Photo: Eddie OTCHERE
Days ahead of the 20-year anniversary of Aaliyah's untimely passing, the beloved star's legacy will come full circle when fans — both new and old — experience her entire catalog on digital streaming services for the very first time. It's been a long and winding road to see her music make its way to the digital age, a move that has been denounced by her estate, but the wave of anticipation is immense and set to sweep shortly before the benchmark occasion. In addition to her music, an unauthorized biography called Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah has been released, offering readers with a comprehensive retelling of the late star's life and career with new-found research, exclusive interviews and fan contributions on a journey cut too short.
Written by music journalist Kathy Iandoli, the 320-page book, which is currently available via Simon & Schuster, shares previously untold stories and serves a purpose to provide a panoramic view on all things Aaliyah. Merging new narratives into the story of a star no longer with us meant diving deep into her ties with R. Kelly through a "Me Too" lens. It meant learning that someone on her team handed her a pill prior to the ill-fated plane crash that took her life at 22. It also meant re-examining the fandom that has persistently kept her memory alive through outdated media and scarce online resources amid the perfect storm of business and family politics. In turn, Baby Girl helps put the pieces together in understanding her craft, enduring softness and just how much her shadow lingers in the background of today's biggest artists.
Ahead of the book's release, as well as the announcement that her music is heading to digital streaming providers, iHeartRadio spoke with Iandoli about working on the passion project at the heart of lockdown, her initial intent to omit R. Kelly from the book and her goal to make sure that she emphasized the impact Aaliyah had before and after her death.
There's never really been a space where Aaliyah's story has been told in full. Talk to me about conceptualizing this project.
I think the thing that I noticed when I first wanted to put this book together was how much longer she lived after she died. I think that Aaliyah's passing was so abrupt in 2001, and we as fans didn't understand the magnitude of what she contributed to music until we weren't able to experience it in real-time anymore. That could include new releases, but it also could include just being in this digital age, where everyone's catalog, for the most part, is just so readily available at our fingertips. In not having that, you really just recognize what a loss it was to not have that. But what I also realized is how there's this whole younger generation of fans who are experiencing Aaliyah in a different way for the first time. They’re kind of like excavators, right? They have to actually really dig to be this active Aaliyah fan. They have to find the music in different places than we found it. We walked into a record store. They don't have that luxury. They have to have their parents' CDs or find them on Amazon or eBay or spend several hundred dollars for vinyl. They have to earn it a little differently than how we did. When I was putting this book together, it was with the intention of making sure that as much as we knew about Aaliyah's life, I had to honor her impact even 20 years after she passed. There were stories that were told about Aaliyah previously [but] not full stories. There was always parts missing because I think we were never given a full picture of who she was. I wanted to do that as best as I could, but I also didn't want it to end in the plane crash. There was so much more ground to cover. There was 20 years more of this fandom, of this legacy, of this changing of music, changing fashion, all of these things that Aaliyah has managed to do from above that we haven't honored. In putting this book together, I just wanted to make sure that both parts of Aaliyah's career were adequately covered.
You share your approach for unpacking the R. Kelly narrative in the foreword of the book. How long did it take you to come to that decision?
Well, in the beginning, I wasn't going to unpack it at all. I sold this book based on the understanding of my publisher that I was not going to talk about R. Kelly. It was going to be on the last five years of Aaliyah's life. I was going to technically start in 1996. I didn't want my book deal to rest on the expectation that this would include R. Kelly. I didn't want to do that to Aaliyah. I didn't want to do that to the story. I wasn't selling some salacious book on this so-called situation that people were just wrongfully calling a love affair. I didn't want to sell a book on Aaliyah based on that.
I wasn't even going to include him one bit. However, when I watched Surviving R. Kelly, the second part, and I just started to hear just the discussions that were surrounding Aaliyah and her name being brought up, I didn't want to do what everyone else did. I didn't want to write her off as not part of this abusive cycle that he has been doing for decades. To leave her out of that would be unfair because then it would just be continuing that narrative that they were a couple. That's when I made that decision that I was going to include the situation because, as I did more research and as I studied his patterns of behavior with the other victims, I started to see that so much of that pathological behavior started with Aaliyah and it snowballed as it progressed into the other victims right up to the sex cult. I just felt like I had to mention it. Learning how she was blackballed after the situation as if she did something wrong [and] just seeing how she rose above it all in spite of those odds being stacked against her, it only adds to the triumph. In highlighting the triumph, I had to include a little bit of a tragedy.
Photo: Getty Images
It felt quintessential Aaliyah to learn about how she reacted to that and how she navigated the industry afterward. I learned so much from the book. What were you most excited or surprised to learn after going back into the archives?
I think the thing that I was just the most excited about as I was learning some new things about Aaliyah was how much she was actually hands-on in her creative processes. She really did want to be a part of the action. I appreciate that because there are so many artists who can interpret someone else's piece of music or song lyrics, and just do it because they just know how to do it. With Aaliyah, she would take a piece of music or lyrics and she would mess with them. She would put her own self into them. When I went to re-listen to the music, it made me appreciate her artistic integrity even more because so much of Aaliyah now is aesthetics-driven. She's on t-shirts. We get to see her videos on YouTube. People replicate her style. It's all about the eyes, you know? When I had the opportunity to go back and listen and understand just how much input she had, that was just really exciting. It was really rewarding because as much as she was just aesthetically game-changing, she was also just this amazingly polished artist, who was just so refined and a genius and all of these things that I think we're also not used to describe her back then either. I was excited to just show her artistry as well.
What do you make of how the estate has approached the business of Aaliyah up until recently?
I think the estate was caught off guard by how impactful Aaliyah remained two decades after her passing. It’s difficult for anyone to figure out how to professionally manage a career of someone who is no longer here. I think because this generation of fans weren't around when Aaliyah was actually walking this Earth, they sometimes forget that she was a human. At the end of the day, she was someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's niece, someone's girlfriend, someone's best friend. Sometimes we just have to honor the fact that if they don't want to put this music out, they just simply won't and they don't have to. They don't owe us anything. Do they owe Aaliyah the ability to continue her legacy? Yes, but that has nothing to do with us, the listener. We, as fans, have this habit of demanding more from our stars than our stars are able to give.
I think that there are a number of different reasons that we can say that the estate might be wrong for not giving us this music. We can say they're selfish or it's all about the money, or they're holding on too tightly to their grief [or whatever] makes the fan rationalize why this isn't happening. At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with us. I look forward to the day that we get to stream her music. But at the same time, it's not my place to demand it. I really appreciate this generation though, for being so passionate, because this is a generation that is not defined by the word, "no." Generations before, we just heard "no," and we were kind of fine with it. This is the generation that always asks "why?" after the "no." They're fighting this good fight to try to get this music, and I appreciate that. I will say this. I personally have a problem with the only music being available, being the project that R. Kelly is attached to. That's the one thing that I will say I am not in favor of, but again, it's not about me.
You go through all stages of her career, including talk about the Red Album and there's mention that Timbaland and Missy Elliott were not set to be part of the project because of some tension. Do we know anything more about what happened there?
No one has actually stepped forward and been vocal about exactly what happened. I think we have to look at what happened in the years that followed when Timbaland sued Blackground [Records]. Lawsuits are a buildup. They're not something that you just casually do overnight. If you think about that lawsuit, you can understand that a couple of years prior to that there was an issue going on. Other artists have been vocal in the past about feeling kind of cheated by Blackground, feeling as though they weren't being given the correct money, correct creative freedom, so many different things. I think that during that time period, it was really unfortunate because at some point, friendship had to end and business had to begin. I think that's what kind of happened in a situation involving Tim, Missy and Aaliyah. At some point, it was like, "I love you, but I have to also protect my career." They were both aware of that, but I think what also might've happened if we listened to the lyrics of "We Need a Resolution," it's rooted in an argument. "I’m tired of arguing, girl.”"They didn't want to keep fighting with each other, but in fighting with her uncle, they were tangentially fighting with her, especially since we came to understand that years later that Aaliyah owns shares of Blackground. There was tension in the way of, the artists that were working on either their own projects or others were not being adequately taken care of. This was a prime opportunity and I don't want to say that in an opportunistic way, but it was an opportunity for Static to finally get to come in and help Aaliyah create this thing that he knew he could create with her.
If you look at Static's catalog after that, you just begin to understand that creatively, he had a vision, but that vision was whatever Aaliyah wanted, and then what he could input. For the previous project, it was more like, "All right, this is what we were thinking about. What do you think?" With Static, it was more like, "What have you been thinking? Let me see how I can build upon that," which was always his handshake, which was his superpower. Getting that opportunity to go to Australia with the other members of Blackground, they had the recording studio up the street from the hotel. Aaliyah had this rigorous schedule where she was filming Queen of The Damned and then came back to the hotel and then went to the studio. They were able to form this really close-knit bond. Aaliyah was an adult. She was going through her adult things. She could go and sit down with Static and say, "Hey, this is how I felt in this particular situation. Help me put that to music." As opposed to, "Hey, we need this song for you. Add some of yourself to it." Being able to just have a graduated level of creative freedom that she couldn't have before. She was still a kid.
Photo: Getty Images
Chapter 10, Things Fall Apart, was a really hard read. You know it's happening. I was like, "All right, I need to brace myself a little bit." Hearing from the baggage handler, Kingsley, and his take on being right by her side of this chaos with the plane was wild. I can imagine this was the hardest part in writing the book.
I had to write that chapter first. I wanted to write the chapter first. I cried for two weeks straight then I went back to writing the book. It’s new information, first of all. There were a couple of things that we didn't know. I don't want to say I was angry at Aaliyah when she passed, but I was upset because the story was that she was adamant about getting on that plane. It made me really upset. I was upset with her. I was like, "Why would you fight so hard to get on that tiny plane?" to know that she didn't want to get on the plane.
And that she was handed the pill.
We still don't know what that was, but I wanted to put it out there. I needed every bit of information present just to really understand every piece of this puzzle that we have available. In theory, it still is a mystery, right? But in the interest of telling a story and giving a panoramic view, I had to include everything. Kingsley was just so incredibly brave for telling this story after so long and being able to even talk to some of his relatives. He spoke to his relatives. This was a family business. They were all a part of this. Even his aunt being there and his uncle and stepmother, like everybody being present, was just this incredible retelling of such a terrible event. I did have to do at first. I had to get it out of the way. I had to lose her to get her back.
By the time I finished the story, she was still alive for me. I didn't want it to end much like how the other books have been written. I didn't want it to end with the plane crash. I just started with the plane crash, and for me, it gave her a second life. By the time I finished the book, I was still very much in this part of Aaliyah being still with us and that made me happy. I started with the crash first. Then I went into the R. Kelly chapters. I was like, "Let me get the most stomach-turning parts of this book done, so that for the duration of this writing process, I can be happy and happy for her and add some levity to the situation."
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Photo: Eddie OTCHERE