Aaliyah Discussion

[bat1990]

Ahhhhhh!!!!! One of the best albums ever recorded!

[Ivy Leegue™]

Hot grits is a new game we'll play! #whatifsheactuallyworkedwithTrentReznor. This album came out like 2 weeks before I went to Paris for the semester and it was on heavy rotation for quite some time.

[wavey.]

Rock The Boat is so current still. So smooth. I hate knowing she passed after the video.

[Gekkouga]

Jul 8, 2016 12:29:01 GMT -5 SHOOTER said:

15 years later and this is still fresh AF! Currently grinding in the office to Rock the Boat.

Ugh, this album. Probably in my all-time top 5. Outstanding production, vocals, everything

I Care 4 U, U Got Nerve, I Refuse, It's Whatever, I Can Be, Extra Smooth >>>

The singles are imo the weakest songs on the album, no shade.

[Caviar]

I remember paying $18 to get the deluxe with the cd rom. I played this album so many times I cannot remember and especially during long road trips. My early memories was fighting with myself if "Loose Rap" or "Rock The Boat" was the better song. I'm still undecided.

[theonlyone]

I remember getting the CD the week it came out. Such a great album! I can't believe it already has been 15 years since it came out.

[Deleted]

Aaliyah's self-titled was the last album I bought on cassette. I remember debating with myself over whether to get cassette or CD but I wanted something for my car, which only had a cassette player. That tape ended up getting stuck in there a couple of years later smh.

It is so surreal how that album marked the end of an era in different ways to me - Aaliyah's last album, the end of the cassette era (which also coincided with the end of the physical singles era), and kind of the end of physical being the only go-to source for music at all. (Incidentally, BitTorrent launched the same month Aaliyah was released.)

[Queen of Insomnia.]

I think that using any other word than iconic to describe the Red Album would be an understatement. At the time, in was one of the best albums of 2001. But after 15yrs is the only album from the year that stood the test of time. It's subject matter & sound and imagery still seem so modern and reliable. It's such a diverse beautifully crafted magnum opus.

[wavey.]

Jul 9, 2016 14:53:08 GMT -5 Caviar said:

I remember paying $18 to get the deluxe with the cd rom. I played this album so many times I cannot remember and especially during long road trips. My early memories was fighting with myself if "Loose Rap" or "Rock The Boat" was the better song. I'm still undecided.

"For the 01...I know you can come better can come better than that..."

[Deleted]

Aaliyah's music can be best described by this GIF, out of this world amazing. Like no woman after or even before has that vibe that comes with playing her songs, albums. It's instantly recognizable and this whole "new age R&B" is rooted in Aaliyahs vibe. Groundbreaking more than her accolades show. 

[SHOOTER]

Sorry not sorry songs in A minor but she most definitely deserved the Best R&B Album Grammy!

[Zinc.]

Great cohesive body of work.

[Rican@]

Jul 11, 2016 11:56:10 GMT -5 SHOOTER said:

Sorry not sorry songs in A minor but she most definitely deserved the Best R&B Album Grammy!

Don't knock Song in A Minor, it still a great one. Music was strong back then and this album was a great one. I didn't fully appreciate it until years later; however, it has proven over time that she was doing something that we see now with these artists wanting her flow and vibe.

[Caviar]

AALIYAH'S PRODUCERS LOOK BACK AT HER SELF-TITLED FINAL ALBUM 15 YEARS LATER

Fuse spoke with J. Dub, Bud'da, Eric Seats and Rapture Stewart about the red LP, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this month

Aaliyah flawlessly transitioned from tomboy teenager to confident woman with the release of her third and final studio album, released on July 17, 2001. While her previous LPs (Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number and One in a Million) leaned more toward R&B and soul, on Aaliyah she steered away from predictability and put forth a fresh sound with the help of a new production team.

Along with longtime producer and friend Timbaland, Jeffrey “J. Dub” Walker, Stephen “Bud’da” Anderson and Key Beats (comprised of Eric Seats and Rapture Stewart) were the masterminds behind a record that has remained timeless.

The album was recorded in New York, Los Angeles and Australia, where Aaliyah was filming Queen of the Damned. Along with writers Stephen “Static Major” Garrett and Benjamin “Black” Bush of R&B/hip-hop group Playa, the team shut out the outside world and worked on the LP for about two years.

“She was very sweet, very giving and open to suggestions. There was a lot of stuff that didn’t make the record, but she wasn’t scared to try new things,” Bud’da tells Fuse. Seats also reflected on Aaliyah’s personality in the studio, saying, "She’s low-key and not really animated. She’d just be in a corner pacing, popping that gum. Her and Static would talk about how a track made them feel, and they would go from there."

The LP found Aaliyah stepping far out of her sonic comfort zone. As she says in the second track, “Loose Rap,” “It ain’t just rhythm & blues.” The murky downtempo, produced by Key Beats, experimented with late-night underwater vibes before the sound was made popular by Drake’s right-hand man Noah “40” Shebib. It still remains a favorite for Key Beats and J. Dub.

The song's title came from a slang term used by the producers and Static. "The saying 'loose rap' was something we always used to say in our regular talk," Stewart says. "We were joking around in the studio that day and that track was on, and Static just said it on the hook. A lot of the songs happened like that."

He also reveals that “Loose Rap” was almost going to be the album’s first single, and that the popularity of “Rock the Boat” called for a change of plans, and for a video. "The only reason they shot 'Rock the Boat' was because the radio was already playing it, so that kind of forced it to be the second single [instead of 'More Than a Woman']," Stewart says. "They went with Timbaland’s song for the first single because that was her sound at the time, but he was actually the last person to work on that album."

It turns out it was Aaliyah’s favorite song to record. “'Rock the Boat' hit her real hard," Stewart recalls. "She was the one advocating to make that a single, because [the label] was trying to make sure whatever Timbaland produced were up to be singles. But she gave them hell and refused to let them do things. Even Timbaland loved it."

“Loose Rap” was quickly programmed by Seats (in five minutes, to be exact), but his fast-work mentality almost got “Rock the Boat” deleted. He tells us, “Static heard it through my headphones. I took a break and went to the rest room, and by the time I got back he had already written a hook."

Stewart continues, “I wouldn’t say it was an accident, but we weren’t vibing with it as much. It was one of those things like if he had came 10 minutes later, he probably would’ve never heard it."

Aaliyah’s strength is its diversity, as the album counteracted vibrant uptempos like “More Than a Woman” with the heart-wrenching “Never No More." Produced by Bud’da, it found the singer flexing her tender upper register over a beat that mixed old-school soul and hip hop.

"I wanted to create something that had a soulful feel with the classic instruments. After she laid the vocals, I had the idea to add the live strings and other elements around her voice to emphasize the words," Bud'da explains. "With the topic of the song being about abuse, I wanted you to feel that musically and hear the emotions. I wish everybody could’ve seen the emotions as well."

“Never No More” is his favorite track, due to the lyrical theme of domestic violence. "There’s so many people quietly dealing with abuse and it’s just an unheard thing. I thought it was pretty upfront for that song and it was bold on her part to do it knowing that she has a great influence," he says.

isteners were already familiar with Aaliyah’s delicate vocals, but the red album found her digging deeper into a low register that was grumbling, fierce and downright sexy. It can be heard on songs like the bass-heavy “Extra Smooth” and “Read Between the Lines.”

From the brass instrumentation to the chopped vocals, the Latin-influenced song is one of the highlights of Aaliyah. Bud’da recalls the fun recording experience:

"[There was] not only live horns, but I used a midi grand piano. Since I gave it a Latin feel, I decided to add the horns to go with it as an accent. Another thing I had done that I hadn’t heard before was adding certain stutters and echoes [to her voice]. There weren’t too many people doing it back then. Initially I had a longer version with more cool stuff, but for the sake of radio we decided to chop it down some."

While it wasn't planned to be a concept album, Aaliyah touched on different phases of a long-term relationship. Tracks like “U Got Nerve” are filled with aggression, where a fed-up Aaliyah sings to a no-good lover. “I Refuse,” one of the more experimental moments, builds on that frustration over a haunting cinematic beat.

J. Dub, who loves film soundtracks, reveals he wanted to make the song big and orchestrated. “I started off with a basic piano and everything else I just built off of that. When she finished the vocals, I went back in and added the orchestra,” he says.

The album continues to flip into different sounds, as breezy track 11 (the Key Beats–produced “It’s Whatever”) crashes into one of the LP’s most daring songs, “I Can Be.” It finds Aaliyah singing about infidelity and being the other woman. The risky move was made more in-your-face with the song’s intense rock and hip-hop influence.



"It had such a great melody and I wanted to add something dark to go with it," Bud'da remembers. "So you’ve got your sweetness on the top but down below you just have this menacing thing that’s just pounding your speakers."



What most didn’t know was that Aaliyah was a fan of rock music, and Nine Inch Nails was one of her favorite acts. “I Can Be” was inspired by the genre, but it was the album’s closing track, “What If,” that ripped her familiar R&B sound to shreds. J. Dub says he never thought she would pick it, but it became one of the album’s defining moments with its menacing industrial production.

Aaliyah met her untimely death on Aug. 25, 2001 at the age of 22. She was gearing up to write for the first time and there are still five completed songs remaining in her vault. "I was her music director, so we were talking about doing a big tour and the whole nine. It was sad none of that ever happened. Even as big as that album is, to me her live performances were crazy," Stewart says.



Aaliyah went on to be certified double platinum and has influenced artists like The Weeknd, Tinashe, Rihanna and FKA Twigs. The producers agree that without the album, most singers won’t be as relevant to this day.



Stewart points to one of the biggest performers of our time:

"Say how Beyoncé is very innovative in her thinking now, to me that was Aaliyah. It’s absolutely no shade to her because we’ve worked with Destiny’s Child on Romeo Must Die [the soundtrack] and 'Survivor.' But her lane opened up so wide because there was a void left from Aaliyah. When we were in the studio with Beyoncé, she would praise her and the stuff we did with her. I wouldn’t say she looked up to her or anything like that, but she was definitely paying attention to Aaliyah’s growth."

Fifteen years have passed since the Aaliyah album’s release. Despite not being available for streaming or on iTunes due to conflicts with the now-defunct Blackground Records, it still holds up as one of the most innovative projects not just in R&B, but in music as a whole. “She has always been cutting edge, and she would’ve continued to be a trendsetter,” Bud’da says.

www.fuse.tv/2016/07/aaliyah-self-titled-final-album-15th-anniversary-producers-interview

[adamalterlago]

I remember years ago Beyonce came forward and admitted to the role that this album played on her life. She don't lie.

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Most recent leak - Aaliyah freestyling

[bat1990]

^OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG *flatlines*

"No Diggity" is one of my favorite songs OF ALL TIME

[Zinc.]

That ending run>>>

[Caviar]

The 15 year anniversary is coming up. :'(

[Queen of Insomnia.]

I know... Even though August is always hard for me, this year it's even worse. At least some rare pics were posted already. This one is my fav so far

[think pink.]

Finding rare photos of Aaliyah is like finding gold.

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Aug 6, 2016 13:17:04 GMT -5 think pink. said:

Finding rare photos of Aaliyah is like finding gold.

IKR? This is literally the only positive thing I assiociate with /.\ death anniversary. Rare pictures and sometimes videos. They leak like crazy at the time.

[Queen of Insomnia.]

It's such a great read:

VIBE: From Baby Girl To More Than A Woman: A Look At Aaliyah’s Growth From Fashion To Dance

From her mid-teens to her early 20s, Aaliyah pushed the boundaries on her clothing choices to her seamless choreography. Here, stylist Derek Lee, choreographer Fatima Robinson and makeup artist Eric Ferrell highlight Aaliyah’s most memorable looks and moves.

[Zinc.]

15 years today. Gone but certainly never ever ever forgotten. 🙏

[Caviar]

These last 15 years have flown by and to think there's now a whole generation that never got to see her alive. It sucks that no one was able to put together any TV specicals, tributes, albums, etc to mark the occasion.

[Hefty Hanna]

Aaliyah is a stunning album.

'We Need A Resolution' and 'More Than A Woman' are two of the best R&B songs of all-time.

[Queen of Insomnia.]

Since this anniversary is harder than ever 2 me. I'm spending it by the sea. I have It's Whatever on repeat. It's such a brilliant song that gives me major Sade vibes... Always gives me peace.

[vipanonymous]

15 years. :'(

[Hefty Hanna]

Aaliyah </3

Rest easy, beautiful.

Aug 25, 2016 8:33:13 GMT -5 Queen of Insomnia. said:

Since this anniversary is harder that ever 2 me. I'm spending it by the sea. I have It's Whatever on repeat. It's such a brilliant song that gives me major Sade vibes... Always gives me peace.

love love love 'It's Whatever'

[Relaxing Cup]

extra extra extra smooth