She died at the young age of 22, but she went on to sell over 52 million albums worldwide, and she has been hailed as the “Queen of Urban Pop” and as “The Princess of R&B,” and rightfully so. To this day, Aaliyah is ranked by Billboard Magazine as the 10th most successful female R&B artist of the last 25 years, and she is listed in the Top 30 most successful artists in the history of R&B genre.
Her breakthrough album back in 1994, Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, went double-platinum and her follow-up albums, One In a Million and her eponymous albums, fared equally well from a commercial standpoint.
“Try Again” was Aaliyah’s most successful radio single to date. It was the lead single from the Romeo Must Die soundtrack, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in June of 2000. Thanks to its success, she earned a Grammy nomination for “Best R&B Female Vocal Performance” and she won the 2000 MTV Video Music Award (VMA) for “Best Female Video,” where she bested pop songstresses Britney Spears, Macy Gray, Toni Braxton and Christina Aguilera. Her “Try Again” music video also won the “Best Video from a Film” VMA.
One thing is for sure. Aaliyah is surely missed, 14 years later, and the music video for her single “Miss You,” which was posthumously released, is poignant homage to the late R&B sensation. It included moving tributes from her musical colleagues and friends such as DMX, Missy Elliott, Toni Braxton, Tweet, Lil’ Kim, Jamie Foxx, Ananda Lewis, Queen Latifah, among others.
To learn more about Aaliyah’s music legacy, check out her official homepage.
