As the body of the late R&B singer Aaliyah is returned to her home in the United States, legendary performer Gladys Knight has paid tribute to her talented niece who died tragically in a plane crash in the Bahamas on Saturday.
“I watched her grow up, and, with the rest of the world, saw her achieve success with her special and unique talents,” says Gladys, the 22-year-old’s aunt by marriage. “From an early age I knew she had enormous talents, an intrinsic gift. When she first performed with me in Las Vegas, she was still quite young, but she already had it – that spark the world would later see and fall in love with,” said the soul singer.
And while Gladys split with Aaliyah’s uncle Barry Hankerson in 1979, she remained close to the Romeo Must Die starlet and her family. “She had a refreshing outlook for one so young, with true respect for her art and for her elders.”
Aaliyah’s boyfriend and Roc-A-Fella Records co-CEO Damon Dash has broken his silence, speaking out for the first time on the death of the Grammy-nominated beauty. “She meant the world to me,” he said in a statement. “She was my best friend and will remain in my heart forever.”
As her fans across the States hold candlelight vigils in Aaliyah’s memory, both US and Bahamian investigators are trying to determine the cause of the horrific crash which claimed the lives of eight others including Douglas Kratz, the director of video production for Virgin Records.
Eyewitnesses to the accident say moments after the double-engine Cessna 402 took off it veered sharply to the left and crashed, bursting into flames on impact just 200 feet from the runway. Aaliyah and her crew were en route to Miami after shooting her video Rock The Boat on Abaco Island. Police superintendent Basil Rahming says one of the engines “apparently failed”, though some believe the plane’s excess baggage may have played a part in the tragedy.
“There was too much stuff in that plane,” Aaliyah’s bodyguard Scott Gallin reportedly told ambulance attendants as he was pulled from the crash. Gallin died shortly afterward at a local hospital. According to the New York Post, a feud was said to have broken out just before takeoff between the pilot, Luis Antonio Morales Blanes, and one member of Aaliyah’s entourage after Blanes asked them to leave behind some of their baggage and heavy equipment.
“They’re interviewing witnesses,” says US Embassy spokesman Brian Bachman. “They’re getting all the luggage that was recovered and are taking it to be weighed as that’s an issue, as to whether the plane was overweight.”
Aaliyah had recently wrapped filming on the upcoming motion picture The Queen Of The Damned based on the best-selling Anne Rice novel. Her third album was released in July to critical acclaim and launched the hit single We Need A Resolution. She was slated to star alongside Keanu Reeves in the upcoming sequels to the blockbuster The Matrix and was also reportedly at work on a clothing line with good friend Kidada Jones, the daughter of legendary music producer Quincy Jones.
“I think Aaliyah was the next Jennifer Lopez, the next Whitney Houston, the next Madonna, the next Janet Jackson,” says the editor of Vibe magazine, Emil Wilbekin. “She was a great dancer, she was a great singer and she had a great attitude. People liked working with her and people genuinely liked her.”
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