Although she passed away fourteen years ago at the all-too-young age of 22, Aaliyah still fervently burns like an R&B sun, atop the solar system of artists that she fuels and influences posthumously. Despite her age, her career lasted nearly a decade. Her sex appeal, style, and squad of collaborators, who are also mega-stars in their own right created the perfect storm to set pop music on a course that is still traveled by some of music’s best and brightest to this day.
With the anniversary of her passing just yesterday, we celebrate her life and legacy by looking at five major artists who were influenced by Aaliyah.
Never shy from showing his emotions or lamenting his woes (or on "Back to Back" his “whoas”), Drake usually resorts to his singing voice for such self expression. Why? Well, apparently it’s because of Aaliyah’s long-reaching influence. On the ten year anniversary of the singer’s death, rapper/singer Drake told Soul Culture that Aaliyah leads the pack of artists-- including rappers-- that inspire him. It’s more than just inspiration, though. It’s giving credit where it’s due.
"She just made phenomenal music and she was beautiful and she was a girl that I fell in love with early in my life -- I feel like if she was still here I would probably be pursuing her in a major way, you know, because I was truly in love with her very early on."
Her legendary singing voice was sampled on the Drake track "Unforgettable," which also featured Young Jeezy. Plus, we can't forget the time the two posthumously collabed on "Enough Said."
Check out the aforementioned Soul Culture interview below.
In talking to Billboard, frequent Aaliyah collaborator Missy Elliott said of her fallen friend that, "Her music couldn’t be placed in any category." The same, too, can be said for the controversial pop icon Chris Brown, who is undoubtedly influenced by Aaliyah. Breezy famously re-appropriated one of the fallen R&B artists' final recordings in "Don’t Think They Know" -- recorded during the final phases of Queen of the Damned production-- and gave her a posthumous feature credit.
Though the first phases of her careers were plagued with negative comparisons to Aaliyah and her music, Ciara has grown and gone on to forge a separate path for herself. Still, though, it’s hard to look past the literal likeness, the fashion choices, and musical sound that persist to this day; oftentimes it sounds as though it’s the type of stuff Aaliyah might make if she was still here.
On the overlap, Ciara said, "She was true to who she was and she didn't seem to care about it. The core of her art to me is heavily, heavily urban based. When an artist's music is so urban based, sometimes people like to take risks with artists like that. When you think about it, it really is pop, it really is cultural and that's the one thing that I thought was cool about her music. It never felt like she was trying to reach across or do anything more than just keep that cool, soulful, heavy urban core about it. It wasn't like she was trying to be anything more than who she was. I really respect that and I appreciate that."
Tink
The rapper/singer has garnered some steam in the past few years (or perhaps, past year alone), after years of strong mixtape releases that date back to her being 16-years old. Aaliyah, similarly, started quite young. Though, that’s not the only means for comparing the late legend to the relative newcomer. Her lyrical emotionality also appeal to likening her to the Queen of the Damned, and must’ve appealed to former Aaliyah mentor Timbaland, who has also become somewhat of a mentor to Tink, and he even signed her to his imprint.
Among the Timbo x Tink collaborations, Tink stirred up a bit of controversy when she released "Million," which sampled Aaliyah’s "One in a Million." If that’s not enough, Timbaland stressed that a premonition of his fallen friend Aaliyah came to him in the dream to tell him that Tink was “the one.” Timbo is quoted as saying during a live show, "I don’t touch any of my sister’s records. I don’t touch Baby Girl’s records—you know that’s Aaliyah. She [Aaliyah] spoke to me in my sleep and said, 'She's the one.'"
From her forays into film to her genre-spanning music library, Rihanna’s comparisons to Aaliyah are granted. While their sounds are wholly different, with Ri-Ri’s Caribbean influence surely coming into play, the Roc Nation performer isn’t hesitant to admit Aaliyah’s influence on her music and credits "Are You That Somebody" as one of her all-time favorite songs. We can only imagine that Aaliyah would have Rihanna-level fame in this day and age, should she have survived.
