Remembering Aaliyah: The Queen of Rhythm & Blues

Today when a whole society engages in the act of remembering Aaliyah, the queen of rhythm & blues, her husband R. Kelly’s dirty shenanigans are deleted from the biopic.

La Bamba showed Richie Valens before his death in a tragic plane accident. As for Aaliyah, she faced the same scenario and left the world a poorer place without her artistic presence in it. She was a prepubescent girl when she was spotted by talent scouts.

And she landed a spot in Sin City or Las Vegas alongside her aunt Gladys Knight. R. Kelly was later on introduced to her and he eventually went on to wed her despite being much older than her in matters of chronological age.

Of course one can say that later on a whole lot went wrong when Kelly started sexually abusing little girls. Aaliyah then ventured out on her own and made further forays into movies as well thereby making her mama proud of her. The latest movie about her life story is new on the scene and it will present the R&B princess in a different light. Yet it doesn’t rock the boat. 

While her music was tops in her times as well as today, the movie lacks the soulfulness that was Aaliyah. Alexandra Shipp plays Aaliyah and Cle bennet plays her sleazy husband R. Kelly. She was barely 22 years old when she died in that meaningless plane crash.

The biggest crime that the producers commit in this biopic on Aaliyah’s life is to make R. Kelly look like a decent man which he most certainly is not. The man was a very bad child abuser who deserved to be castrated for his actions.

Yet the biopic never mentions his disgusting and perverted ways. The fact that he gave so much pain to Aaliyah by his wrong ways and that there was an annulment of their marriage that took place after pressure from her parents were things that never got mentioned in the biopic. This is simply wrong.

We all expect that most life stories ought to be true to life. But as has been witnessed in past times with such biopics as Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Jobs, truth is the first casualty of the war of opinions that occurs after the death of a famous personality.

At least this is what was portrayed in this visual life story of Aaliyah. It spared R. Kelly for no reason whatsoever and this is a shame indeed.   

Sources: Variety , Deadline