Kathy Iandoli begins her Aaliyah biography, Baby Girl, writing about R. Kelly - and about how much she hates that it has to be that way. The author, she explains, “didn’t want to dignify R. Kelly with any credit for her career, despite him being one of the main reasons we learned about Aaliyah in the first place. His crimes have left most with a pit in their stomachs, anguished at the thought of once supporting him and his music.”

In the end, Iandoli acknowledges, she decided she had to include the now-incarcerated artist, both because of his pivotal role in her subject’s career and because “disregarding R. Kelly’s role in Aaliyah’s career would be denying Aaliyah another title she so greatly deserved: ‘survivor.’”

Indeed, Aaliyah’s debut album Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number (1994) is now part of the evidence long hiding in plain sight that R. Kelly was conducting exploitative and illegal sexual relationships with young girls. The album was, according to its own credits, “written and produced by R. Kelly, specially for Aaliyah.” Their intimate connection was apparent, and Iandoli suggests that in another, kinder universe, their artistic alchemy might have led to an album that was actually appropriate for the teenager’s age and experiences, rather than being a sort of twisted concept album about a young girl expressing sexual interest in older men like Kelly, over a decade her senior.

Nonetheless, Aaliyah’s talent as a vocalist was apparent, and her videos and performances established her as an artist of magnetic charisma and cool, ineluctable charm. Iandoli includes several pages of women’s fan letters to Aaliyah at the end of the book, and the writers repeatedly refer to the artist’s air of inspiring confidence.

“How fortunate we all were to live in your radiating era of brilliance, style, and otherworldly energy,” writes Margarita N.

“One thing I love about you,” writes 18-year-old Arce, is “how confident you are with everything coming in your way, good or bad.”

“Sensual, strong, fearless, mysterious, commanding, kind, all at once without forcing to be the center of attention,” writes 36-year-old Yaya. “That in itself was magic; that was Aaliyah to me.”

Taking its title from the artist’s longtime nickname, Baby Girl comes billed as “the definitive biography of Aaliyah.” While there may be room down the line for other entries in the canon, Iandoli concisely connects the dots that draw a picture of an artist who made a tremendous impact in her all-too-short life.

That life began in New York in 1979, but when Aaliyah Haughton was five, her family moved to Detroit to be closer to Barry Hankerson, her mother’s entrepreneurial brother. That also drew the family into the music industry; talent ran in her mother’s family, and Barry’s ex-wife Gladys Knight was close to Aaliyah and the young girl’s brother Rashad. When Aaliyah demonstrated precocious talent (like Beyoncé, she went on Star Search but lost), Barry was ready to get her a record deal alongside another rising star he’d discovered during auditions for a gospel musical called Don’t Get God Started.

Hence R. Kelly’s role in Aaliyah’s burgeoning career; after scoring a success with his 1993 debut album 12 Play, R. Kelly was regarded as a rising talent who couldn’t be ignored. The story of his association with an even younger prodigy played all too well, right up until MTV broke the news that the two had been married under obviously false pretenses. Their marriage was ultimately annulled, and Aaliyah was faced with the unenviable challenge of distancing herself from the man who’d both produced her successful debut album and been linked to her in a scandalous news cycle. Much about their relationship behind closed doors remains unknown, but it clearly fits into the predatory pattern Kelly was established and would, shockingly, maintain for decades longer.

While Aaliyah was always the author of her own success, Iandoli argues, she truly began to come into her own after splitting with Kelly. Considering the landscape of possible collaborators (P. Diddy, Diane Warren, and Babyface were all in the mix), in 1995 Aaliyah landed on a pair of young artists who were then just emerging from their own relationship with a manipulative mentor. That’s another story, but Missy Elliott and Timbaland found a musical soulmate in Aaliyah, collaborating on her sophomore album One in a Million.

That was years before the duo each became household names in their own rights, and Iandoli makes a case for Aaliyah as a crucial artist pointing the way toward where music was going: the merger of hip-hop with pop R&B, the rise of intoxicatingly glitchy electronic beats, and the female singing voice as connective tissue among it all. Mariah Carey and Lauryn Hill would be among the leading lights of that millennial pivot point, but Aaliyah was among the artists who led the way.

Iandoli spends extensive time on two Timbaland-helmed soundtrack singles that are among the artist’s signature tracks. “Try Again,” from the 2000 soundtrack to the Aaliyah-starring action film Romeo Must Die, “helped smuggle the innovative techniques of electronic dance music onto the American pop charts,” wrote Kalefa Sanneh in the New York Times, “and it established Aaliyah as pop music’s most futuristic star.”

Before that, though, there was “Are You That Somebody?” (The film, whose soundtrack benefited greatly from the song when it became a hit without being available as a single, was Eddie Murphy’s Doctor Dolittle.) Sanneh, again, cited Aaliyah’s skill in co-starring with the music rather than “being the center of the song,” thus drawing listeners deeper into the beat: a lesson Destiny’s Child would be among the many artists to emulate. The song, which also featured Aaliyah’s semi-secret boyfriend Static Major, had another surprise star in a cooing-baby voice that Timbaland harvested from a 1964 album of sound effects and would go on to become one of the 21st century’s most inescapable audio memes.

The biography also chronicles Aaliyah’s rise as a fashion icon, most famously as the face of Tommy Hilfiger during his reign as the star designer of hip-hop fashion. “Aaliyah wasn’t dressed in Tommy Hilfiger,” writes Iandoli, “Tommy Hilfiger was dressed in Aaliyah.” The style blended sexy with sporty, as well as fits traditionally cut for men with those cut for women. “Aaliyah,” writes Iandoli, represented “the unapologetic tomboy who didn’t compromise comfort for cuteness.” The book’s fan letters are testament to just how empowering her fans found this, and one might go further to crown Aaliyah a founding face of athleisure.

Why did Aaliyah die? After extensively describing the circumstances surrounding the crash of the private plane meant to be ferrying Aaliyah from a 2001 video shoot, Iandoli concludes, “a tiny plane was overloaded, operated by an unauthorized, inexperienced pilot with cocaine and alcohol in his system, hired by a charter company known for countless ills within the aviation industry.” In other words, blame management: up to and including the star’s uncle Barry, although Iandoli dismisses conspiracy theories that Hankerson intentionally orchestrated the crash when Aaliyah threatened to leave his company.

It’s also Barry Hankerson who bears blame for the fact that, as of Baby Girl’s publication date, Aaliyah’s catalog remained unavailable on streaming services. It wasn’t a case of reservations about the services, however valid those might be; Aaliyah’s estate worked for years to bring the catalog online, which finally happened only a few months ago. Her music is now, at long last, widely available to a generation of fans who are the age she was when she first stepped into a studio. That’s about as happy an ending as this book could have had.

Sign up for The Current Rock and Roll Book Club e-mail newsletter

A monthly update with a note from Jay, a roundup of recent reviews, previews of upcoming books, and more.

You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about American Public Media programs. See Minnesota Public Radio Terms of Use and Privacy policy.

Upcoming Rock and Roll Book Club Picks

Tune in to The Current at 8:30 a.m. (Central) every Thursday morning to hear Jay Gabler and Jill Riley talk about a new book. Also, find Jay's reviews online.

November 18: Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art * Words and Wisdom, edited by Nora Guthrie and Robert Santelli

November 25: Happy Thanksgiving!

December 2: Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore by Dan Ozzi

December 9: Renegades: Born in the USA by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen