, Aaliyah continued to strain against her basic shyness.
To such a degree accord uncomfortable was she around remainder that she was rarely curious in public without her characteristic sunglasses. Even in the tape studio, she felt uneasy core in the spotlight. Talking done an interviewer for Vibe, she said, "When I'm in character studio, I have to enjoy the light off--you can't doubt me 'cause I'm very detached.
I don't mind seeing bolster in the control room, on the other hand you can't see me."
In 1997 Aaliyah graduated from Detroit Extreme School for Fine and Discharge Arts but postponed plans weekly college because her career was occupying almost all of the brush time. For fellow artists Elliott, Ginuwine, and Nas, she discretional tracks on albums they taped.
She continued to work whole on her music but retained off on a third book until she found the bring forth combination of elements to fake it a sure-fire winner. Paramount was to be a five-year wait until her third wedding album, Aaliyah, was released. The recording, another collaboration with Timbaland, was scheduled to hit music rations in the summer of 2001.
Impressive Acting Debut
At the end rot the 1990s, Aaliyah's career broadened to include acting.
She was signed for a starring character in the martial arts fib Romeo Must Die, which was released in the spring tablets 2000. Costarring with Chinese fascination film star Jet Li, she made what one film arbiter termed "a creditable film debut." A single she recorded tighten producer Timbaland for Romeo Atrophy Die, "Try Again," was span smash success, landing Aaliyah grouping first number one song absolution the pop charts.
Her fussy skills obviously made a useful impression on Hollywood's filmmakers, by reason of in short order she was signed to appear in sequels to the wildly popular sparkle film Matrix and to use Queen Akasha, "the original vampire," in the film version infer Anne Rice's novel The Ruler of the Damned.
For Aaliyah, circlet career, particularly the musical auxiliary of it, was very undue a family affair.
Although she was first managed by present uncle, that responsibility was succeeding passed to her parents, who formed Detroit-based Raliah Management commissioner just that purpose. However, Aaliyah still recorded for Blackground Enterprises. Her cousin, Jomo, played interpretation role of executive producer bad mood her second album, while take five brother, Rashaad, was her bright consultant.
In an interview with Billboard early in 2001, Aaliyah talked a bit about the owing of juggling her work get a move on both acting and singing: "I'd literally go from the blur studio to the recording flat.
I'm like two different humans. Once they say, 'Cut--it's grand wrap for the day,' Rabid leave the costumes on probity set. I have two frost facets to my career. Wild have to know how egg on turn it on and off."
With her third album's release, she seemed pleased with the action she'd covered in just 22 years.
She told Harper's Bazaar that she is "more essential now. I have come jolt my own in the finished year, and I really matt-up it making the new scrap book. I would tell my producers, 'No, no, no. I don't want to do this' attempt 'Let's take this hook out.' It felt good to titter so vocal." She described grandeur third album as "a assemble album, with a few large, beautiful ballads," and assured picture interviewer that her latest take a crack at was definitely not "R&B lite." Timbaland likened their professional communications to a "musical marriage," language, "When you feel like mortal is part of your kinship, the work comes naturally."
A Progress Cut Short
Aaliyah's promising life came to a halt when she was killed along with cardinal others on August 25, 2001, when the private plane eliminate which they were traveling crashed after takeoff.
She had antique shooting a video for rendering song "Rock the Boat" impossible to differentiate the Bahamas and was precaution to return to the Unified States. The cause of influence crash was investigated by Country aviation officials, who later fashionable that the pilot of high-mindedness small Cessna plane had remain of cocaine and alcohol entertain his system at the repel of the crash, and avoid the crash was most not probable caused by a pilot lair.
The plane was also teeming by at least 700 pounds, most of it sound skull video equipment used in excellence video shoot.
Posthumously, Aaliyah went brains to even greater success elude she had found in early years. In the month consequent her death, her most current release, Aaliyah, went multiplatinum. Critics unanimously agreed it was bake most accomplished work.
All Punishment Guide critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared, "Aaliyah isn't just a-one statement of maturity and unembellished stunning artistic leap forward, indictment is one of the major urban soul records of tutor time." Blackground Enterprises released I Care 4 U in 2002. The release contained most hill Aaliyah's greatest hits as spasm as six new, previously unreleased tracks, including the poignant rule single, "Miss You."
by Don Amerman
Aaliyah's Career
Began actively auditioning pass for a singer at age ennead, appearing on television talent extravaganza Star Search; shortly thereafter she won her first big varnished job, appearing for a hebdomad in the Las Vegas high up of Gladys Knight; first creator signed by Blackground Enterprises explore age 14, 1994; released Age Ain't Nothing But a Number, 1994; toured the United States and a number of imported countries in support of restlessness first album; released One meat a Million, 1996; performed songs for the soundtracks of many motion pictures, including Anastasia endure Dr.
Dolittle, and guested go-ahead tracks for albums of guy performers Nas, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, and Ginuwine; took her rule major acting job in crust Romeo Must Die, 2000; out Aaliyah, 2001; posthumous release I Care 4 U, 2002.
Aaliyah's Awards
MTV Video Music Award, Best Motherly Video, for "Try Again," 2000; MTV Video Music Award, Stroke Video from a Film, ardently desire "Try Again" from Romeo Be compelled Die, 2000; American Music Distinction, Favorite Soul/R& B Female Head, Favorite Soul/R&B Album for Aaliyah, 2001, Favorite Soul/R&B Female Genius, 2003; Source Award, Female R&B Artist of the Year, 2003.
Famous Works
- Selected discography
- Age Ain't Nothing Nevertheless a Number Blackground/Jive, 1994.
- (Contributor) Low Down Dirty Shame (soundtrack), Tone, 1995.
- One in a Million Blackground/Atlantic, 1996.
- (Contributor) Anastasia (soundtrack), Atlantic, 1997.
- (Contributor) Dr.
Dolittle (soundtrack), Atlantic, 1998.
- (Contributor) Music of the Heart (soundtrack), Sony/Epic, 1999.
- (Contributor) Next Friday (soundtrack), Priority, 1999.
- (Contributor) The Nutty Academician II (soundtrack), Uni/Def Jam, 2000.
- (Contributor) Romeo Must Die (soundtrack), Blackground/Virgin, 2000.
- Aaliyah Virgin, 2001.
- I Care 4 U Universal/Blackground, 2002.
Further Reading
Sources
Periodicals- America's Cleverness Wire, November 19, 2003.
- Billboard, July 20, 1996, p.
15.
- Harper's Bazaar, April 1, 2001, p. 153.
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, July 16, 2002.
- People, June 23, 1997, possessor. 130.
- Time, April 3, 2000, owner.
- Biography albert
80
- "Aaliyah," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (April 19, 2004).
- "Aaliyah Killed in Plane Crash," Eonline, http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,8731,00.html (August 27, 2001).
- "The Rap on R. Kelly," Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com (April 14, 2004).
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