Aaliyah

Full Name: Aaliyah Haughton, Aaliyah is Swahili for "highest, most exalted one"

Born: January 16, 1979.
Location: Detroit, she moved there when she was 5 years old.She was born in Brooklyn.
Biggest Hits: "If Your Girl Only Knew", "One In A Million", "Back and Forth", "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number".
School: Aaliyah just graduated now in June-97 from High School for the Fine and Performing Arts in Detroit!

The Story to far...
Aaliyah has been planning to blow up from jump. "I've been singing all my life," she says matter-of-factly. "I've always wanted this. I sang in church, in school plays, and my parents gave me vocal lessons. My parents always said this was destined for me."
By the time she was nine, Aaliyah (which means "the highest, the most exalted one, the best" in Arabic) was performing professionally. She routinely auditioned for record companies and television pilots, sang on Star Search, and jammed with Gladys Knight in Las Vegas. It didn't hurt either that Aaliyah's uncle is Barry Hankerson, Knight's ex-husband and a longtime entertainment industry fixture. In fact, it was Hankerson who introduced Aaliyah to R. Kelly. "My uncle is also R. Kelly's manager," she says. "I met Robert before he came out with Born in the 90's [his first album]. He came to my house and I sang for him, and from there we went into the studio and started working together."
R. Kelly, obviously a gifted songwriter and producer, nurtured Aaliyah in the studio. "The work was new to me," she explains. "I worked very hard to make the album perfect. Since Robert did have the experience, he basically laid out the album and everything, but I do want to write and produce my own stuff down the line."
That first album became very successful, selling more than platinum and having a number of hits like "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number", "Back And Forth" and "Down With The Clique". It also brought Aaliyah and R Kelly trouble, I guess most of you have heard the rumours about them being married although Aaliyah wasn't more than 15 at the time and R Kelly over 25. Aaliyah's only comment to that is "I'm not married right now." Noone is really sure if they really were married, but now they are not anyway and R Kelly didn't help Aaliyah on her second album "One In A Million". It's said that Aaliyah's parents were so chocked when they heard about the marriage that they tried to cut all of Aaliyah's contacts with him, but that's not confirmed either. Anyway, in an interview Aaliyah did earlier this year she says that R Kelly is cool and that he's a good friend. (And very talented!)
After the release of the "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number" album it took a few years until the next one which is called "One In A Million". It was released late 1996 and Aaliyah had gotten a new production team now with newcomer Timbaland (Tim Mosley) who is terribly innovativ and talented. She also hasd good help from rapper Missy Elliot. Together these two has been producing for Genuwine as well.
I guess that Aaliyah and her recordcompany was nervous now that she didn't have the help from R Kelly anymore, and also that Timbaland brought in an almost entirely new sound to her music! Well, there was no need to wory, the first single, supercool "If Your Girl Only Knew" totaly blew up becoming a #1 R&B hit in USA. Then there was the ballad "One In A Million" which never got on the chart cause it wasn't released as a single. Well, it would have been a #1 for sure, it was the most played R&B-song in USA for quite some time! Now the album had sold platinum already (1 million copies) and the next and last single was "4 Page Letter" which did good on airplay. The album is on TWO million copies right now, very good! After this Aaliyah helped her friends Missy and Timbaland with some off the hook songs for their albums and had a big hit herself with the song "Journey To The Past" for the movie Anastasia soundtrack. Aaliyah even got to sing that song on the Oscar Academy Award ceremony because it was nominated for an award!! Of course the Titanic song with Celine won... unfair, Aaliyah was better! The latest project is the song "Are You That Somebody?" which she's doing together with Timbaland for the movie Dr. Dolittle soundtrack.
In June 1997 Aaliyah graduated from the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, where she had about 3.8 grade point average. She's planning to maybe attend college and pursue a doctorate in music history. She says, "I always want to have music in some part of my life." If that isn't enough, she's also serious about acting. I hope she'll do a movie soon!
Aaliyah Fan Club
C/O Blackground Enterprises,
15250 Ventura Blvd,
Suite 705
Sherman Oaks
CA 91403
USA
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