The studio sessions were lengthy—sometimes for hours that would lead into the next morning—yet Timbaland compared it to being in a “funhouse,” where musical experimentation went wild. Missy was autonomous ever since her Swing Mob days. “The way Missy constructed those records was she would write the song and she would actually go in and she would do all of the parts,” Jimmy Douglass explains. “From soup to nuts, you know, harmony… that’s how she writes songs. In her mind, she would orchestrate all the parts.” They would then leave Aaliyah with Douglass to re-create the songs with Aaliyah’s own personality. “They would let me kind of reconstruct what they had just done with Aaliyah,” he continues. “And Aaliyah was fine with that. We would listen, track for track, and just replace, until it was the same arrangement—except that it was Aaliyah’s interpretation.”
In the July 20, 1996, issue of Billboard, reporter J. R. Reynolds penned a piece titled “Aaliyah Set Courts Broader Fan Base,” discussing her diverse changes on the new album. “Aaliyah was more involved with One in a Million than she was on her first album,” he writes, “taking co-writing credits and assisting in the creative direction on the project. ‘I wanted to maintain my smooth street musical image but wanted to be funky and hot, yet sophisticated,’ says the 17-year-old artist who has yet to sign a publishing deal.” Her label even smoothed over the switch from R. Kelly to a semi-star-studded production lineup in the piece; as Atlantic Records’ product development director, Eddie Santiago, told Billboard, “We wanted Aaliyah to keep growing, so we didn’t want to have the same suspects on her new project.” Aaliyah herself addressed the lack of R. Kelly’s presence on One in a Million in her interview with MTV: “That was a decision that I made,” she said in the interview. “I thought it would be best for my career and me personally to move on and really take control of this album.” When the interviewer pried further about her previous personal ties to R. Kelly being the reason he wasn’t a part of OIAM, Aaliyah continued, “Honestly, there were negative things that were said in the past, and that was one reason why I did feel it was best for me to move on. That was a rough period for me and my family—a very tumultuous time—but I’m a very strong person. I think it says a lot that I’m here today and I answer the questions.”
There was a lot riding on this project. Aaliyah carved her own lane with her debut, regardless of who was behind the wheel, and she blazed a trail for other female R&B acts to follow. Her next moves were going to either make or break her career, but she was up for the challenge, complete with a new record label behind her.
“I faced the adversity,” Aaliyah told Gonzales in her Request magazine interview. “I could’ve broken down, I could’ve gone and hid in the closet and said, ‘I’m not going to do this anymore.’ But I love singing, and I wasn’t going to let that mess stop me. I got a lot of support from my fans and that inspired me to put that behind me, be a stronger person, and put my all into making One in a Million.”
And that’s exactly what she did.
The intro to One in a Million is a stark contrast to the one from her previous album. Here, instead of her seductively scribbling secrets into her teenage diary, a bell’s toll is waking her up, with Missy Elliott calling her name. “Aaliyah! Aaliyah! Wake up,” she utters with a laugh, adding, “You’ve just now entered into the next level, the new world of funk.” Her words segue into “Beats 4 da Streets,” a small ditty where Aaliyah is basically announcing her arrival, as Missy sing-spells her name, “A-a-l-i-y-a-h.” Sure, on “Back & Forth” Aaliyah cooed her name (“Ooh, it’s the L-i-y-a-h”), but this was different. From the door, the team circled around their star. It wasn’t a declaration of secret love, nor was it a rookie’s big break while the bigger star knowingly checked in to shine on his own. No, this was an album titled One in a Million from an artist who was, indeed, one in a million. The album reflects that from beginning to end.
Thematically, One in a Million plays like a love story between two age-appropriate young people. Girl meets boy, but boy has another girl. Girl pushes boy away but still wants boy. Girl and boy finally get together; boy breaks girl’s heart. While Aaliyah was getting older, there was a purity to this project; it was almost as if there was a stronger recognition of what it meant to truly date someone and fall in love as a teenager. There were all of the key elements there, from love to heartache. That was poorly inserted into her debut, as it was layered with secrets and misbehaving behind closed doors. Here those doors were flung open and the world had begun to see the angelic magic of Baby Girl.
The first taste of the project came in July 1996 when the lead single, “If Your Girl Only Knew,” was released. The song is equal parts electronic and funky with hints of rock thanks to warbled bass-guitar licks. Timbaland’s deep, impactful voice handles the ad-libs like they’re their own bass lines while Aaliyah harmonizes over him. The song isn’t directly about taking another woman’s man. It’s about criticizing a man for having a woman while trying to land another one, even though the other woman is into it. There’s an underlying innocence to the song, while still remaining flirty and self-empowered. “I bet you like what you see,” Aaliyah sings. “It ain’t easy to get with me.”
For the music video (released July 8, 1996), director Joseph Kahn stuck to the same monochromatic alternation aesthetic from her last album’s visuals. They were a cool aspect that made sense. In the video, a motorcycle gang pulls up to the club. Aaliyah hops off the back of Ginuwine’s motorcycle, gives a pound to her brother, Rashad, at the door, and enters. The scene is in black and white, where the only ones in color are Aaliyah and the man about to leave his girlfriend (played by Lil’ Kim). Throughout the video, Aaliyah’s eyes are concealed again by dark goggles, until toward the end, where she opens them and they’re in color, switching from blue to green. Other cameos in the video include Missy, Timbaland, and R&B group 702.
It was the perfect transition from “Back & Forth” into her new era. She didn’t look like a completely different person, but the upgrade was evident. Aaliyah was noticeably older and more mature, her hair longer, and her clothes more fitted, while still baring her midriff and maintaining that tomboy chic look that she first arrived in. The song eventually reached Number One on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart but was a slow burn. It was perhaps due to all of the bubbling acts simultaneously circulating that year.
A month later, One in a Million dropped on August 27, 1996. The cover was shot by photographer Marc Baptiste, who met Aaliyah prior, to shoot her for what would be Seventeen magazine’s January 1997 cover. Baptiste got a callback to meet with Aaliyah and her family to discuss the album cover’s concept. “She was very focused,” Baptiste told Vibe. “She knew exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it.” They shot the cover in the Canal Street subway train station in New York City, moving over to the then-rugged Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO. The front cover is of Aaliyah in a leather motorcycle-style jumpsuit, perched up against a subway station frame with her album title embossed on the pillar she’s leaning against. The album is credited as executive produced by Jomo and Barry Hankerson; her father, Michael Haughton; and Craig Kallman. In her thank-yous, she thanks her “family, friends, and fans who supported me when the skies were not as clear as they are now!” She even wrote a whole song to her fans on the project, a short outro track called “Came to Give Love,” which was produced by and features Timbaland.
One in a Million debuted at Number Twenty on the Billboard 200. R. Kelly did, unfortunately, remain a part of the narrative for this album run, mainly due to his sudden disappearance. “Kelly had no publicized input on this record, and Aaliyah fares well in his absence,” Connie Johnson wrote in her Los Angeles Times review. “The 17 tracks offer no shortage of great material, ranging from the teasingly witchy ‘If Your Girl Only Knew’ to the gently poignant ‘4 Page Letter.’ ” Kris ex wrote in Vibe in 1996: “Jaundiced listeners will search to find Aaliyah’s hidden messages to R. Kelly throughout One in a Million. But despite the ever
churning rumor mills, Aaliyah has moved on past troubled waters.”
In October, the second single, “Got to Give It Up,” arrived with a music video, where Aaliyah sings into an old-school hanging dynamic microphone, while pivoting scenes to dance alongside a hologram of Marvin Gaye. By December, the title track was released. “One in a Million” marked the true turning point for Aaliyah. Initially, there was pushback from radio due to the sound. “[Radio] said they couldn’t blend it in, they couldn’t mix it in with records before it or after it because the cadence hadn’t been done before,” Missy Elliott told Billboard in 2018. “And so somehow, I think her uncle spoke to some people and they end up playing it. I know [Funkmaster] Flex was one of the first people to break that record in New York…. It was a headache at first.”
While the song was warmly received by critics and fans in its ability to show Aaliyah seamlessly weaving through Timbaland’s production—as she oozed sexy melodies over the beat—it was the music video that visually showed Aaliyah was on the verge of something entirely new and shape-shifting for the world of R&B. Aaliyah was dancing, really dancing.
The year 1996 marked a turning point in Black music. This year was the marker, where R&B and hip-hop had begun to blur their lines a bit more. In February, the Fugees released The Score, where the dynamic Lauryn Hill had the double duty of providing standout rap bars on the project as well as singing the phenomenal hooks, while bringing the trio to new heights with her cover of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly.” Meanwhile, in the spring Maxwell released his debut album, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, a project that oozed sexuality while also still playing the balancing act with what would later be christened “neo-soul.” Hip-hop was in full swing by the summer, with Jay-Z’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt, Nas’s It Was Written, A Tribe Called Quest’s Beats, Rhymes, and Life, and OutKast’s ATLiens (the latter released the same day as One in a Million). Hip-hop and R&B’s momentum would carry into the fall, even when rap music lost Tupac Shakur on September 13, 1996. The Roots released Illadelph Halflife, Mobb Deep brought Hell on Earth, 112 and Dru Hill dropped their eponymous debuts, 702 released their debut, No Doubt, while Ginuwine finally released that debut album, Ginuwine… the Bachelor, and Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown both emerged with their solo debuts in tandem, respectively titled Hard Core and Ill Na Na. There was a lot happening, but through it the lane was again wide open for Aaliyah to stand out. Since she had the foresight to work with producers and songwriters who straddled the line between hip-hop and R&B, her album was able to live in both worlds. During that time, it was the rappers who traipsed over to working with R&B artists in an effort to broaden their reach. Aaliyah worked in reverse, while still reaching that same end result. It was all a part of her process for change.
An important part of Aaliyah’s next-gen transformation was shifting her style. Again, it couldn’t be drastic; so many stars’ attempts at reinvention often look exactly like that: reinventing an existing performer and turning them into someone else completely. Typically it happens with musicians when they’re about to change their sound, so their hair, makeup, and dress will follow suit. That approach arguably lacks authenticity and feels more like a phase; with Aaliyah, there was staying power but also a need to create something striking visually, which had fans clamoring to look like her. Previously, her style was at the hands of her mentor—with a wardrobe filled with innuendos, like wearing a license plate with his state or a chain with his image still signifying his subtle dominance over her career. Now it was time to style an emerging icon on her own terms.
Her mother suggested she cover one of her eyes with her long hair, a “peekaboo” hairdo made popular by her mother’s favorite movie star, Veronica Lake. Aaliyah would later use the name Veronica Lake when she checked into hotel rooms in homage to the actress and her iconic hairstyle. Aaliyah’s favored eye to cover with her hair was her left eye, and even despite rumors still circulating that she was concealing a lazy eye, her fans quickly hopped on the trend and rocked an identical hairstyle for years to come.
Next, she needed a proper stylist who was all her own. She met stylist Derek Lee at a magazine shoot and within days asked him to join her team. Lee’s first major styling came with the “One in a Million” (admittedly Aaliyah’s favorite song on the whole album) video, where her evolution was quite clear. Her sunglasses came off, at least partly, only worn to accessorize and no longer hide. Her swooped hair still gave her an air of mystery, and in the video she’s wearing a sterling silver monocle-styled eye patch in some scenes, which many felt was a pun on the rumors that she was hiding a lazy eye under her hair and her shades. In that same look, she’s wearing a bra top that Lee purchased from a sex shop in New York City’s West Village neighborhood on Christopher Street. “I went mostly shopping in the sex shops,” Lee told Nylon in 2020. “That’s why you see a lot of leather and stuff like that in there, because that was really my only option, along with the clothes that I already had, like the flight suit. And she loved it and she rocked it.”
Her pants also fit differently, showing her slight curves and somehow striking a balance of femininity and androgyny. Her fingers were adorned with asymmetrically cut rings. She almost looked unreal; her beauty was in full view and her clothing accented what God had already given her. Derek made her soft yet tough. It was once again that “street but sweet” effect, only monumentally upgraded. From leather biker jackets and jumpsuits to all white loose jeans and cropped tanks, along with leather pants and bikini tops, this would become the “Baby Girl style” that fans and other artists would mimic for generations to come. It all started with this video. A remix was tacked on featuring Ginuwine, which had the whole team (Missy, Timbaland, and the others) front and center in the video. And then, of course, the dancing. Choreographer Sorah Yang provided the moves for Aaliyah, and her background in dance proved helpful in adding this new tool to her arsenal. It was all coming together masterfully, as Aaliyah was showing herself to be multidimensional and again being able to separate herself from the competition.
The director of the “One in a Million” video (and its subsequent remix video) was Paul Hunter. Hunter had also directed “Got to Give It Up” and the two would reconnect years later on “We Need a Resolution.” The perfect picture came to life. The lights, the cameras, Aaliyah in action. With her new style coming through new lenses, everything changed. She was coming into her own, to the point where when anyone thought of Aaliyah this was the visual they conjured up.
Later, single releases off the album like the magical “4 Page Letter” continued her visual story, with a mythical element in her wardrobe to match the video’s fairy tale “Once upon a time”–esque theme. That concept came from Aaliyah’s brother, Rashad, who wrote a short story about Aaliyah that was sent over to the music-video director Daniel Pearl. Pearl, a friend of Barry Hankerson’s, worked with Aaliyah as cinematographer on the “One in a Million” video and the remix video. They called him for “4 Page Letter,” which became his directorial debut. “I was impressed from the beginning with her sophistication for her age,” he told Vibe in 2016. “It’s a very interesting blend of professionalism and innocence that she possessed that appealed to me.” The “4 Page Letter” single also had another brother-sister connection, as the B side, “Death of a Playa,” was the song that Aaliyah wrote together with her brother.
When “Hot like Fire” was released, she was already eighteen and very much leaning into her adulthood. The video is red themed, with Aaliyah donning a thin crisscross-strapped bikini top and red camouflage pants in some scenes while alternating with a fishnet top in other scenes. In the video Aaliyah still is styled true to form, and by this point any diversion would have been a stark contrast to the visual everyone was now used to. She’s wearing red camouflage—custom designed by 5001 Flavors Clothing Co., along with mismatched Clarks Wallabees shoes, which her stylist felt was a nod to her Jamaican heritage (since Clarks shoes were big in reggae and dancehall). Her top was plain,
and tempered the sexy “Hot like Fire” motif in a perfect way. Street but sweet. It arrived in tandem with the album’s final single, the Diane Warren–penned ballad “The One I Gave My Heart To” (the radio single produced by pop producer Guy Roche); the music video (directed by Darren Grant) was more subdued than the others but still stylish.
The singles penetrated multiple charts. “If Your Girl Only Knew” topped Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while also hitting Number Five on the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart. “One in a Million” hit Number One on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Number Two on both the US Dance Club Songs chart and Rhythmic. Both singles were also international successes, along with “Hot like Fire,” which reached Number Three on the UK R&B chart, among others. “4 Page Letter” only reached Number Twelve on the US R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, but it did reach the Top 10 on the UK’s R&B chart, while also charting across Europe. “The One I Gave My Heart To” had even more international reach, charting in the UK, the Netherlands, Scotland, and New Zealand, while reaching the Top 10 here on Billboard’s Hot 100, Hot Dance Singles, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and Rhythmic charts. Aaliyah proved she was multi-faceted and not your run-of-the-mill act who can only stay in one lane. Her reach was far and wide, and the world was starting to take notice.
Aaliyah took the sound that Timbaland and Missy were concocting and she ran with it, but what she also did was give it validity. They were on the brink of something, about to change how music would sound for generations to come, but they needed to house it somewhere. Aaliyah was that home. She was the physical embodiment of their style and their musical swag. The piecing of her together with them was indomitable.
When Craig Kallman called Aaliyah the “perfect package,” he wasn’t kidding. She had a strong team beside her: songwriters who understood that she wanted to be an adult yet remain girlishly flirty, producers who understood that the goal was to remain simultaneously classic and futuristic, and a stylist who understood that she wanted to accentuate her body through the use of clothing so that she wore the clothes—the clothes didn’t wear her. Underneath it all, though, was Aaliyah… the natural born star.
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