Kathy Iandoli - Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah

Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah

Kathy Iandoli

God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop

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Copyright 2021 by Katherine Iandoli

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Interior design by Alexis Minieri

Jacket design by Laywan Kwan

Jacket photograph by Hamish Brown/contour by Getty Images

Author photograph by Krista Schlueter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-9821-5684-8

ISBN 978-1-9821-5686-2 (ebook)

For Aaliyah, who changed music as we know it.
Tell my mother I love her.

When I first began working on Baby Girl, I decided not to write about the circumstances surrounding Aaliyahs involvement with R. Kelly and how it unfolded over time. Considering word had finally gotten out about his predatory and criminal behavior with minors, mentioning him within Aaliyahs life story cheapened the narrative, in my opinion. As someone who loved Aaliyah dearly from afar, I felt I was disrespecting her legacy by spreading this part of her life on Front Street when her family never had. I also didnt want to dignify R. Kelly with any credit for her career, despite him being one of the main reasons we learned about Aaliyah in the first place. His crimes have left most with a pit in their stomachs, anguished at the thought of once supporting him and his music.

I will never forget the day I interviewed a then-teenage Ciara for her 2004 debut album, Goodies. On the album is a cut called Next to You, featuring R. Kelly, which he also wrote and produced. The lyrics place Ciara in the position of coaxing R. Kelly into letting her stay the night, with R. Kelly being blissfully down for whatever. I noted in my feature how R. Kellys lyrics written for a teenager were inappropriate, as two years prior his child pornography tape had surfaced. It boggled my mind how he could continue writing songs like this for young women and be so well compensated to do so.

Members of Ciaras team contacted both my editor and me. They threatened me with slander (in reality they meant libel).

Shes not Aaliyah, was their pointed, succinct rebuttal. But Ciara could have been. My remarks werent even against Ciara; she is incredibly talented and one of the torchbearers of Aaliyahs legacy. But the mention of Aaliyah by her team, as if it were a mark of shame, felt so wrong since the blame was again placed upon the teenage girl and not the predator. Again, this was 2004, and while no one really understood what had happened between him and Aaliyah back then, I still felt it was an unfair burden to place on someone who was no longer alive to defend herself. Ciara never knew this exchange existed, Im sure. She has always held Aaliyahs name in the highest regard, considering Ciara and many artists who followed were undoubtedly inspired by Aaliyahs work. This wasnt the first time that Ciara would be compared to Aaliyah in some way, and years after that magazine article (in 2019) Ciara pulled her R. Kelly collaborations from streaming services. I call that a tiny (albeit delayed) victory.

I watched Lifetimes Surviving R. Kelly (parts one and two) series with unease, a decade and a half following my article, wondering how his predilection for young girls had fallen under the radar for so long. I grimaced as young girls were held hostage, their families telling horror stories of their daughters still being in his clutches, while others who managed to escape revealed what they endured, with disturbing detail. You could see the torture on many of the girls faces, and in others you could see blankness and reprogramming. As a viewer, theres an inherent fear for what their post-traumatic futures will look like once theyve inevitably realized theyre in an abusive holding pattern. Like everyone else, however, I too was separating Aaliyah from R. Kellys victims. I was categorizing her the way the media (and the music industry) had done so often in the past, by viewing their relationship as a mutually loving one, not one rooted in grooming and latent sexual violence. Abusive patterns dont discriminate. Prey is prey, and Aaliyah had fallen prey to R. Kelly. He was just as damaging a force in Aaliyahs life as he was to the other very young women he violated. Theirs wasnt a love story that defied age; it was a tragedy that Aaliyah endured and somehow moved past to become an icon in her own right without him. That is the only reason why R. Kelly is discussed in this book. It was only in watching this docuseries and dissecting newfound evidence did I realize that disregarding R. Kellys chapter in Aaliyahs life would be denying Aaliyah another title she so greatly deserved: survivor.

August 25, 2001

Where were you when you heard that Aaliyah died?

Generational celebrity deaths are such an interesting part of popular culture, arent they?

You remember every detail: where you were, what you were doing, who you were with. You might even hold on to these fragments of memories tighter than you would over the passing of your own distant relatives. Thats because those who touch the world on a grander scalefor better or worsehave the potential to reach more people, and yet affect every single one of them individually and uniquely. JFK, MLK, Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince, Kobe Bryantthe list goes on and on. Through the duration of their livesno matter how long or short they may bethese humans become our superheroes. Their mortality, however, is our brutal reminder of the former. Their deaths become historical events in and of themselves, usually involving some anniversary people grimly commemorate. Since the advent of social media, that now includes a picture posted with some warm words, a vague memory associated with the dearly departed person, and a quote honoring their lives. Certain calendars even regard these deaths as international holidays, again showing the correlation between a celebritys death and their impact on the world. Many, many people have only a rudimentary understanding of world history and key dates, yet they can tell you the exact date that their favorite singer died.

With the passing of Aaliyah, it was a double whammy of devastation, where there was little time to process her death before a global crisis hit.