Remembering Aaliyah

a dedication to the impact of a style icon (written in 2024)

When I was growing up, the coolest girl ever wasn’t alive anymore.

I’ll probably never be able to remember what the first Aaliyah song or album I heard was, but ever since then I’ve been enthralled. Then and now, her music feels like listening to someone who’d been spying on pages of my diary. Pieces of my personality have always found a home in her smooth, sultry yet airy tones, whether they were pieces that already existed or pieces I created. One in a Million and 4 Page Letter were the songs I daydreamed about love to before I knew what it was; songs like The One I Gave My Heart To and Never No More were soothing balms after I discovered how bad love could hurt.

One of my favorite things about Aaliyah, especially in comparison to other R&B acts from the ‘90s golden era, was the fact that the way she bore her heart felt deeply vulnerable in a way that was relatable to me. There’d be songs about a broken relationship and her immense pain, and then the next one would be a party track that picked your feelings right up off of the floor. Aaliyah certainly had ‘I can’t breathe without you’ type music, but she was also Aaliyah. Listening to her sing about crying and pining over a man, you were also very aware that whoever he was…she was cooler than him. And he didn’t deserve her. And she knew it too.

Or maybe that’s simply the context of the beholder; either way, feeling her music that way made me perk up and listen every time the sound of her angelic voice came on 106 & Park or was heard blasting through a car’s speakers riding around Brooklyn. When you’re a child, especially a young black girl growing up in the early 2000s, you try to make sense of yourself in the world through the examples of others. My family saw my tomboy tendencies since I was a toddler, through the toys I chose to play with and the clothes I felt most comfortable in. I was one of those little girls whose favorite color was purple because purple is not pink—toying with femininity, but veering left of center. I used to put foil over my teeth and pretend to be Lil’ Wayne; he was my favorite rapper, and the coolest person I knew of who also had locs.

But, as most of my examples of style and swagger were back then, he was a man. And I was very much a girl—I enjoyed being one, it’s just that I had trouble resonating with what society was telling me being a girl meant and looked like. Pair that with being raised in a religious community that only allowed its women to wear skirts in public (I didn’t wear my first pair of jeans until middle school), and you get a lot of internal confusion about how to show up on the outside in a way that honors the full complexities of what’s inside.

Little me realized that Aaliyah understood that. She was a girl that had it all figured out before I was even born.

I think my relationship with her as an artist and a person has always been one of both admiration and gratitude. I was thankful she existed, even if I didn’t get to be around to witness it firsthand. I was thankful that she left the blueprint behind.

It wasn’t that I wanted to follow Aaliyah. It was that her being her truest self felt affirming to the things about myself that I knew were inside; she helped me bring them out. The way she was loved and adored helped me to adore parts of myself. As a child, the things I identified that we shared in common were more trivial, but were enough to draw me in—we’re both Capricorns, we have the same first initial, both of our first names have three A’s (this is how three became my favorite number), she had a pet snake and I would’ve too if my mother allowed it. To little me, we may as well have been sisters.

But watching the Are You That Somebody music video felt like watching a magician at work; sure, we shared things in common, but the relationship was distinctly aspirational. She made me feel seen, but I also knew no one could replicate the 1-of-1 effortless cool that made her who she was. Aaliyah had a ‘thing’ that was entirely her own, and so I was inspired to discover mine.

It also helped that she was an age-appropriate inspiration—there were living, grown people dominating the charts while I was a teenager, but I was still captivated by this teenage girl from the past with a voice and creative style beyond both of our years. Last year on August 25th, I threw a house party and invited friends over to listen to her music. I had just gotten her self-titled record in the mail and wanted nothing more than to listen to it all the way through in a room full of people enjoying it together. I imagined this was how her music was enjoyed at the time it was being released, before it came with a twinge of sadness due to her absence: in-person, with friends and drinks and fly outfits and belly laughs. There weren’t many modern day spaces where I could have that experience with her music, so I wanted to create one.

It was also about honoring her life on the day she passed away, which I’d always done by myself but this time wanted to share with others. I thought about Aaliyah last year on my 22nd birthday because that’s how old she was at the time of her death. For so long, she was someone I simultaneously related to and aspired to, balancing a closeness and distance. But at 22, I started thinking a lot more about Aaliyah the person than the songs, looks, funny moments, and inspiration she shared with the world. At that party last summer, in the midst of having fun with friends, I thought about what it would be like if I was given the same amount of time as she was. If all the life I’d lived thus far ended up being all the life I’d lived.

I couldn’t compute it in my head. I had barely scratched the surface of the person that I am. I was still just a girl. And so was she.

My relationship to Aaliyah has evolved that way the older I get. She released her first album at the age of 14, and the impact she was able to have from that point on can make her life feel longer than it was. But the summer of being 22 made me feel closer to her than ever before, because at that time I was most aware of how incomplete her story was. She was a whole person, but there was so much more she could’ve done and said. Something I often think about is the clothing brand she and Kidada Jones were planning to start together, Dolly Pop. I can only imagine what that would’ve looked like. I can only imagine what it would’ve been like growing up in a world where I could shop Aaliyah’s brand; where she was still breathing and being.

These feelings also made me a little remorseful to her for how I’d nearly idolized her growing up. If I had passed away at 22 and somehow became famous in death, a part of me would be uncomfortable with being widely celebrated for who I was—I barely had it figured out yet! The girl I was from 14-22 was but one passage on one page of the whole book. For Aaliyah, it was the whole story.

That always makes me sad. Being 23 evolved the relationship with her even more after those realizations. I’ve always had a photo of Aaliyah at my age to compare to, but for the first time I don’t. It feels like the end of the blueprint she left behind for me—where I’m headed now is somewhere she’d never been. She can no longer show me the way. I guess I no longer need her to.

This year, she would’ve turned 45: born only a few years after my mother. The girl I grew up with like a sister in my head was closer in age to my mom than me. Closer to the woman she is now than the girl I’m just starting to emerge from being. I wonder what kind of woman Aaliyah would’ve chosen to be. I wonder what we’d all be wearing now if her style was able to mature as she aged. People often debate how relevant she’d be if she was still around, but I believe that whatever Aaliyah would do with her life if it was able to continue, she’d be a trendsetter like always.

I have these questions about myself often, too. Where to from here? Life still feels pretty long in your early 20s; how am I supposed to constantly invent the person that I am for decades more?

The thing about a style icon is that they show you a possibility for your expression that feels good. The more you explore that possibility, the more new ones arise. You can’t see the end of the road, you just keep exploring. And while you’re doing that, you’re unknowingly blazing a trail behind you for others to see.

Aaliyah never actually gave me a blueprint. I’ve never had a conversation with her, she left this earth eight months after I came into it. At this age, I choose to honor not only the things she did but the way she lived. She honored her own existence by being completely authentic, by choosing to fulfill the possibilities of her self-expression. That’s what I’m inspired by today.

We didn’t get to see her transition into womanhood, but now that I’m experiencing it, I know she already left the tools behind. The woman Aaliyah would’ve become would do things her way. That’s the blueprint—the confidence to create my own from scratch.

Thank you, A.