Word: aaliyahã
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Dates: during 2002-2002
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...mundane battle rhymes sound positively apocalyptic over an ominous Mentol Nomad track, while Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” is like an aural sedative after a string of abrasive breakcore vitriol. When /rupture blends a slowed-down instrumental of Aaliyah??s “Are You That Somebody?” into that song, it’s a small revelation as Flack’s vocal exorcisms and Timbaland’s sonic architecture together evoke a soul that is neither old nor new, but lies in the space between...
...issues raised by Aaliyah??s death and the release of The Queen of the Damned are, thankfully, far more intriguing than mere self-glorification (Augustus) or venality (whoever is behind the 500 posthumous Hendrix albums). For one thing, there is the infinitely dark, even brutal, irony engendered by the fact that Aaliyah plays the title role: the queen of the damned. If, a la Coleridge, we suspend our disbelief a moment (as viewers of Queen must do) and assume the existence of those quaintly dichotomous extra-somatic resting-places Heaven and Hell, then it seems that only...
...Aaliyah??s role in Queen also derives great intrigue from some of Anne Rice’s earlier work. As one might expect from a genre that has as its protagonists denizens of an eternally undead demimonde, vampire literature seems to be linked almost inextricably to conscious and unconscious reflections on mortality and immortality. Such is indeed the case in Interview with the Vampire in which Louis, the vampire being interviewed, expresses deep ambiguity about his eternal unlife. On the one hand, Louis laments the loneliness and drudgery of eternal existence, talking of “languishing...
...This ambiguity towards death and immortality follows a well-established literary precedent. And this tradition, considered collectively, can help illuminate the elemental cloudiness necessarily pervading any attempt to come to grips with the meaning of someone like Aaliyah??s early demise. On the surface, there is palpable horror and profound sadness at any death of a young person with so much potential. Sometimes, though, if we are honest with ourselves, we may have the fortitude to resist the seemingly inevitable inertia ushering us towards unqualified despair. A.E. Housman found such a vision in his timeless...