Aaliyah

Aaliyah died too soon, I think we can all agree on that. She was one of the best R&B singers of the 1990s and can be credited with redefining hip hop and R&B while she was alive. Her production and singing style, coupled with the hip hop influences and rapper appearances in her songs, changed the music industry. She was only 22 when she died in a plane crash. What a fucking shame. Such wasted talent. She's definitely one of the most important R&B singers of all time. You can't talk about contemporary R&B without mentioning Aaliyah. Wikipedia says (and I agree), Aaliyah provided a "missing link" between hip hop and electronica. With sales of 8.1 million albums in the United States and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide,Aaliyah has been named the "Princess of R&B" and "Queen Of Urban Pop" and "proved she was a muse in her own right". Ernest Hardy of Rolling Stone dubbed her as the "undisputed queen of the midtempo come-on". She is the definition of "gone too soon" and "only the good ones die young." Rest in peace, Aaliyah.