God damn

Strong bump so I’m gonna bump again for one of the most beautiful people to ever live.


Two people have given me jungle fever more than anyone else…Ashley from the original Freah Prince of Bel Air, and Aaliyah.



And honorable mention goes to Vanessa Williams, but Aaliyah is definitely number 1.

Das fukin it mane

Repped

She looked WAY better in the 1st photo than she did in the 2nd photo. WAY better. Because less makeup, more natural-looking. For example, her lipstick line is painted to exaggerate the contours of her lips, when there was absolutely nothing wrong with them in the first place. Her 2nd photo is putting her on a hoochie trajectory, whereas in the first photo, there was ZERO to criticize.


"Try again" came out when I was still at least halfway listening to at least a little bit of music that was coming out at the time. That song caught my attention because of her duet with Rakim who was one of my 2 favorite male rappers. I think they worked well together in that song.


A lot of the appeal to Aaliyah was her thoroughly her particular aesthetic ran through her - it was in both her looks AND her voice. As the OP originally said, she wasn't particularly LOOK AT ME striking, she was just very calm and smooth and soothing and easy on the eye just like her voice was pretty much the same and easy on the ear. It's crazy and sad that she died when she did.


I would kind of put her in the same category as Sade in those terms, at least whereas her voice was concerned. And I've heard at least one song of J-Lo's where she did a truly excellent job of coming across as really caring and soothing and almost tremulously delicate but still reassuring.


I rarely listen to that kind of music. At one point, Sade was one of the people I listened to the most in my early/mid 20s, but when my really long love affair with Suzanne Vega started when I was about 22, and she becsme an acquired taste for me and my favorite musician ever, the general edginess and relatively weighty content of her music, overall, Vega started to both satisfy and enhance my taste for music with more edge and gravity. I wasn't in the mood for "soothing" and "easy on the ear". I realize that stuff like that is important, and I do need the occasional reminder, but for the longest time, I needed something edgier, with more gravity, and more compelling, although in Vega's package, it comes across in the form of "uneasy listening" rather than "brutal" listening.


But at times, I think nearly everybody could stand at least a little Aaliyah, Sade, and J-Lo. Even me. Nor sure that's where I'm at right now because of Hurricane Ian, but I'm somewhat in that direction, listening to select Grace Jones ("I've Seen That Face Before", for example).


To Aaliyah, on the other side, thank you for giving us what you did, and it really is a huge shame that you couldn't stay with us for longer.