by Stephanie L. Ogle
That is the way Aaliyah will be remembered as being...down to earth, sweet & grateful. As news reports trickled in over the television, radio and Internet that 22 year old R&B singer Aaliyah had been killed Saturday August 25th in the Bahamas, the first reactions were disbelief....that there was some mistake. As the reality hit that the Cessna plane she & 8 others had been passengers in crashed just 200 feet off of the runway’s end, the disbelief turned to tears and questions of “Why” and “How”.
Aaliyah had been in the Bahamas filming the video for her latest radio hit “Rock The Boat”, directed by Hype Williams. All of those who perished in the accident with Aaliyah included Gina Smith, 29, of New Jersey, Aaliyah´s product manager at Blackground Records; Los Angeles resident Keith Wallace, 49, from Blackground Records; Douglas Kratz, 28, Virgin Records´ director of video production; Aaliyah’s bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41; Aaliyah´s personal hair stylist Eric Forman, 29, of Los Angeles; hair stylist Anthony Dodd, 34, of Los Angeles; and makeup artist Christopher Maldonado, 32, of New York; as well as the plane´s pilot, identified only as L. Maradel. Late reports are coming in that the pilot was not authorized to fly the plane as well as he had recently been put on probation stemming from drug charges.
The overwhelming sense of loss & mourning has touched many in the music industry & in the African-American community. Aaliyah was a positive young black woman that young girls & young women looked up to & whom young boys & teenagers had crushes on. She was a donator to breast cancer charities.
Reaction to her death has taken a toll on those that loved her yet never knew her...the fans. Music video stations have paid tribute to her by playing all of her videos. Radio stations from coast to coast have been flooded with song requests. Pittsburgh radio DJ Ray Love, who hosts WAMO 106 FM’s afternoon slot told me “Lots of fans are saying the same thing to me everyday since her death...its like we knew her through her music. She was so young and talented. She didn’t deserve to go so early”. That is the consensus among everyone. Love also stated, “When I listen to her songs now its like ‘Damn, she is gone & I’m still playing her songs on the radio. To be honest I felt for her (loss) more than I felt for Big or 2Pac because you didn’t hear any bad things about her. She always gave love to her fans & to the Lord. God took her for a reason & it was to let us know something but I just can’t pin-point the reason why. We will never know but in a way it scares me”.
For whatever reason or another, we tend to look at celebrities & famous people as if they are “super-human”. When we hear that one of them is taken from us in a tragic way such as with Aaliyah & her crew, it makes one re-think life...if it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone!
While Aaliyah may have left this world at such a young age, not even experiencing all that she had to offer of herself to the world, her accomplishments & memory will be forever in the minds of those she touched.
1979-2001
You were greatly loved & will be missed by all
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