Aaliyah: baby girl, better known as Aaliyah, conjured the future between the beats. She was enigmatic and cutting edge as R&B, pop and the rest if the music world may ever see. We glimpse the brief life of an angel. So fly.

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MISSY ELLIOTT

Me and Timbaland flew to Detroit. They was testing us out to see if we could make a hit record for Aaliyah, because she was coming off the project for R Kelly and I guess they wanted to try some new producers. We was kinda nervous because we hadn't done records for any artists of that caliber, but when we first met her, she treated us like she knew us for years, like we grew up with her. She was always very sweet, always smiling and she made us feel like we was big producers when we didn't have no record out. Even coming off a big album, she never once treated us like we were beneath her. Me and Tim, our sound was so far left that it was kinda hard for people. They liked it, but they didn't know if they really liked it, because it was so different from everything else on the radio. But the weird thing was, as soon as we did "One in a Million," she immediately thought it was a hit. We didn't have to convince her, she was like, I'm telling you, this is hot. I knew then there was a chemistry. She wasn't close-minded. She was an artist that got it.

After that, we became family. She was my little sister and Tim was my brother. And we became the Supafriends! We felt like we was gonna save the world. We was gonna change music every chance that we got. We felt like we was gonna always be family. Forever.

I think when "If Your Girl Only Knew" first came out, people kinda said, Oh, she got a new sound. But then when "One in a Million" came out, the beat and the melody were so different from anything. I was in a club one night, the DJ took it back TEN TIMES, no lie. And this was in the middle of him playing, like, Biggie records and Tupac records, and here goes "One in a Million" in the middle of all this street rap! That's when I said, OK, this is something different--we are going somewhere else, we are kind of switching the sound.

Sometimes when I'm talking to Ciara, we'll bring Aaliyah into the conversation. I know that she would be somewhere in outerspace at this moment, because she grabbed onto the same mentality that we had: be risky. We always said we don't want somebody else to do it before we do it, so let's just take it there. How do you know if people are gonna like it or not if you don't at least try it?

I never seen Aaliyah get mad. She was always so relaxed and reserved. I remember one time at an awards show, me and her and Tim went and got these outfits. I ain't dressed like somebody else since junior high school, but we all got these Pony burgundy outfits.

We was so mad cause we felt like she's gonna win, and she didn't get anything! And she was like, It's cool. But us, we was like, Nah, man, that One in a Million album was a classic! But she was like, I'm just happy to be nominated. I never seen her go out of character. She was always sweet and caring and compassionate. Just a good person.

With the sunglasses, I think it was just persona. I mean, she was always a star, but when people can't see your eyes, they really don't know how you looking. Your eyes tell a lot, and by her covering them, they really never knew what her personality was. I think once she took the sunglasses off and got into her girl clothes, it was like, Wow, she's grown. I think people started to feel like they knew her.

Even though she had the big baggy pants on, there was still like a sex appeal. She was like that round the way girl, cause at that time, you had a lot of females dressing in baggy clothes. She kind of related to the regular chicks but at the same time she had a sex appeal to her, so I think it translated. It was a mystique and it gave her room to keep growing each album.

I still get guys that are like, I used to love me some Aaliyah, or, I got her on my screensaver. I think every guy had a crush on Aaliyah. If a guy tried to approach her, she was always nice, but you know, it wasn't like, OK, I'm gonna call you in an hour! But she was always like, Thank you so much, and that was that. She was very focused on her music and her family, so I don't think she really took to anything they said, until her third album, when she was like, OK, I'm grown now. Maybe I'll give you a call.

Right before she did Queen of the Damned, she came to my hotel and she had these huge gold teeth from one of those comedy stores.

I kept begging her to do the lines, and she was doin them with these big teeth that was sticking out of her mouth. And we just laughed and laughed and laughed, over and over again. That was my last, greatest memory because, like, she's a clown! She liked to have fun.

I was in Jamaica when I found out she passed. Somebody called me, but there were so many different rumors on other artists like Luther [Vandross] and Whitney [Houston] at the time that I really cursed another artist out cause I thought they were playin. People were calling cause they thought me and Tim was with her. Then when they started saying this person was with her and this person and this person, I kept hanging up on people. But when I called Tim I could tell something was wrong.

It's like losing a family member. It's not like Aaliyah the superstar, the celebrity. It's like my little sister. You feel empty, you feel in shock, you feel angry. That's a feeling I can't even really explain.

Most people look at her as an angel. That's what she was. I'm not saying that because people feel like they have to say great things because somebody passed away. It is what it is. She was a sweet person with great, incredible talent who didn't compromise who she was for the world. It was like: I'm gonna be a trendsetter, I'm gonna be an icon, even when I'm gone, you gonna always remember me.

Missy Elliott is a rapper, producer and songwriter who, with Timbaland, wrote several Aaliyah hits including "One in a Million," "If Your Girl Only Knew," "4 Page Letter" and "I Care 4 U."

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DAMON DASH 

I knew her as an artist first; I mean I always liked her music, her dancing and whatever. Then when I met her we just kinda hit it off. It was like we had the same rhythm, the same ambition. She was taking over, like just into everything. She was already a fashion icon, she was getting into movies, she had already planted that seed. If she was alive today she would be so relevant. I see little bits of her everywhere I look, in a lot of artists.

The thing with Aaliyah is that everybody liked her. I mean, people who didn't like anybody liked her. Didn't just like her, were obsessed with her. She was just super-cool. She had this certain swagger about her. Her coolness was just innate, it was in everything she did. It was like trying without trying, you know what I mean?

She wasn't exactly dark, but she was into sphinxes and all those Egyptian things. She was adventurous. For somebody to be so sweet and still be so fearless, that's not something people are used to, I guess.

There was nobody pulling her strings, it was all her. The vision, the style was all her. She really wanted it. She died working, you know? She didn't die playing around.

Damon Dash was Aaliyah's boyfriend at the time of her death. He is a film producer, entrepreneur and the cofounder of Roc-a-Fella Records.

BLAQSTARR

I used to be in love with Aaliyah. I would get mad because I couldn't find a girl like her. So I just played her music and dreamed. From time to time, I'll take it to a slow session and "One in a Million" is one of the songs I play. With slow music people dance close--they might touch each other's butt--but I've seen people grinding hard, bent over, hands on the ground to "One in a Million." Aaliyah was the pioneer: cute girl, soft voice, dancing and hard-ass beats.

Blaqstarr is a DJ and Baltimore club producer.

KIDADA JONES 

Me and Aaliyah met at a Tommy Hilfiger fashion show that I styled in about '93. She had really small feet and so did I and she didn't have shoes for the show so I remember loaning her my shoes. Then we met again on the Tommy Hilfiger photo shoot when we were both in the ad.

You know when the dogs are at the dog park and they run up to each other and their tails wag and they smell each other? It was just easy. As soon as we met we just started talking and that was it. We were like four or five years apart. We were into fashion, music, boys, pop culture. Sense of humor, that's what I would say was our common ground. We used to do prank call after prank call. Once we pranked my dad [Quincy Jones] and she acted like she was Christina Aguilera. She was asking my dad to do something on her record and she was just singing, and he totally believed it was her. When he was like, What number can I call you back at? she gave him my home number. He still didn't realize that it was us! I called him right after and he goes, Christina Aguilera just called me, but then he looked up the number and he figured it out.

Her mom allowed me to be her guardian for a little bit. I was a few years older so when she went to Europe, I was the guardian--which was a complete and total nightmare. I'll keep it mild, but it was just young fun and maybe I didn't really understand the boundaries. We got in trouble quite a few times, but she was the funnest friend. A lot of friends have quarrels, and maybe we had a couple disagreements, but our friendship was based on going out and having a great time. We ate breakfast late at night. We got our nails done a lot. We shopped a lot--when no one even knew what Kitson was, we would be there all the time. We spent a lot of time getting matching outfits and clothes. We had boyfriends at the same time, so we would get them the same presents. We even vacationed together, we went to Fiji.

We did a lot of making up dances. We had one to "Too Close" by Next--that was our JAM! When we would go to the club we would dance together like those two girls in House Party. We did it all the time! Every time we got to a dancing place we'd end up doing the House Party dance. Right in the middle of the party! I mean, we didn't even care! People just thought we were stupid.

I think about her all the time. She was so sweet. She just left like a sweet coating over everything. Anytime she's brought up or her music comes on the radio, it's sweet, but it definitely sounds like she found a niche before it was here. If you listen to her music it's so relevant today, but we had it so long ago.

There was an edgier side to her that people didn't know. She was more forward thinking than most people. Deeper. She was fine spending time alone. She was a thinker. A little risky in fashion, she was trendsetting. We were in the process of starting a girl's clothing line, it was called Dolly Pop. Right when she passed we were getting ready to sign our contracts for that. We were making plans for this brand that was gonna be girly and cute and have Japanese inspiration. This was seven or eight years ago, so the whole Japanese inspiration wasn't at the forefront.

Her instinct was definitely forward and a little brave. She was a risk-taker. She absolutely pioneered the whole falsetto over a heartbeat, and the whole feminine-meets-tomboy mysterious dance routine. That's her. She very much paved that way for girls. And then you see those girls go from girl to woman. From her first video to her last video, you see Aaliyah go from teenage girl to woman. She evolved at a really nice pace.

Kidada Jones was Aaliyah's best friend. She is an actress, model, and jewelry and fashion designer.

DREW DANIEL

At her peak, Aaliyah made pop music stagger. I mean that literally--the clipped bursts of her vocal phrasing and Timbaland's snare patterns were so fitful and tricksy that as a listener I was stopped in my tracks by the way that the music itself seemed to stop in its tracks. The first time I heard "Are You That Somebody?" I had to shut up and listen very carefully, because the silent dropouts and gaps within the performance were so arresting. They made a pop tune on the soundtrack to Dr Doolittle into the R&B equivalent of "Nude Descending a Staircase." It was fresh and felt almost "obvious" in the way that really new ideas often do, a possibility within the pop song that had always been there but that nobody had flagged before. Years later, when everybody and their mom busily attempted to rip off the Timbaland/Aaliyah chemistry, I was in a karaoke bar in Tokyo with my brother and we were thinking about what song to do next. We were feeling overconfident, having sailed with ease across Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side," which a corpse could sing, and the Smiths' "There is a Light that Never Goes Out"--Japanese karaoke bars are deep like that. So we got cocky and attempted to sing "Are You That Somebody?" We sucked! It was only then that I realized just how controlled and sophisticated Aaliyah's singing really is. She defined the courtly ideal of "sprezzatura" in the way that she concealed great artifice behind something that seemed to just flow. Pop radio is still trying to keep up. I miss her music.

Drew Daniel is an assistant professor in the English Department at Johns Hopkins University. He plays music with Matmos and, solo, as the Soft Pink Truth.

TIMBALAND

She was a sister to me. She was very talented and gave a lot at a young age. I miss her very much.

Timbaland is a producer whose close work with Aaliyah resulted in numerous hits, including "One in a Million," "Try Again" and "We Need a Resolution."

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DAVE 1

I got into Aaliyah early, "Back and Forth" was my jam. Obviously the record that really blew my mind was "Are You That Somebody?" Timbaland got the respect he got at the very end of the '90s thanks to his productions for Aaliyah. She was the perfect vehicle for Timbaland to ascend to such heights because she never over-sang and because she didn't take too much space on the song. That gave a very endearing and candid quality to her performances. She was kind of the anti-R&B singer. It was never about her doing this crazy, schmaltzy, over-the-top performance, like the Mary J Blige and K-Ci joint on MTV Unplugged. She was this oddity in the R&B world because she left us with these classics. This was the girl who didn't make too many efforts to make herself noticed and really stood by the quality of the songs. These are timeless records, and it's moving because there aren't that many timeless records in R&B. "Rock the Boat" is a little more adult contemporary, but I still loved it. That was the jam that was on the radio nonstop when I first moved to New York. She was in my head so much I went and bought her T-shirt. In 2003 or 2004, at every show I would wear that Aaliyah T-shirt. Back then people thought it was almost ironic, but I was like, You guys are crazy. I gave her a shout out during "Needy Girl" at every show.

Dave 1 is the singer and guitarist in Chromeo.

NEOSHA KING 

We had the pleasure of meeting her a couple years back. We were rehearsing at the same studio, which is at Crossover here in Atlanta. Her career was just about to take off. Every single female in the United States wanted to be her at that time. Getting to meet her, getting to know her, she was the sweetest person you could ever meet. She signed an autograph, we took a picture and everything was amazing. When the ["Are You That Somebody?"] video came out, everybody in high school, middle school, elementary, was trying to be Aaliyah. Everybody would literally come to school with the baggy pants and belly tops and get in trouble.

Neosha King is a singer with her three sisters in the R&B group Cherish.

JOMO HANKERSON

I was in my last year at Pepperdine when we started Blackground in '91. Pop [Barry Hankerson] had been managing R Kelly for several years and the Jive relationship was blossoming. When we brought Aaliyah on to our label, she was around 12. She had already won second place on Star Search, and her mom--my aunt Diane--is a phenomenal singer, so it was always in the stars that she was gonna be an entertainer. For the first album she went to Chicago and worked with R Kelly. Things were great at that time and R Kelly really understood what to do with her album. The big thing was that we were just trying to do great music. At the time there were some other young artists out and people made a big deal about their age, so when we came out with Aaliyah it was a big thing for us to say, This music is great no matter how old she is.

I think a lot of that mysteriousness they talk about was just what she was. She seemed like she came here already grown up, from the beginning. She was a person that you wanted to hang out with, like wanting to be at the cool kids' table. I was eight or nine years older than her and she was still cool. You just wanted to be around her.

Even though she was so successful on the first album, there were a lot of questions about if the second album would be as great. But Aaliyah was very focused about what she wanted. She wanted to be taken as an artist, not as a product of a super producer, so it was very important to her to put her own stamp on things from the bottom to the top. In the process of recording One in a Million, we got a demo from Timbaland and Missy. The song was called "Sugar and Spice," which felt a little too kiddie to us, but the structure of the record, the melody, had what became Tim's signature triple-beat on it. We were overwhelmed, and we sent it to Aaliyah. She called us back like, The track is crazy, this is the best thing I've ever heard. So we flew Timbaland and Missy into Detroit to work with her.

The thing about "One in a Million" was that nobody thought it was the record it turned out to be but us. We had a lot of resistance to it when we sent it out as the single. Some radio program directors really had a problem with the crickets, the program director in Chicago at the time literally said he wouldn't play a record that had crickets in it. It didn't fit into any category. It was a club record, but it was a ballad. It was bass heavy, but it was a huge pop record. And unfortunately, the way radio works, they like to know where to put a record when they hear it.

Atlantic thought we should remix the record and take the triple-beat down to make it more radio-friendly, but we were very bullheaded about it. We heard they were trying to get remixes done, so we took the tapes out the studio! Back in those days before ProTools you could really control where the music went. If you had that two-inch reel, you had the record. So we grabbed the two-inch reels and all the tapes so nobody could do any unauthorized remixes and we stuck to our guns on that version of the record. At the radio stations where we would finally get it played, the phones would light up, and they couldn't not play it afterwards. It took a long time, but when it broke, it stayed forever. It paved the way for Aaliyah to become that trendsetter. We felt like we were on the cutting edge. Did we really know 15 years later Tim was gonna be still dominating? We knew he had the ability, but who could guess that?

She was really in her power zone for Aaliyah, and she was like, awesome. That was the only way to put it. She had done Romeo Must Die, which was a big hit, and she had acted really well in that. She was getting movie roles, she was about to film The Matrix [sequels]. She was just in a creative power zone. She never left a hit in the studio. There's so many times that artists would pass on a record. Aaliyah got all her hits. She never let one pass her.

She was a force of nature. She definitely was.

Jomo Hankerson is Aaliyah's cousin and, with his father Barry, runs Blackground Records, which released her music.

DRI 

Oh my god. All my girlfriends and I were sooo into her. It was summertime and we all memorized the words to "Throw Your Hands Up" and just lived for it. I had braces, and I listened to that Aaliyah record like it was my full-time job. I thought it was so dope that she'd wear those dark sunglasses with, like, a flannel, and was allegedly married to R Kelly, even though they denied it. God, I loved that. Someone gave me this mix a while back that has two Aaliyah tracks on it that I love. The mix is weird--a 45-minute jam that goes from world music stuff into reggae--but it has two Aaliyah tracks mixed into it. The song I love is from her last record--the one from 2001 where she looks so fine on the cover--and it's the one where she sings about meeting up with some dude and having no panties on. [Editor's note: When asked to clarify, Dri believes she is conflating "Rock the Boat" with a verse on "I Need You Tonight," a Junior MAFIA track featuring Aaliyah.] I heard it again and was like, Excuse me? No panties? It just made me think about how she and I were almost the same age and she had gone from being this teenager that I identified with and idolized, to years later being this older woman who had grown into her sexuality and was very no-nonsense about it. I loved that.

Adrianne Verhoeven, aka Dri, is a singer and songwriter and a former member of the Anniversary.

CASSIE

She passed the day before my 16th birthday. I had a big house party and found out on my birthday, the day after. It was just a moment of shock and disbelief. I didn't have a real plan for becoming a singer, but I grew up saying, I'm gonna meet Aaliyah. The first song that I learned when I went to meet with producers was "Miss You." When you're working on a song and you want to put yourself in a place, you think of someone you want to emulate. I think about her a lot. She's a constant part of the music-making process for me. I definitely feel like we've faced similar criticisms. I met a lot of people who knew her personally who told me she had a hard time performing live. I watched her on Regis and she was just sitting on a stool with her hair over her eye and maybe she didn't hit the right notes, but you didn't care because she believed in herself so much. That's what you look up to as a young girl.

Cassie is an R&B singer.

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EZRA KOENIG

The first video of Aaliyah's that I can remember seeing is "Are You That Somebody?," which happened when my parents first allowed us to have cable. I was about 14 when it came out. Even though I was still very young, up until then I had, in a suburban way, this rebellious period of being into punk and being really interested in what I perceived as an anti-mainstream attitude. Seeing MTV for the first time, I had this slow epiphany that this anti-mainstream posturing was kind of lame, and some of the pop music going on--like the tracks Aaliyah was doing with Timbaland--was a lot more interesting than crusty old punk feelings about what was new or fresh. That song made me realize that all the things that I like about weird music--being minimalist, using sounds you wouldn't expect--were going on in the most pop music, the things that everybody in my school listened to. I started to realize that as much as I liked music that prided itself on being outside the mainstream, I couldn't wholeheartedly agree with anybody that thought all the things that are mainstream pop and all the things on MTV were garbage, because it just wasn't true.

Ezra Koenig is the lead-singer and a guitarist in Vampire Weekend.

CIARA

I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing the things Aaliyah was doing, but I think there are some things that you just can't avoid. I'm a tomboy and to my understanding, that's a similarity with her and I'm sure that's the reason why we wear clothes a certain way. It was just important to me to make sure that we had different energy, that there are different things going on. I wear my baggy pants because that's what I feel. It's just me expressing myself, and in no shape or way of trying to emulate what she has done, although I have tons of respect for her. It's funny too, because I remember a time period when Missy Elliott was telling me that I reminded her of Aaliyah and I felt that was really touching because she was saying that I reminded her of her on a personal note and I've heard so many great things about her personality. I heard she was very sweet and for Missy to say that was very, very meaningful to me. As an artist too, because of those comparisons, it has really, really motivated me to create my own thing and just be true to who I am. If she was here, I would've loved to maybe do a song or do a video together. To be able to merge our styles would've been really cool.

Ciara is an R&B singer.

BARRY HANKERSON

She was my niece. Her mother was a very focused person, very task-oriented and she raised her children like that. So Aaliyah was a perfectionist. She knew what she liked at a young age. She had a great deal of insight into where she was going with her music. I never really had any chance to see her as an adult. She was still a little girl to me when she left here. My sister was with her most of the time. She made sure that Aaliyah had a young life, she made sure Aaliyah went with her friends shopping at the mall.

She could do anything with her voice, but she never over-worked it to where she would be in your face with it. She was more smooth and subtle in her lyrics--very sensual, very subdued--but the power of her range and her ability to sing on key in very high octaves, as she grew, she was getting more and more in control of that.

Detroit always had a strong jazz community. If you listened to the radio station WJZZ and WJLB, you would hear very similar programming, even though WJLB was an R&B station. You could hear George Clinton and the next minute you could be listening to George Benson, the next minute you may have a Miles Davis record, and she was always listening to that.

It really popped open for Static and Missy and Timbaland as well as Aaliyah; that was a crucial role that I had, because nobody had ever heard their music at that point. In fact, Craig Kallman at Atlantic Records told me I was crazy for even listening to it. We did One in a Million with very little money. We were stressed because we had been so successful with the first album, and we knew we had to follow it up, but she was never worried. She was just like, It's gonna be fine Uncle Barry. This is my time. Don't worry.

Barry Hankerson is Aaliyah's uncle, her manager and the owner of Blackground Records.

LIZA MONTOYA

I met Aaliyah for the first time on the set of "One in a Million." She was very laidback, very comfortable for someone of her age. Her style was completely organic, she called it "street but sweet." It was sporty and comfortable, and mostly a wardrobe full of men's clothes, which was refreshing because we weren't stuck in the formula of what R&B and hip-hop had become with the gowns and the make-up. Derek [Lee] would source out life vests at sporting goods stores or big baggy leather and fur pants. Towards the end, Derek and her were even discussing the idea of making her into a cartoon character or superhero, that was our goal. If it wasn't for Fatima Robinson's flamenco choreography in "Are You That Somebody?" then we wouldn't have been able to get her into a skirt.

She was always very definite about what she liked, for example in the "Hot Like Fire" video she wanted to wear two different colored shoes--one red Wallaby and one black Wallaby. I remember being really impressed that she wanted to wear a metal eye patch in "One in a Million." I think that's where the rumor came from about her [lazy] eye, but there was really nothing wrong with her eye at all.

I think one of the most pivotal moments for me was on the set of "More Than a Woman." Eric [Ferrell], her makeup artist, and I were looking at the first take on the monitor. Her hair was finally pulled back and she was in all white. I remember thinking to myself that she looked like an angel and I turned to Eric and said, "She grew up on us, she's a woman now." It was something special that day, it was something in the way she looked. I tend to think now that it was because she was going to go. I truly believe that it was her time because something was different, something had changed--she looked angelic.

Along with Derek Lee, Liza Montoya was part of the styling team that worked closely with Aaliyah for five years.

TANK

I first met Aaliyah when she was 19, when I got a job singing background vocals for Ginuwine. Aaliyah came to one of the rehearsals and she watched us for like 30 minutes. After that, we got a call saying Aaliyah wanted her background singers to sound like us. Soon after that we got the call saying, "Tank you need a job, and you're hired."

It was crazy to see the Aaliyah I knew behind closed doors and then the Aaliyah that got on stage and put the shades on. [Offstage] she seemed like a fun teenager, not even thinking about the fact that she was this big superstar that just sold two million records. You would never be able to tell by the way she and her friends ran around giggling and cracking jokes. In practice she'd always be trying to figure out what games we could play, like, Let's play tag! Then all of a sudden it was showtime and it just clicked on.

Aaliyah's interaction with her dancers and the way she slid in and out of the choreography was very smooth. Somehow she was just dancing and then the next minute she was on the speakers. When I was with her at the Hot 97 Summer Jam in New York, there must have been 15 dancers on stage, explosions, confetti. It was the biggest thing I'd seen in a long time and she was at the center of it, controlling. That show right there, it was like, Yeah I'm a singer, but I want to be a performer.

She was really adamant about developing the power in her voice. She was like, I like singing pretty, and I like having the angelic voice, but I want to sing harder. I want to sing from the soul. With singing, it's not totally about what you can do, it's about being able to see where to put these things. Aaliyah could do all the runs, but to be like an artist painting, to know where to put the tree, it takes a little more imagination. Her confidence was everything. She was like, I'm a woman and I'm Aaliyah, I can try it if I want to.

Tank is an R&B singer and songwriter.

ANDREW WK

I used to watch a late night music video station called The Box, which was the only music-related television I received on my TV set in Brooklyn. I remember seeing Aaliyah's music videos a lot. I remember especially the video for "Are You That Somebody?" It featured a hawk-bird, a Gehryesque set and musical baby-crying. I also think that crying baby was a sound specifically used on Sesame Street, which I watched daily for many years. Aaliyah's baby made a major impression on me, and I will always associate her with babies. She is, in more ways than one, forever young and endlessly reborn.

Andrew WK is an artist and musician.

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BETH DITTO

When "Are You That Somebody?" came out, you knew it was something so special and amazing. Nothing had ever sounded like that at all. Our cover was an accident. There's only three people in the Gossip. If something breaks it's just me and the drummer to fill the space. So what happened was, it was really quiet, and I started to sing, Boy, I've been watching you like a hawk in the sky ... And of course the whole crowd starts singing it too, because everybody knew it. And it kept happening. Every time a string would break or there would be some dead silence and I wouldn't know what to do, but I felt like something had to be done, I would start singing that. About the third time that it happened, Hannah [Blilie] started drumming and as soon as the guitar would come back on, [Nathan Howdeshell] would jump into it, and that's how it happened. Sometimes I don't even know if the words are right! My Locs, my eyes, just so I'm low key. Is that what she's saying? Being from Arkansas, what reference do you have for anything?

Beth Ditto is the singer of the Gossip.

LIZZI BOUGATSOS

My drummer and friend in Gang Gang Dance [Tim DeWit] filled my iPod with tracks. He introduced me to Aaliyah. He made me a mix of women singers he liked to help inspire my singing. "More Than a Woman," "It's Whatever," "Miss You," "Rock the Boat." The last track really moved me because I listen to a lot of opera singers and I liked the layering. It really showed her vocal diversity and spoke the real language of song and how it fills one's heart. It's a milestone. She sang about how a woman really feels. Her collabs with Timbaland really got me right in the gut. She's also mighty sexy in an androgynous way. Growing up listening to Hot 97 as a youth and studying dance for 18 years, I always loved the influences--straight up African stuff with a sexy Ethiopian twang. I like to rep female singers because it's hard to be a woman. Most peeps don't realize that there is still this competition for women singers, so I try and represent them when I can to help spread the love.

Lizzi Bougatsos is an artist and musician who plays in Gang Gang Dance and IUD.

ERIC FERRELL

I first worked with Aaliyah on the photoshoot for her first album Age Ain't Nothing But a Number. She was 15 at the time. She was very, very shy and really reserved and it was funny because I noticed that she kept looking at me strangely that day. Later on, as we got closer, she told me that it was the first time she'd had her makeup done professionally, and wasn't used to being stared at and having her makeup checked. "You know, back then I didn't know the routine so I thought you were weird," she used to say. It took her a long time to get accustomed to it because she was really into the tomboy thing and was resistant to too much glamour. I think there was part of her that didn't want that sort of attention, because somewhere down inside she thought she wouldn't be taken seriously. She wanted to come off a little tougher, like, I'm not this bubblegum girl. I think it was a good choice because it left her room to grow.

Then, all of a sudden, she turned into a woman overnight. I remember when we were getting ready for the MTV awards show, and she wore the yellow and black Cavalli dress. It was the first time she'd really worn something couture, like a full-on gown. When she walked out I teared up and she asked me, What's wrong with you, and I said, You're a grown woman!

We had all these little code words, her family really introduced me to the word "irk." If someone was irking her she would bend the tip of her index finger down so we all knew, it was our inside joke. On the set of Romeo Must Die, for example, there was this one production assistant who was a little overzealous, so every time she would talk to her, Aaliyah would hold the finger up and we'd be in the background cracking up. I remember this one time when her and Damon [Dash] were dating and she played a joke on Eric [Foreman, her hair stylist] and me. They were in the other room having what we thought was a heated argument, and it got so bad. Things sounded like they were breaking, and Eric and I were looking at each other like, Should we go in there? Should we call the cops? All of a sudden I see the two of them peek around the corner and burst out laughing. She was such a practical joker. And honestly, in the eight years that I knew her, what I remember most is the laughter.

Her family would travel with her--sometimes it would be her mother Diane, [her brother] Rashad and her dad. In those rare moments that no one was available, it would be myself and Eric--she still felt at home having us there. And she always had Wilson! She had this pillow named Wilson, like in the movie Castaway where Tom Hanks has a Wilson volleyball that he paints a face on and talks to because he's been isolated for so long. So she had this pillow that she would take everywhere--on the plane, to the hotel, everywhere.

I always called her my muse because something about her motivated that kind of energy. She would be the first to admit that she had a slightly dark sensibility, and I do too, so we would go there together. Every idea I came to her with she would take it a step further. I felt like she was the first young R&B chick to explore more rock & roll elements, and musically she was open to a lot of things. I started sharing my tastes with her, like Portishead and Bjork, and she latched on to a lot of things. She was always willing to stretch out and tap into other places for inspiration.

Eric Ferrell was Aaliyah's makeup artist for eight years.

METHOD MAN

The word in the hood was, she had a cockeye. Cause she always wear them shades, yahmean? But the next album came out and it was like, Whoa, she killin it on some real warrior shit. I didn't see anyone doing what she did. I mean, Britney Spears tried but I laughed at that fuckin video. It was hilarious, yo. I liked that song Britney bit, where Aaliyah had the snake ["We Need a Resolution"]. It was deep.

[As far as rappers go] she was our pop princess. To be associated with R Kelly in any way at that point in time, that was street credibility. Some people just have that "it" factor, where it doesn't matter where they're at, they appeal to both sides. White kids adored her; that's a hard bridge to cross right there, man, but she had a lot of talent. And when you meet the girl there's a level of comfortability I can't even describe. Her and a friend of mine were best friends, so we used to hang out. We went to Universal Studios [to a photo booth], you know those little corny sticker pictures? We used to go do stuff like that. I remember watching a home movie of her and her friends portraying the Spice Girls, that was kinda kooky. It was like being around your little sister. It wasn't Aaliyah the big superstar. It was just Baby Girl.

I've always said that a comedian ain't funny to me if he try too hard to be funny. Same shit with sexy. Aaliyah didn't have to try hard. She was a total package as far as singing, dancing and entertaining. She was killin all that, and it was a relief to find out she actually ain't cockeyed. And her moms was mad peace but very stern, remind me of my bougie aunts and shit. Not bougie in a bad way, but you know, Nigga I ain't havin it.

The best way that I can describe Aaliyah is this analogy here: being around Biggie so much when I did the song with him, actually hanging out with him, it get to a point where you don't see a big, fat, greasy black muhfucka. It get to a point where you forget the nigga fat. It's just something else. The heart and charisma, man. That's the best way to describe it. You just forget that the person does what they do or you know, they sold like X amount of records or they just won this many awards and Soul Training and the next day y'all just chillin at fucking Fat Burger or some shit like that.

Method Man is a rapper and actor.

KID SISTER

When I think back about high school and college, when I get sentimental, I always think about Aaliyah's music. When she first came out, she was 15 and I was 14. I remember the first time I heard her was in Mr Nordmeyer's art class. This was at Rich South High School, the ghettoest suburban high school ever. He'd let us listen to WGCI on this little radio while we'd sketch or whatever, and "Age Ain't Nothing But a Number" came on and none of us knew who it was. When I was 215 pounds in '95 or '94, me and my girlfriend April were both chubby girls. I liked Aaliyah and I thought she was great, but April was obsessed, like, I would like to marry Aaliyah. She loved that bitch so much it was crazy. She learned all the dances from the videos and we would practice in the mirror to "Back and Forth." Aaliyah would do this little peace sign dance as she sang the words, Peace to Soul Train, so Mr DJ keep the music groooooving, don't stop moooooving, now let me go back and forth ... And that peace sign dance is a dance that I still incorporate into my sets today.

Kid Sister is a rapper from Chicago.

FATIMA ROBINSON 

Whenever I danced with Aaliyah I always felt we were synchronized as women. I always wanted to make her be the best. I gave it all as if I was the artist. She was a person always true to herself, music and her art. She never played any industry games, her success came from people who loved her voice and her as a person. She was never one of the music industry folks. She had no security, no people really around until maybe when she was releasing an album, and she was always down to earth. Everyone was always pleasantly surprised by this and that's why when she died it hit everyone so hard. I feel like for me, there are moments when I really feel her presence in the studio, she loved dancing so much.

Fatima Robinson was Aaliyah's choreographer for five years.

ALEX FRANKEL

I remember watching the video for "Try Again" on my parents' bedroom television and knowing immediately that Aaliyah was darker, more subtle and funkier than anything else out. It was S&M R&B, held down by spastic brushwork and an acid bassline. Not that I knew what an acid bassline was at the time. A few years later I remember flipping through the lyrics of "More Than a Woman" and having my initial impression of Aaliyah as a non-conformist reinforced: Morning massages/ Newborns in your closet. It's an amazing lyric and it's completely visual and totally gothic. Aaliyah is a rare case: the music she left behind is a clear enough explanation to why she reached so many of us. And that's not something most pop stars can say.

Alex Frankel is one half of the disco duo Holy Ghost!.

MARK RONSON

We hung out quite a bit--we used to go to Cheetah, this big club on Monday nights, that even Jay-Z rhymed about [in "So Ghetto"]. Aaliyah was the absolute superstar, but I just knew her as my girlfriend's sister's friend. She would roll into Cheetah and everyone would be going nuts. One time she came in with Mase, I think they were on a date, and I was like, Holy shit. There was just something about seeing them walk into a club together. I guess it would be like seeing Chris Brown and Rihanna, but amplified by five thousand.

She had this amazing girlish energy. You know when someone can tell if you're not in a good mood and they put their arm around you, almost a grandmotherly grace. She was extremely aware of other people's emotions and it always seemed like she was there to make everybody feel all right on a spiritual level.

I still remember, and I said this in my speech out of guilt for beating Timbaland for the Producer of the Year Award [at the 2008 Grammys], getting the "One in a Million" 12-inch, putting it on my turntable, and playing it over and over even though I didn't quite know what to make of it. Aaliyah sounded like a fairy whispering over this insane hi-hat pattern. There were no other slow-tempo records then, there was just Ginuwine's "Pony" and "One in a Million," so if you were gonna play them in a hip-hop club you were making an event of it.

I remember I was DJing something really weird, like someone's office Christmas party, in the Manhattan Center. There's a studio behind it that Timbaland used to use all the time. You had to actually walk past the ballroom to get there. Aaliyah walks by and says, I'm just working with Missy and Timbaland in the back, you should come. And I was like, I'm gonna get in so much trouble, but I just put on an album and ran back there. There was much more mystery around them all, and Timbaland and Missy weren't in videos at that point, so they seemed like these weird mythical geniuses that came out of nowhere and changed pop music. If it wasn't for Aaliyah being the face and voice of their sound they might have never got to where they did. They were presenting this sort of brilliant but challenging breakthrough music through this beautiful young girl who could sing it perfectly.

Mark Ronson is a producer and DJ. He appears in Aaliyah's "More Than a Woman" video.

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