Aaliyah changed the world, both on earth and beyond. What you’re about to experience is how she did it and how she still does it posthumously. Most of all, this is a book by an Aaliyah fan, for the Aaliyah fans, both new and old. The ones who cried the day she died and the ones who discovered her after decades past. The dedicated day ones and the newcomers, along with those who don’t even know they’re fans yet.
After all, Aaliyah was more than a woman. She was one in a million.
CHAPTER ONE: GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNING
Detroit turned out to be heaven, but it also turned out to be hell.
—Marvin Gaye
Detroit, Michigan, was once a city decorated with industrial domination and strong music-industry roots. Eventually dubbed the Motor City, Detroit would emerge as the epicenter for the automotive industry. Henry Ford drove the first car down a Detroit street in 1896. Three years later, he formed the Detroit Automobile Company. Almost every automotive company followed, forming their home bases in or around Detroit. It was like an industrial mecca, and one by one it was dismantled. Historians mark the year of 1958 as the beginning of the end for Detroit, once the Packard Motor Car Company closed shop after fifty-five years. What was once fueled with promise was now exhausting itself, as the city was losing its industrial steam.
However, as the automotive industry had begun its downward spiral there, music brought new life. In 1959, a Detroit native by the name of Berry Gordy started a musical empire that would change history when he borrowed $800 from his folks and formed Tamla Records. The following year, it was officially incorporated and renamed as Motown Records Corporation. Motown, a portmanteau of Detroit’s Motor City roots and the word “town,” was quite frankly the heart of what has now become American popular music, thanks to the Black musicians who encompassed it. Berry Gordy psychically named the headquarters of Motown Hitsville USA, the physical address being 2648 West Grand Boulevard. Artists like Diana Ross (and the Supremes), the Temptations, Smokey Robinson (and the Miracles), the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight (and the Pips), and Stevie Wonder were all residents of Motown at one point or another. Detroit would later become the hub of techno music thanks to a DJ named Juan Atkins and the center point for popularized battle rap, once Eminem became the pale face of Detroit’s hip-hop scene.
Detroit had grit and glamour. It was perhaps the perfect place to grow a complicated superstar, who ironically never owned a car.
Aaliyah Dana Haughton wasn’t actually born in Detroit but in New York, in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, on January 16, 1979. Her family had roots in the New York Transit Authority, along with operating several small businesses, including a laundromat and a tailor shop. Her father, Michael “Miguel” Haughton, worked several jobs before later becoming his daughter’s personal manager. Her mother, Diane Haughton, was also a singer, traveling early on with a touring theater company, though eventually she became a teacher. She left teaching to be a stay-at-home mom once her kids were born, later co-managing Aaliyah with her father. First came Aaliyah’s brother, Rashad, on August 6, 1977, and then Aaliyah arrived less than two years later. Her name is a spelling variation of “Aliya,” the feminine version of the name “Ali,” which in Arabic means “the highest, most exalted one.” It can also mean “the best” and “the champion,” like Muhammad Ali. When Aaliyah was five and Rashad was seven, the Haughton family moved to Detroit, Michigan.
There’s something very telling about Aaliyah being born in Brooklyn and raised in Detroit. For almost the entire duration of her musical career, she would self-identify as “street but sweet.” It was a cute little rhyme that truncated her style into two words, ones oftentimes diametrically opposed in society, though paired side by side to describe Aaliyah they were quite fitting. By the 1990s, Brooklyn supplanted the Bronx to become the heartbeat of hip-hop music alongside Queens, as artists like The Notorious B.I.G., Lil’ Kim, Nas, Foxy Brown, Mobb Deep, and Jay-Z ran the city. Those Brooklyn roots gave Aaliyah her edge—and she later returned to New York City during this heyday once she became a star. Meanwhile, Detroit’s smooth soul of Motown still gave Aaliyah this indescribable delicacy amid an inner city on the verge of decline. Street but sweet.
By the time the Haughtons relocated to Detroit in 1984, America—already deep into a recession on President Reagan’s watch—was just beginning to rebound. Despite the economy firing back up, work opportunities were still scarce. Diane’s brother, Barry Hankerson, had a few businesses in the Midwest, including a food distribution company and some warehouses, so Michael was bringing the family to Detroit so he could work with his brother-in-law.
Barry Hankerson was a former football player turned businessman and politician, who eventually worked his way into the music industry through the back door of local TV production. He married Motown’s own Gladys Knight in 1974 at the height of her career with the Pips, after helping her to produce a TV special. After five years, the two divorced and became entangled in a dramatic custody battle over their son, Shanga Hankerson. At one point, when Shanga was just two and a half years old, Barry was accused of attempting to kidnap his son. An article printed in the March 10, 1979, edition of the Indianapolis Recorder stated: “Sources said the couple has a temporary custody order which allows the child to spend one day with his mother and the following day with the father. It was after the day with the father that Hankerson did not return the child. According to news reports, Hankerson then called Knight and told her he would defy the court ruling, and would keep the child.” Shanga was finally returned back home to his mom. While Gladys Knight was already estranged from her ex-husband by the time Aaliyah was born, she still looked at Aaliyah and Rashad like her niece and nephew.
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When Aaliyah was around four years old, her mother realized she had the talent growing within her. It started with a young Aaliyah humming back to music playing in the house. Her tone, even at that age, showed that not only could Aaliyah recognize notes as they were being sung; she could also repeat them herself. Aaliyah then started inching her way into the business. Her family enrolled her in Gesu Catholic Church and School, located on the West Side of Detroit. While Gesu was called “one of the most influential Catholic parishes in the city of Detroit” by former Detroit Free Press writer Patricia Montemurri (who wrote an entire book on the church and school’s history), it was also known for its robust theater program. Students of all-spanning grades would perform in theater-company-quality musicals, oftentimes held in larger auditoriums like the 375-person theater at Marygrove College.
It was here that Aaliyah got her first break. At six years old, she was cast in the school musical of Annie. She had a supporting role as an orphan, with one line, as she told the New York Post in July 2001: “You’re gonna get the paddle.” Three years later, she starred in 42nd Street, only this time, through old, grainy video footage of Aaliyah at her rehearsals, she’s seen dancing and singing front and center as the director Suzanne McGill-Anderson’s voice is heard saying, “It’s wonderful because these kids have no inhibitions.” The local news interviewed Aaliyah, then nine, about her role, which also included leading the song “We’re in the Money.” Aaliyah made a joke about her director yelling a lot, though the reporter regarded her as a seasoned little veteran in the local theater circuit. After the show’s run, Aaliyah became a local singing fixture, from talent shows and more school productions such as Hello, Dolly! and 42nd Street to small events like weddings and other parties. Aaliyah took part in New Detroit, a racial-justice organization that would throw annual events around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, where Aaliyah would perform mostly covers of Whitney Houston songs. She was also enrolled in vocal training with Detroit vocal-music teacher Wendelin Peddy, who later taught at the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Aaliyah attempted to build upon her acting career when she auditioned in 1989 for the role of kid sister Judy Winslow on ABC’s prime-time comedy Family Matters about a Black middle-working-class
family. She didn’t land the role, though Aaliyah’s first real taste of stardom wasn’t far away.
CBS’s Star Search was one of the earliest examples of what would become the reality competition series of later years. Star Search, a precursor to America’s Got Talent, was where acts of all ages competed against one another. It was similar to an “amateur hour” style show, though ramped up to make the payoff far greater than a pat on the back and fifteen minutes of fame. As contestants continued to compete weekly, they would eventually reach a championship show, where the grand prize was $100,000 and an air-quoted possibility of a future recording contract, putting the “star” in Star Search. Many legends have lost on that show to opponents whose careers never saw the light of day. A prime example of that is Beyoncé’s 1993 loss with her group Girls Tyme (later morphing into Destiny’s Child) to a five-person band called Skeleton Crew. The wounds of that loss run deeply to this day, as Bey used footage of her losing performance for her 2014 single “***Flawless” off her surprise self-titled album in 2013. Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera both also lost on Star Search.
It was a show that Aaliyah not only was a fan of, but also saw as a game-changing opportunity to enter American households with one short performance. “My mother and I watched faithfully,” Aaliyah remarked about Star Search in her interview with Teen People in 1999. “And I always wanted to be on it.” Aaliyah competed against one of the returning Star Search champions, Katrina Abrams, in round one of the 1990 competition. Host Ed McMahon described Aaliyah as a “little person with a big voice” before announcing her to the stage. At ten years old, Aaliyah didn’t look like her future would be spent in loose jeans and tight tank tops. Her grandmother had sewn her a pretty dress, a black form-fitted top with a white ruffled bottom and a white half blazer. She had on white tights and black shoes, with her makeup and hair done elegantly. She sang the Babes in Arms show tune “My Funny Valentine” in a vocal combination of the theatrical version mixed with the Ella Fitzgerald cover. She chose that song because it was one that her mother had sung in the past during her time in theater, and Aaliyah wanted to be just like her. Her performance was dramatic, staged even, where her raw talent is cloaked beneath the obvious preliminary instructions to remain poised and demure while trying to steady her nervously shaking voice. Even when she’s interviewed by McMahon, Aaliyah’s expressions are very theatrical. Perhaps that was from her previous training, or it’s the result of child stars misinterpreting fame as maturity and their familial network cosigning it.
Aaliyah lost on Star Search, like most superstars do. Katrina received four stars; Aaliyah 3.25. She shook her winning opponent’s hand and left the stage. Aaliyah broke down in tears once she was off-camera. You can mask a child with layers of adult-leaning decorations, but at the end of the day, they’re just a kid. She didn’t head home right after her loss; on the contrary, she stayed and watched the show as a spectator and not the winner.
Still, Ed McMahon saw something in Aaliyah.
In Vibe’s August 2001 cover story on Aaliyah (circulated during the time of her death), Ed McMahon spoke on remembering her drive in that moment eleven years prior. “There’s a thing that you see when somebody walks out on the stage,” he told writer Hyun Kim. “I call it the fire. They got that inner fire, which has nothing to do with the schooling, nothing to do with the teacher, nothing to do with the parents. There is a desire in that person to please the audience. You see enough of it to recognize it. And that’s what I saw with Aaliyah.” While the loss was upsetting, Aaliyah pushed on. She would ask her mother every day if record labels saw her on television and called the family to sign her. It’s an endearing inquiry but really just showed how, even at ten years old, she knew what she wanted and was figuring out ways to get it. Having some famous family members didn’t hurt, either.
Despite Gladys Knight’s parting with the Hankerson family, she still stayed close to her niece. She arguably saw herself in the young star, considering Knight got her big break at seven years old competing on and winning the Original Amateur Hour TV program in 1952. In fact, when “Auntie Gladys” had her sold-out five-night residency at Las Vegas’s Bally’s Casino, she had an eleven-year-old Aaliyah accompany her for each of the five performances. The two would sing a duet of “Believe in Yourself” and Aaliyah had a solo moment performing “Home,” both from The Wiz. The first night, Aaliyah was so nervous that she stood in one spot on the stage, sang, and got right off. Knight pulled her aside afterwards to offer some encouragement. “[Knight] told me, ‘You’ve gotta learn how to move and work an audience,’ ” Aaliyah told MTV years later. “It was a great learning experience for me.” Aaliyah would later credit that string of performances as her greatest training for singing and performing live.
“From an early age, I knew she had enormous talents, an intrinsic gift,” Knight spoke of Aaliyah to BBC News following her passing. “When she first performed with me in Las Vegas, she was still quite young, but she already had it—that spark the world would later see and fall in love with.”
Aaliyah was groomed to be a superstar, in the most organic way possible. In the late eighties and early nineties, artists didn’t have YouTube to film song covers or post, nor did they have Instagram and TikTok (or any social media for that matter) to develop fan followings based upon fifteen-second clips. Aaliyah was too young for open-mic nights, like most rising stars back then who showed up with an acoustic guitar and gumption. Even in those instances, how many really make it into the business? What Aaliyah did have were two dedicated parents who wanted her to achieve her dreams, as they too recognized the intangible something that she had, even at such a young age. They also noticed an overgrown maturity.
“I was hot at ten. I had the little sex appeal working back then,” she told the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn in 2000. “When I was younger, we were getting me ready to come out in the business—I was looking for agents, so [my mother] was taking pictures of me, and she said, ‘Yo, she’s got this kind of sex appeal working. It comes through in the pictures and on the camera.’ ”
She also had her grandmother Mintis Hicks Hankerson, who supported her vision for stardom as a kid. “If there’s anything that inspired me, it’s my grandmother,” she told Black Beat magazine in 2001. “She always wanted to hear me sing. She would say, ‘Come here and sing “Get Here” for me!’ It made her so happy to hear me sing, so whenever I am down on myself and feeling down, I think of her.” Aaliyah later had a dove tattooed on her lower back in honor of her late grandmother, who passed in 1998. She also dedicated her final album, Aaliyah, to her grandmother.
Another person who saw that spark in a young Aaliyah was her uncle Barry, who by that point was no stranger to the biz. Hankerson was already cutting his teeth in theater, producing Ron Milner’s gospel musical Don’t Get God Started from 1987 to 1988 and One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show in 1991. He was managing The Winans, also acting as percussionist while coproducing 1985’s Let My People Go and 1987’s Decisions with Quincy Jones. While Hankerson was in Chicago holding auditions for Don’t Get God Started at the New Regal Theater, a young man was attempting to audition, but the auditions were closed per the security guard at the theater door. The young man desperately sang “Amazing Grace” for the guard, and one of the actors in the musical overheard. It was Chip Fields, known for her part on the seventies sitcom Good Times, and mother to Kim Fields from The Facts of Life and Living Single. Fields paid the young man $5 to return the next day and sing for Hankerson, along with reading a part of the script. There was one glitch: he didn’t know how to read, so the next day when he returned he played his demo tapes for Hankerson. What Hankerson witnessed was something far greater than a small supporting actor role in an Off-Broadway musical. This was a superstar in the making, and Hankerson wanted in on his inevitable success story.
The artist was Robert Sylvester Kelly, a twenty-two-year-old Chicago native who started as a street performer after dropping out of high school. He w
ould sing with his keyboard under Chicago’s “L” Metro transit as morning commuters would drop donations into his hat. It became his full-time job, where in an average “workday” he would take home $400. He later formed the group MGM (which stood for Musically Gifted Men) with a few friends; Robert was the front man. The group competed on the Star Search–esque show Big Break, hosted by Natalie Cole, and took home the $100,000 grand prize and released the single “Why You Wanna Play Me?” Their union was ill-fated, since the group couldn’t agree on money matters, yet their contract was binding. By the time Robert met Barry, he was attempting to untangle himself from MGM. After hearing him sing, Barry slid Robert out of one contract (with MGM) and into an exclusive management agreement with him. This was in 1990, and that summer, while Robert was at his friend’s barbecue, he returned to busker mode and performed for the guests. One of whom was an A&R executive at Jive Records named Wayne Williams. Williams approached him after the performance, and Robert was later signed to Jive Records as the artist R. Kelly. Barry Hankerson negotiated the deal.
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