I can go on for days talking about how much I love Aaliyah. But for today, I just want to focus on her second album,
One In A Million, produced by Timbaland and Missy Elliott (yep, when they were still a duo), because it is probably one of my favorite albums ever. My favorite Aaliyah songs all are on this album, and her fashion was my favorite at this time. For this album, she started her signature over-the-eye haircut and continued wearing her baggy clothes with sex appeal when the mid-90s R&B groups started dressing more girly. SWV, TLC, Xscape, etc. all sported the baggy clothes look but Aaliyah made it her signature style.
One In A Million hit all the right spots with the classic slow jamz, but with a mysterious and fresh new sound of R&B producing. Missy Elliott is one of the best songwriters and Timbaland had a distinct sound in his productions that could never be duplicated. Aaliyah's soft but wide-ranged vocals and the well written/produced tracks of this album became an instant hit on the R&B charts. Either with her shades on or an over sized leather biker jumpsuit, we all knew it was Aaliyah, but still kept us wanting more from Aaliyah.
One thing I always admired most about Aaliyah was her dancing. Of course, we all remember the
Try Again and
Are You That Somebody videos and how it was all choreography, but most pop videos were all dancing anyway. But take it back to the mid-90s when she released videos for the singles off her album
One In A Million- her dance moves were the shit. Her choreographer Fatima was the mind behind ALL of Aaliyah's choreography and she has a distinct way of matching the style of dancing with the music. My favorite Aaliyah song, video, and choreography would definitely have to be for the song
One In A Million, which became the first and biggest hit from her second album of the same name. The choreography can be seen in the YouTube live performance of the song which I attached below. The choreography Aaliyah used during this time was all footwork, pop-n-lock, and male stripper moves (?) to slow R&B songs, but Aaliyah looks so much at ease singing her song live and smoothly bustin' her moves! (Click 'Read More' Link for videos)