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CNN Live Sunday
Singer/Actress Aaliyah Dead at 22
Aired August 26, 2001 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: The music world is mourning the loss of one of its youngest and most promising stars, 22-year-old R&B singer and actress Aaliyah. She was among nine people killed in a crash of a small plane in the Bahamas last night. Aaliyah's family has issued a statement saying all members are devastated at her loss and adding that their hearts go out to the families of all those who died, including a production crew making a music video with Aaliyah in the islands.
CNN's Kyra Phillips takes a look at this young star's life, cut so short overnight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Grammy-nominated singer, Aaliyah, once described herself as street, but sweet, yet she grew up anything but street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is a beautiful person inside and out, and we're all going to miss her deeply.
PHILLIPS: Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in Brooklyn and raised in Detroit. She was a straight A student at a performing art school, went on "Star Search" at age 11 and released her first album, "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number," when she was just 15.
(MUSIC)
Her first project was produced by singer/songwriter R. Kelly. Soon after, unconfirmed reports surfaced that Aaliyah and Kelly had married. The relationship didn't last, but Aaliyah did go on to her multi-platinum sophomore album, "One In A Million," in 1996.
(MUSIC)
Her latest release, "Aaliyah," hit record stores only last month. Aaliyah's talent and style also earned her a string of movie offers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ROMEO MUST DIE")
AALIYAH, ACTRESS: Did you do it?
DELROY LINDO, ACTOR: Did I do what?
AALIYAH: You know what I mean! Did you have his brother murdered?
LINDO: Where did that come from?
AALIYAH: Come on, daddy, please, I really need to know. Just be straightforward with me for a moment.
LINDO: I'm telling you, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: She received critical acclaim for her role in last year's Kung Fu fighting "Romeo Must Die," which led her to a huge Grammy-nominated hit, "Try Again," featured on the movie soundtrack.
(MUSIC)
And Aaliyah was scheduled to star in two follow-ups to "The Matrix" with Keanu Reeves. The fans will get to see the strikingly pretty entertainer in the upcoming release of Anne Rice's "The Queen of the Damned."
Aaliyah, which is Arabic for the highest, most exalted one, was 22 and a rising megastar.
Kyra Phillips, CNN, Atlanta.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRAZIER: Well, as you can see from Kyra Phillips's report, with all her music and movie work, Aaliyah was clearly a focused, ambitious young woman and an accomplished one too.
Now, for more insight into her career, we are joined by Frank Ski, who is a radio host at an R&B station here in Baltimore, V-103. Thank so much for joining us. Did I say Baltimore? Excuse me, I meant Atlanta.
FRANK SKI, RADIO SHOW HOST, V-103: V-103, yes. Atlanta, right.
FRAZIER: I will look up and figure out where I am.
SKI: That's OK.
FRAZIER: Now, we are all kind of upset by this, though. That's the reason why I'm confused. This was a young, but long, successful performer, starting when she was age 15, now 22.
SKI: Right, right. And I guess for us it's kind of like a sad thing, because a lot of us have known her from that young age, with the first album -- now on the third album -- and actually at a point where it's like the whole world is opening up for her right now, to hear about this news is devastating.
FRAZIER: In a sense, I got the feeling that her career was launched with very young fans, because she did movie soundtracks for kid's movies, like "Dr. Dolittle." We saw a clip there where she was appearing with Eddie Murphy in her music video -- actually had her dancing, but they had clips from the movies in there, "Dr. Dolittle," and also "Anastasia," you remember -- again, a children's animated movie. And then, of course MTV. She was all over that.
SKI: Yeah, actually, when she came out, it was a very special thing, because she came out, of course, as an R. Kelly protege, on R. Kelly who was at the time at a great point in his career, so when she came out on R&B radio, she was basically an artist for like 18 to 25- year-olds, with the first, you know, "Age is Nothing But a Number," which is -- you know, something -- here she is 16.
FRAZIER: She was underage.
SKI: Right, it's nothing but a number. So for us, it's been somebody that we have had an opportunity to grow with, you know, over the past 10 years or so.
FRAZIER: And she stood out because she was awfully sweet, she was a clean-cut kid, a kid of great academic accomplishments, a 4.0 student at the Detroit School for Performing Arts, and none of her singing that I ever saw contained any of the kind of harshness or meanness of some hip-hop.
SKI: You know, you know, and this is the interesting thing is that hip-hop, you know, traditionally for people who understand hip- hop, it's not just rap. It's R&B, it's rap, it's movies, it's music, it's dance, it's DJs, it's the whole thing. And when have somebody like Aaliyah who comes along who maintains her clean-cut image, who maintains her moral values, who is the perfect R&B person and somebody that the R&B community can look up to.
It's not somebody who has fabricated by producers or who has been made up by image artists or somebody who they keep trying to reinvent or somebody who they have thrown into this limelight and say, hey, use your sexuality, be very sexy, sex sells. She hasn't done any of that, and I guess for the R&B community, it's been somebody that you can really look at and be proud of the fact that she is, you know, somebody that represents you. And it's hard, because, like you said, a lot of the industry, especially with hip-hop and R&B, has gone in that direction.
FRAZIER: Well, there's a lot of anger to be expressed there.
SKI: Right.
FRAZIER: Now, her choreography was legendary. Did she actually create the steps that we saw her executing in some of these music videos?
SKI: Some of them, yeah. Some of them, yeah, definitely. I mean, a student of dance herself, but more so is that she had the opportunity at a very young age to write her own music, and that's kind of like important, as an artist, to be able to write some of your own music at that time and not have everybody else write for you. So that's why we have seen her remain constant in her image and what she has been doing.
And then of course, hitting the movie industry, and, you know, coming out with a successful movie like "Romeo Must Die."
FRAZIER: She was the female lead, that's right.
SKI: Exactly.
FRAZIER: Well, we are grateful for your insights into this career. We're sorry to meet under these circumstances.
SKI: Oh, no.
FRAZIER: But Frank Ski, thank you for joining us today.
SKI: Thank you very much. We appreciate it.
FRAZIER: For some -- and now we are going -- for some insight into the impact of Aaliyah's music and some personal reflections now on what she was like we are joined on the telephone from Toronto, Ontario, by Johnny Walker -- a young lady -- who is a senior vice president of Island Def Jam Records. Ms. Walker, thank you for joining us.
JOHNNY WALKER, SENIOR VP, ISLAND DEF JAM RECORDS: It's pleasure to be here this afternoon.
FRAZIER: Let's just pick up where Frank Ski left off. We hear people talking about the impact on the industry, that the industry will be deeply affected. In what way, do you think?
WALKER: Well, it's always very tragic when something like this happens. I mean, to have a young person's life taken away this tragically always leaves one -- especially leaves me very mystified, and saying to myself, "why?" I mean, especially being a mother and having a daughter myself, and a young lady like this -- again, like I said, it just leaves you mystified. You find yourself just staring, over and over saying, "why, why, why?"
FRAZIER: And this was ironically an accident that occurred I guess at a work site. They just finished making a video for one of her performances. Is that the word you were getting?
WALKER: That's the word we got. We are here in Toronto this weekend. We just completed a national conference, in fact, it's a conference that focuses on women in music and entertainment, and we had just wrapped up an evening honoring Susan DePasse (ph) and Sylvia Rohn (ph) when we were given the tragic news. And I mean, it's certainly brought our evening to a very numbing close.
FRAZIER: Was this news that you actually found believable? WALKER: Actually, when we first heard it, I personally did not believe it. People wanted to announce it, and we were like, it sounded so -- I mean, it just sounded impossible. I mean, how? And you know, usually when you hear something like that, you hear a variety of stories. People relate differently, and it's like you think -- Aaliyah, you just saw a movie, or you just saw a video, or you just heard an interview, or you just heard a new song, or you just heard a colleague speaking of her.
FRAZIER: CD was just released last week, wasn't it?
WALKER: Yeah.
FRAZIER: Her third CD just came out.
WALKER: It's something -- it takes a while for news like that to sink in.
FRAZIER: Right. Now, you heard Frank Ski say she had some control over her art, she actually was writing her own songs and recording her own work. That's pretty uncommon, isn't it?
WALKER: Pretty uncommon. I mean, but when you have a smart production team, a smart label that understands exactly what they have, and Aaliyah clearly was an artist that had -- can I say had a gift. She had the gift to produce. She had the gift to give -- to meet the public's undying demand for the craft that she had. So, I think it was very smart on their parts to allow her that level of creativity and freedom.
FRAZIER: Tell us about these movie parts for which she was cast in the remakes or the sequels to "The Matrix".
WALKER: Well, I'm not really that familiar with a lot of the work that she did as an actress. You know, I'm familiar with the work she did with "Romeo Must Die," and I think everything was done very tastefully, and I think she handled herself very well to be, you know, such a young person and very new in that particular industry.
FRAZIER: Now, does she represent a type? Does she leave a gap because her sweetness is not replicated by anybody else, or are there other young singers like her who are also not quite as aggressive or angry as some others?
WALKER: Oh, that -- the industry, the movie industry, as well as the recording industry will suffer a tremendous loss, as Aaliyah was such as promising bright young star. And just with her movie career as well as her recording career, I mean, she appeared to be headed for super stardom. So, I think it's just going to be very difficult -- difficult to find someone to duplicate what was about to really burst with Aaliyah.
FRAZIER: Well, some us thought she had already achieved super stardom, in fact.
WALKER: Yes, she had, but you know, at that age, there is so much more to go. There were so many more -- I'm quite sure there were so many more writers that were writing great scripts, I'm sure there were more producers that were preparing more great works for her to record, so there were only greater heights for her to go.
FRAZIER: Do you think that her early achievements changed her? Did you watch her change at all?
WALKER: I watched her grow. I watched her mature. I watched her become a beautiful young lady.
FRAZIER: Sometimes, though, success brings a certain hardening with it. Did you see anything like that?
WALKER: Like I said, I saw her mature. I saw her take an industry that can be very cruel and manage it very well.
FRAZIER: Johnny Walker, senior vice president of Island Def Jam Records, thank you for joining us. And again, our apologies to you that we are meeting under these circumstances.
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