Aaliyah Haughton 2001 Singer, actress. Born Aaliyah Dana Haughton, on January 16, 1979,in Brooklyn, New York. Raised in Detroit, Michigan, the young singer competedunsuccessfully on the television program Star Search at age 11. Later that sameyear, she performed with R amp B legend Gladys Knight, the former wife of heruncle and manager, Barry Hankerson, at a five-night stand in Las Vegas. In 1994, at the age of 15, Aaliyah catapulted onto the R amp B charts herselfwith her debut album, Age Ain t Nothing But a Number.
Produced by thesuccessful singer R. Robert Kelly, the album quickly sold a million copiesand eventually earned platinum status based largely on the success of two hitsingles, Back and Forth and At Your Best You Are Love . Later that year,tabloid reports surfaced claiming that the sultry teen singer had married the27-year-old Kelly, but Aaliyah denied the union and the marriage was reportedlyannulled.While a student in the dance program at Detroit High School for the Fine andPerforming Arts she graduated in 1997 , Aaliyah released her sophomore album,One in a Million 1996 . Helmed by the well-known pop producer Timbaland TimMosely and featuring rap performer Missy Misdemeanor Elliott, One in aMillion portrayed the 17-year-old singer as a sultry hip-hop chanteuse with aself-confidence well beyond her years.
The album garnered favorable reviews andsold two million copies.Aaliyah gained even more recognition in 1997 when she recorded Journey to thePast, the Academy Award-nominated theme song to the animated featureAnastasia.
She also performed the song for the Oscar telecast in 1998. Her nextsoundtrack effort, Are You That Somebody? for 1998 s Dr. Dolittle,starring Eddie Murphy, went to No. 1 on the R amp B charts, was a pop crossoverhit, and earned Aaliyah her first Grammy Award nomination.In 2000, Aaliyah made her acting debut in the surprise action hit Romeo MustDie, starring opposite martial arts star Jet Li in a Romeo and Juliet-inspiredstory set in modern-day Los Angeles.
She was also an executive producer of themovie s soundtrack and performed the hit single Try Again, which netted her asecond Grammy nomination as well as two MTV Music Video Awards for Best FemaleVideo and Best Video From a Film. Her third album, Aaliyah, was released in July 2001 and reached No. 2 on theBillboard album chart.Also in 2001, she played the title role in Queen of theDamned, based on the bestselling novel by Anne Rice and set for release in2002. She scored a major casting coup when she signed to appear in two upcomingsequels to the blockbuster sci-fi thriller The Matrix, starring Keanu Reevesand Laurence Fishburne.Tragically, Aaliyah was killed on August 25, 2001, when a small Cessnapassenger plane carrying the singer and her video crew crashed and burst intoflames shortly after takeoff from Abaco Island in the Bahamas, where they hadjust completed work on a video.
The plane was headed for Miami, Florida.Aaliyah and seven other people, including the pilot, were believed to have diedinstantly, while a ninth passenger died later at a Bahamian hospital.
Aaliyahwas 22 years old at the time of her death. She is survived by her parents,Diane and Michael Haughton, and an older brother, Rashaad.