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Aaliyah: Married Illegally at 15, Drugs, Corruption, and a Fiery Crash · DISGRACELAND

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Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
0:03
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information.
0:07
Speaker 2: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the
0:21
Speaker 2: story of a pop star, an incredible talent, Aliyah, a
0:26
Speaker 2: talent who's creative fire burned from deep within. But it's
0:30
Speaker 2: also the story of r Kelly and an illegal marriage.
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Speaker 2: It's about drugs, corruption, it's about wild a list accusatory
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Speaker 2: conspiracy theories, and it's a story about a fiery crash
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Speaker 2: and about great music. Unlike that music I played for
0:47
Speaker 2: you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
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Speaker 2: That was a preset loop for my melotron called Instant
0:53
Speaker 2: Theme Song MK one. I played you that loot because
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Speaker 2: I can't afford the rights to fall In by Lisha Keys.
1:01
Speaker 2: And why would I play you that specific slice of
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Speaker 2: Empire state of Mind Cheese? Could I afford it? Because
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Speaker 2: that was the number one song in America on August
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Speaker 2: twenty fifth, two thousand and one, And that was the
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Speaker 2: day that a plane carrying Aliyah and eight others crashed
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Speaker 2: shortly after takeoff in the Bahamas, killing all on board.
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Speaker 2: On this episode, in illegal marriage, drugs, corruption, conspiracy, theories,
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Speaker 2: a fiery crash and Aliyah I'm Jake Brennan in This
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Speaker 2: Is Disgrace Slam August twenty fifth, two thousand and one.
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Speaker 2: If only the mind of twenty two year old Aliah
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Speaker 2: Houghton was as clear as the blue skies here in
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Speaker 2: the Bahamas, the sun, the sand, the weather, it was
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Speaker 2: all perfect.
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Speaker 1: Everything else was well. It was complicated.
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Speaker 2: Alia didn't want to be here in the first place,
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Speaker 2: which sounds crazy because here, specifically in the Applica Islands,
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Speaker 2: was more than one person's idea of paradise.
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Speaker 1: For Aliyah. It was work leading a team of dancers.
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Speaker 2: On a catamaran out in the ocean wrapping the video
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Speaker 2: shoot for Rock the Boat, the second single from her
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Speaker 2: recently released self titled album, her third album overall. But
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Speaker 2: though it was work, it wasn't Aliah's vision. The vision
2:50
Speaker 2: belonged to Hype Williams, arguably the most in demand director
2:54
Speaker 2: when it came to music videos for the hottest hip
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Speaker 2: hop and R and B artists. What Hype insisted they
2:59
Speaker 2: leave Miami for the Bahamas. Aliah expressed her displeasure. She
3:03
Speaker 2: hated flying, She hated planes. She was the utmost professional
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Speaker 2: despite her personal reservations. She wasn't going to.
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Speaker 1: Rock the book. Sorry, got to do it.
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Speaker 2: There were fights to fight in hills to die on,
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Speaker 2: and Aliah knew that this wasn't one of them. So
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Speaker 2: she got her nerves under control, got on the plane
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Speaker 2: and went to the Bahamas, all the while maintaining that
3:25
Speaker 2: quiet reserve demeanor. She was known for the same demeanor
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Speaker 2: that simmered on low behind a pair of dark shades
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Speaker 2: or her trademark peekaboo hairstyle, those long strands covering one
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Speaker 2: of her eyes, like Veronica Lake, her mother's favorite actress.
3:42
Speaker 2: Under that quiet reserve, however, was the fire, or so
3:46
Speaker 2: said Ed McMahon, one time host of Star Search, a
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Speaker 2: hugely popular TV talent show in the nineteen eighties and nineties.
3:53
Speaker 2: When Aliah appeared on the show in nineteen ninety to
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Speaker 2: perform Rogers and Hearts May Funny Valentine at just ten
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Speaker 2: years old old, Ed McMahon, a long time Tonight's Show
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Speaker 2: sidekick to Johnny Carson, saw the fire and Aliah before
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Speaker 2: she even sang a noe. You weren't taught it, you
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Speaker 2: didn't get it from your parents, McMahon said. The fire
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Speaker 2: burned inside you independent of outside influence. For Aleiah Houghton,
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Speaker 2: that fire burned bright and hot. Her parents knew this.
4:22
Speaker 2: They worked tirelessly to secure opportunities for their daughter to perform.
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Speaker 2: Her Auntie Gladys knew this too. That's Gladys Has and
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Speaker 2: Gladys Knight and the Pips. By the way, Elia's aunt
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Speaker 2: by marriage to her mom's brother, and it was that
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Speaker 2: famous aunt who brought her eleven year old niece up
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Speaker 2: on stage to sing with her for all five of
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Speaker 2: her sold out shows at Bally's in Las Vegas. It
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Speaker 2: sounds weird in twenty twenty four to say that Aliah
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Speaker 2: was groomed, but that's exactly what was happening throughout her childhood.
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Speaker 2: She was a megawatt talent from a very young age
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Speaker 2: who was groomed by everyone around her in order to
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Speaker 2: make her a star. Of course, there are gross connotations
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Speaker 2: with the word groomed in for good reason, because the
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Speaker 2: next person in groom Aliyah, after Star Search and her
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Speaker 2: parents and her Auntie Gladys, was R and B superstar R. Kelly, who,
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Speaker 2: when Aleyah was just fourteen years old, a freshman at
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Speaker 2: Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, majoring
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Speaker 2: in dance, played the part of predator svent Ghali. As
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Speaker 2: Aliah's professional career was just taking off. R Kelly wrote
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Speaker 2: and produced Aliah's first record, which yes bears the unfortunate title.
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Speaker 1: Age Ain't Nothing but a Number.
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Speaker 2: Unfortunate because again, Aliyah was fourteen and r Kelly was
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Speaker 2: twenty seven. If the lyrical content r Kelly was getting
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Speaker 2: Lea to sing wasn't troublesome enough, the fact that the
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Speaker 2: teenager and the grown man were much more than a
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Speaker 2: musical partnership apps fusing utely was. Just a few months
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Speaker 2: after the album's release, in the summer of nineteen ninety four,
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Speaker 2: r Kelly secretly married Oliah, who was then fifteen, just fifteen,
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Speaker 2: and he did so by paying off a state employee
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Speaker 2: to create a fake ID that showed that she was eighteen.
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Speaker 2: But as our guy Kurt Loder pointed out when he
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Speaker 2: broke the news on MTV, r Kelly wasn't fooling anyone
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Speaker 2: because earlier that year, Alia was dropped from the Budweiser
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Speaker 2: Superfestour precisely because she was a minor. Based on what
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Speaker 2: we now know about r Kelly in his decades of
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Speaker 2: sexual abuse in child pornography. One can only imagine that
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Speaker 2: what went on between him and his child bride behind
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Speaker 2: closed doors was I don't even want to go there.
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Speaker 2: If you're looking for a deeper dive into that whole saga,
6:36
Speaker 2: check out our episode on R Kelly in the Disgrace
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Speaker 2: and Archive. But getting away from the story here. At
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Speaker 2: least one of our Kelly's victims has claimed that he
6:45
Speaker 2: got a Leah pregnant and made her get an abortion
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Speaker 2: during their time as.
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Speaker 1: Husband and wife.
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Speaker 2: But Alia wasn't talking about it, not then and not
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Speaker 2: ever once her parents stepped into an null the marriage
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Speaker 2: in February of nineteen ninety five. Whatever spell R Kelly
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Speaker 2: had cast over an innocent and impressionable Aliyah was broken.
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Speaker 1: She didn't just walk away.
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Speaker 2: She denied the whole thing it ever happened, not because
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Speaker 2: it didn't happen for real, because she was moving on.
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Speaker 2: She didn't wish death upon anyone, but still keep that
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Speaker 2: man away from her, which was easier said than done.
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Speaker 2: R Kelly's crimes are practically being perpetrated out in the open,
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Speaker 2: but no one was calling him on it. Alia's own uncle,
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Speaker 2: Barry Hankerson, the one who was married to Gladys Knight
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Speaker 2: was a music business insider who continued to work with
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Speaker 2: R Kelly for years after his.
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Speaker 1: Niece's a legal marriage.
7:34
Speaker 2: And then there was Hype Williams, the director of Alia's
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Speaker 2: Rocked the Boat music video Here in the Bahamas. Hype
7:40
Speaker 2: worked with everyone in hip hop and R and B,
7:42
Speaker 2: including R Kelly, with whom Hype had made and was
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Speaker 2: continuing to make a ton of content. Aliyah was a
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Speaker 2: force of nature, street but sweet, as she called herself.
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Speaker 2: But her power wasn't to wipe R Kelly from the
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Speaker 2: face of the earth. It was to lift herself up.
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Speaker 2: And she did this by following her own gut and
8:00
Speaker 2: by doing things her way, taking a chance on an
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Speaker 2: unknown and unorthodox music production duo. More on that in
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Speaker 2: a bit. Performing all her own stunts in her movie debut,
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Speaker 2: Romeo Must Die a month.
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Speaker 1: Of training to learn one scene.
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Speaker 2: She went the distance, literally all the way to Australia
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Speaker 2: to film her next movie, Queen of the dand while
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Speaker 2: simultaneously recording tracks for her new album at Night. She
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Speaker 2: was creatively reborn as an inspired multi hyphen and she
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Speaker 2: worked her ass off for it. But right now Aliyah
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Speaker 2: was done with work and she wanted to go home.
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Speaker 2: She stood anxiously at the Marsh Harbor Airport there in
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Speaker 2: the Bahamas, the island breeze blowing through her hair, and
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Speaker 2: she stared down the Sestina twin engine plane that was
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Speaker 2: currently being loaded up with luggage. It would soon bring
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Speaker 2: her back to the mainland, back to normalcy, back to
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Speaker 2: her boyfriend, Damon Dash, co founder with Jay Z of
8:53
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Records. This fucking plane, though, it wasn't big like
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Speaker 2: the one that had brought her out here. It was
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Speaker 2: a puddled, jumping, little piece of shit. We were supposed
9:02
Speaker 2: to carry her and her bodyguard and her makeup artist,
9:04
Speaker 2: two hairstylists, a Virgin Records executive, two employees of Blackground,
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Speaker 2: her uncle's record label, and the pilot, plus all their stuff.
9:12
Speaker 2: She worried it was just too much, too heavy. She
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Speaker 2: called Dame and he told her to wait. He'd send
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Speaker 2: a private jet tomorrow to bring her home. She wasn't sure.
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Speaker 2: She just wanted to see him, and both of their
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Speaker 2: schedules were crazy over the next few weeks.
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Speaker 1: If she wanted some quality.
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Speaker 2: Time with him, she had to go now. She was conflicted, exhausted.
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Speaker 2: The baggage handler's packing the plane, heard her concerns over
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Speaker 2: the weight. They said they'd remove some of the stuff
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Speaker 2: and lighten it up. That was helpful, but now she
9:40
Speaker 2: had a headache. She just needed to rest. Someone offered
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Speaker 2: her a pill, Yes, please, anything, take the edge off.
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Speaker 2: One of the baggage handlers, just a kid, really helping
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Speaker 2: out with the family business, handed her a glass of
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Speaker 2: water to wash the pill down.
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Speaker 1: He was like thirteen, fourteen years old.
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Speaker 2: Something like that reminded her of when she was that age,
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Speaker 2: figuring it all out, making mistakes, finding her way street
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Speaker 2: but sweet, and within minutes she was out. The dream
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Speaker 2: she had was the same one she'd been having all week.
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Speaker 2: It was dark, pitch black. She couldn't see anything.
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Speaker 1: She was scared. She was running. Something was after her,
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Speaker 1: chasing her.
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Speaker 2: Her heart was pounding, her legs ached, and then suddenly
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Speaker 2: she took off. She was flying. She felt free, as
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Speaker 2: weightless as that cessna was loaded. She didn't want it
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Speaker 2: to end here, asleep, dreaming, escaping, going to a place
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Speaker 2: where no one could reach her. A Leah was untouchable.
11:07
Speaker 2: Life never plays out the way any of us want
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Speaker 2: or expect it to. There's an old Yiddish saying that
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Speaker 2: basically says man plans and God laughs, or, as John
11:18
Speaker 2: Lennon put it in one of the last great songs
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Speaker 2: that he ever wrote, life's what happens when you're busy
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Speaker 2: making other plans. For Leah Hotton, life happened all the time,
11:32
Speaker 2: but never in order chronological order. That is, Her education
11:36
Speaker 2: at Detroit High School for the Final Performing Arts, where
11:38
Speaker 2: she trained as a dancer, was interrupted by her quick
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Speaker 2: fame as a teenager. That meant juggling studies with stardom
11:45
Speaker 2: for four straight years, and that meant working just as
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Speaker 2: hard at maintaining a grounded, quote unquote normal teenage life
11:51
Speaker 2: as she did working to put out huge records atop
11:54
Speaker 2: the R and B and pop charts. By the time
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Speaker 2: her senior year old around in nineteen ninety seven, the
11:59
Speaker 2: design for normalcy was so strong that she made the
12:02
Speaker 2: effort to show up in person to school events as
12:05
Speaker 2: much as she could. She even attended her senior prom
12:08
Speaker 2: wearing a powder blue pantsy cropta, a fashion statement that
12:11
Speaker 2: didn't just luck the expectations of what a promo off
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Speaker 2: it should look like, but one that played a riff
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Speaker 2: on the kind of fashion that she was now modeling.
12:18
Speaker 1: For Tommy Hillfigure.
12:20
Speaker 2: Her appearance in the industry giant's wildly successful campaign that
12:24
Speaker 2: year revitalized the Hill Figure name by aligning it with
12:27
Speaker 2: R and B and hip hop culture, while simultaneously elevating
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Speaker 2: Leah in status at age eighteen to repeat. When Aleah
12:34
Speaker 2: attended her high school prompt, she did so while she
12:37
Speaker 2: was already a famous singer and a model on the
12:39
Speaker 2: come up. She was everywhere MTV, be Et, the Tonight Show,
12:44
Speaker 2: showtime at the Apollo, and now in Detroit at school,
12:48
Speaker 2: just trying to be normal, but there was nothing normal
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Speaker 2: about any of it, just like there was nothing normal
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Speaker 2: about the music she was making. Her second album, One
13:00
Speaker 2: in a Million, released the year prior in nineteen ninety six,
13:03
Speaker 2: was unlike anything in the R and B world at
13:06
Speaker 2: that time. It wasn't Deva music like Mariah, it wasn't
13:09
Speaker 2: baby making music like Boys to Men, and it was
13:12
Speaker 2: purposefully divorced from the jailbait fantasy once propagated by our
13:15
Speaker 2: infamous X. One in a Million was funky, trippy, a
13:20
Speaker 2: stew of R and B, hip hop and electronica that
13:23
Speaker 2: for some was actually a little too weird, Like what
13:27
Speaker 2: were those sounds on that track were those crickets. A
13:30
Speaker 2: lot of radio stations hesitated to put the title track
13:32
Speaker 2: on air first because it didn't fit in, which was
13:35
Speaker 2: exactly the point. This new record was a Leia's chance
13:37
Speaker 2: to wipe the slate clean, to reintroduce yourself to the public,
13:41
Speaker 2: and the first step in this new creative direction was
13:43
Speaker 2: to hire a new production duo out of the Dirty South.
13:46
Speaker 2: Aliah took a chance on Virginia Day there was a
13:48
Speaker 2: Missy Elliott and Tim Moseley aka Timberland when many others
13:52
Speaker 2: would not, and the.
13:53
Speaker 1: Chance paid off.
13:55
Speaker 2: The title track from One in a Million went to
13:57
Speaker 2: number one on the R and B Chart to number
13:59
Speaker 2: five on the Pop Tart. More success followed, including Golden
14:03
Speaker 2: Globe and Oscar Award nominations in nineteen ninety eight for
14:06
Speaker 2: her contribution to the Anastasia soundtrack. She couldn't beat Celine
14:10
Speaker 2: Dion and My Heart Will Go On from Titanic. Nobody could,
14:13
Speaker 2: but Alias still made history at age nineteen by becoming
14:17
Speaker 2: the youngest artist ever to perform at the Academy Awards.
14:20
Speaker 2: And soon she wasn't just making history, she was making
14:23
Speaker 2: some of the most defining music of the era against
14:27
Speaker 2: all odds. Timblin got the call at one in the morning.
14:35
Speaker 2: It was Barry Hankerson, Alia's uncle Aunty Gladys ex, owner
14:40
Speaker 2: of Blackground Records, the label that had partnered with Atlantic
14:43
Speaker 2: Records to release Elia's music. Tim was in LA but
14:46
Speaker 2: Barry was back east in New York, where it was
14:49
Speaker 2: three hours later in the morning but still way too
14:52
Speaker 2: fucking early. Tim wanted to know what was so important
14:55
Speaker 2: they couldn't wait until tomorrow. Barry told Tim that a
14:58
Speaker 2: huge opportunity just presented itself off that Aliyah had been
15:01
Speaker 2: offered the lead single on the soundtrack to Dr Doolittle,
15:04
Speaker 2: the highly anticipated summer comedy starring Eddie Murphy.
15:08
Speaker 1: But there was a catch.
15:09
Speaker 2: The movie was weeks away from release. That had to
15:12
Speaker 2: produce the track now tonight and deliver it by eleven am. Again,
15:17
Speaker 2: it was one am out in Los Angeles, four am
15:19
Speaker 2: in New York. The track was due at eleven am.
15:23
Speaker 2: Was at East coast or West coast time? Does it
15:25
Speaker 2: fucking matter? By point is that Timberland and Alia had
15:28
Speaker 2: hours to conceive and record this song that Atlantic Records
15:31
Speaker 2: in twentieth Century Fox, the studio putting out the movie,
15:33
Speaker 2: were betting on to be a huge hit and thus
15:35
Speaker 2: sell Boku soundtrack CDs. Timberland's first reaction was to push back.
15:41
Speaker 2: He'd just come off stage in Los Angeles and he
15:43
Speaker 2: was exhausted, and now he was expected to turn out
15:46
Speaker 2: a hit song in what ten hours? Barney was out
15:49
Speaker 2: of his mind. They needed more time, but there was
15:52
Speaker 2: no more time. In fact, Barry had bluffed and told
15:55
Speaker 2: Atlantic that they already had a track in the can.
15:59
Speaker 2: There was, however, good money in it, four hundred thousand
16:02
Speaker 2: dollars which Timberland and Eliyah were welcome to split down
16:05
Speaker 2: the middle and to sweeten the pot. The song was
16:07
Speaker 2: already written and ready to go. It was called are
16:10
Speaker 2: You That Somebody? And it was the brainchild of Steven
16:13
Speaker 2: Ellis Garrett aka Static Major, a songwriter and producer who,
16:18
Speaker 2: let me know it's the most was currently in a
16:20
Speaker 2: secret relationship with Aliyah. The promise of a pretty sweet
16:27
Speaker 2: pay day lit a fire under timbaland he put up
16:29
Speaker 2: bat sign on an assembled a Leah Static Major and
16:32
Speaker 2: Tim's right hand man and engineer Jimmy Douglas at Village
16:35
Speaker 2: Studios over on the West side of La There they
16:38
Speaker 2: get to work again, flexing the weirdo muscle, the one
16:41
Speaker 2: that drew raised eyebrows and then earned them a coveted
16:44
Speaker 2: number one slot with one.
16:45
Speaker 1: In a million.
16:46
Speaker 2: Timberlin's stuttering beat, the clicks and the clacks, and the
16:49
Speaker 2: off kilter, inverted funk of it all inspired and I'm
16:53
Speaker 2: not kidding here by the upa Lupa song and the
16:55
Speaker 2: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film. That odd sonic
16:58
Speaker 2: place setting was then balanced so delicately by Aliah's compelling vocal,
17:03
Speaker 2: so confident, so cool and collected. The genius of this track,
17:07
Speaker 2: and I remind you that it was created at the
17:09
Speaker 2: last minute, in the wee hours of an early summer
17:11
Speaker 2: night turned morning, is how skillfully it balances avant garde
17:14
Speaker 2: in mainstream sensibilities. Perhaps it was difficult to see at
17:18
Speaker 2: the time when it came out on the soundtrack for
17:20
Speaker 2: a silly Enny Murphy comedy. There is something so radical
17:23
Speaker 2: about this track that it's subversive. And I haven't even
17:27
Speaker 2: mentioned one of the song's most indelible elements, which is
17:30
Speaker 2: the sampled sound of that baby cooing during the hook,
17:33
Speaker 2: a sound that Timbaland, in his delightfully strange and subversive way,
17:37
Speaker 2: added at the last minute, right before they mixed. The
17:40
Speaker 2: Master and Shift argue that somebody to the label that
17:44
Speaker 2: baby sound. By the way, it comes from a nineteen
17:46
Speaker 2: sixty four album called Authentic Sound Effects Volume A. And
17:48
Speaker 2: if you think it sounds familiar, his Royal Badass Prince
17:51
Speaker 2: had used the same exact sample some sixteen years prior,
17:54
Speaker 2: at the very end of his song Delirious. But back
17:57
Speaker 2: to the story, the creative part between Aliah and Timbaland
18:01
Speaker 2: was a crystal ball of sorts gazing into the future
18:03
Speaker 2: of R and B and hip hop is coming down
18:05
Speaker 2: the pike at them. And that fact is a bit
18:07
Speaker 2: easier to see now in hindsight, but at the time
18:10
Speaker 2: it was just life happening, calls in the middle of
18:13
Speaker 2: the night, songs whipped together under great pressure, necessity being
18:16
Speaker 2: the mother of invention, all of that. Three years later,
18:22
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one, life was still happening, though
18:25
Speaker 2: still not in the way it's expected to happen. God
18:28
Speaker 2: laughing while we're busy making other plans and so on.
18:31
Speaker 2: Aliyah and Blackground Records were now partnered with Virgin Records
18:35
Speaker 2: to release her third eponymous album. Timberland, who was busy
18:39
Speaker 2: with other high profile projects barely had time to contribute,
18:42
Speaker 2: though Aliah was able to corner him to work on
18:44
Speaker 2: three of the album's tracks. The album was poised to
18:47
Speaker 2: level her up once again. The biggest tour of her
18:50
Speaker 2: career was on the Horizon, with the goal being to
18:52
Speaker 2: make Aliyah as much of a household name as Madonna.
18:57
Speaker 2: That was the dream, But first Aliah had to wake
19:00
Speaker 2: up from another dream once she was having at an
19:03
Speaker 2: airport in the Bahamas while she was waiting to fly
19:05
Speaker 2: back home and back to that long lost sense of normalcy.
19:14
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this word word word.
19:23
Speaker 2: Aliyah man never woken up from that dream. That dream,
19:30
Speaker 2: by the way, the one I described earlier, in which
19:33
Speaker 2: he is running from something in the darkness, owing to
19:35
Speaker 2: lift off, take flight and escape. She described it as
19:39
Speaker 2: a dream that she kept having when she gave what
19:41
Speaker 2: would turn out to be one of her final interviews
19:43
Speaker 2: to a German reporter in Paris. This is just weeks
19:46
Speaker 2: before she traveled to the Bahamas to shoot the video
19:49
Speaker 2: for Rock the Boat with Hype Williams.
19:51
Speaker 1: Once again.
19:52
Speaker 2: According to the thirteen year old luggage carrier who was
19:54
Speaker 2: helping out with his family's business at the marsh Harbor Airport,
19:58
Speaker 2: the one who saw someone give a pill to a
19:59
Speaker 2: La before she passed out. Once it was time to
20:02
Speaker 2: board the Cessna four or to be to ain engine
20:04
Speaker 2: plane traveling from the Bahamas back to Miami on August
20:07
Speaker 2: twenty fifth, two thousand and one, Aliyah was still asleep
20:10
Speaker 2: and had to be carried.
20:11
Speaker 1: Onto the plane, which leads.
20:13
Speaker 2: To the obvious question what was that pill and who
20:17
Speaker 2: gave it to her?
20:18
Speaker 1: But I'm getting ahead of myself.
20:20
Speaker 2: Getting on the plane unconscious may have been the only
20:23
Speaker 2: way Aleah would have agreed to do it, seeing as
20:25
Speaker 2: how she had a lot of anxiety about boarding the
20:27
Speaker 2: aircraft in the first place. It was small, and she
20:30
Speaker 2: worried it was over the weight limit. Directly preceding her
20:33
Speaker 2: being carried onto the plane, an argument took place along
20:36
Speaker 2: airport personnel about the total weight of the.
20:38
Speaker 1: Passengers and their luggage.
20:40
Speaker 2: The pilot was complaining to anyone that would listen. In
20:43
Speaker 2: the baggage handlers too, there was too much luggage on
20:46
Speaker 2: board one minute, and there wasn't too much luggage on
20:48
Speaker 2: board the next. It kept going back and forth. Aaliah's team,
20:52
Speaker 2: that's her bodyguard, her makeup artist, two hairstylists, and three
20:55
Speaker 2: record label employees were all getting restless. The plane was
20:58
Speaker 2: scheduled to take off at four thirty in the afternoon,
21:01
Speaker 2: but now it was almost six and they were still
21:03
Speaker 2: at a standstill. Tempers flared. The pilot threw up his
21:07
Speaker 2: hands and he conceded he didn't even know what he
21:10
Speaker 2: was arguing about anymore. He just wanted to get his
21:11
Speaker 2: burd up in the air and get these irritated flat
21:13
Speaker 2: Landers back home. It was six forty five that evening
21:19
Speaker 2: when the Sesna finally boarded, over two hours passed its
21:22
Speaker 2: original departure time. The skies were blue and the weather
21:26
Speaker 2: was calm. The plane's twin propellers began to squeak and
21:30
Speaker 2: twirl as the engine fired and then kicked into full speed.
21:33
Speaker 2: The sound like dual supersized lawnmowers, burning hot and loud.
21:38
Speaker 2: The passengers settled in as the pilot taxied the aircraft
21:40
Speaker 2: to the top of the runway, and the call came
21:43
Speaker 2: in over the radio that they'd been clear for takeoff.
21:46
Speaker 2: The pilot increased the throttle and the plane rumbled and
21:49
Speaker 2: sped forward, gaining speed as it.
21:51
Speaker 1: Traveled down the runway.
21:53
Speaker 2: More throttle more rumbling, more speed than they were airborne,
21:59
Speaker 2: the Sesna actually making the climb from the ground to
22:02
Speaker 2: the clouds steady, up, a little higher, steady, and higher,
22:06
Speaker 2: still steady, And then after just sixty seconds, some one
22:11
Speaker 2: hundred feet in the year, the plane suddenly veered to
22:14
Speaker 2: the left way off course, and as it did, the
22:17
Speaker 2: nose began to turn from ascent to descent, from skyward
22:20
Speaker 2: to earthbound, and the Cessna was in a free fall
22:23
Speaker 2: straight down. The plane dropped like a stone within seconds,
22:28
Speaker 2: crashing into the marsh lined with bushes. It exploded upon impact,
22:34
Speaker 2: and the wreckage was in flames. First responders found an
22:38
Speaker 2: aircraft ripped to pieces. The bodies of all seven passages
22:42
Speaker 2: as well as the pilot, was strewn throughout the crash site.
22:45
Speaker 1: Someone was screaming.
22:47
Speaker 2: Three of the people on board, Aliah's bodyguard, her hair stylus,
22:51
Speaker 2: and one other unidentified person, were found alive, though all
22:54
Speaker 2: three soon died either at the hospital or on the way.
22:58
Speaker 2: Everyone else was pronounced dead at the scene, including a Leah,
23:02
Speaker 2: who was discovered approximately twenty feet from the mangled, smoking
23:06
Speaker 2: twist of steel, strapped into her seat, curled up head
23:10
Speaker 2: between her legs, covered in burns with signs.
23:13
Speaker 1: Of massive head trauma.
23:18
Speaker 2: An investigation into the crash blamed it on engine failure,
23:21
Speaker 2: adding that as a Leah herself suspected the overloaded cargo
23:25
Speaker 2: and passengers on board could have contributed to that failure.
23:30
Speaker 2: But overloading an engine failure quickly took a back seat
23:33
Speaker 2: when new revelations came to light. Revelations about the pilot,
23:37
Speaker 2: the charter company, illegal drugs, and massive fraud, the kinds
23:42
Speaker 2: of things that make a plane go into a nose
23:44
Speaker 2: dive after takeoff, the kinds of things that ensure that
23:48
Speaker 2: life never plays out the way it's supposed to. Two
24:11
Speaker 2: weeks before he flew the Cessna that crashed and killed Aliyah,
24:15
Speaker 2: her team, and himself, the pilot, Louis Morales, third, was
24:19
Speaker 2: in a Florida courtroom. He was facing four felonies, including
24:23
Speaker 2: one for possession of crack cocaine. He pleaded no contest
24:27
Speaker 2: In exchange for that plea, Louis Morales was sentenced to
24:30
Speaker 2: three years probation. Since he was technically not convicted of
24:36
Speaker 2: a crime, his pilot's license was not revoked.
24:40
Speaker 1: All the same, he wasn't.
24:41
Speaker 2: Supposed to be in the cockpit of that Cessna on
24:44
Speaker 2: August twenty fifth, two thousand and one. We know this
24:47
Speaker 2: now because Louis Morales was not listed on the charter
24:50
Speaker 2: playing company's official certificate for the flight. This information was
24:54
Speaker 2: revealed days after the initial crash. It wasn't until close
24:57
Speaker 2: to a year later that an even bigger bomb show
25:00
Speaker 2: was revealed, that being an autopsy report which proved that
25:04
Speaker 2: there was cocaine and alcohol in Louis Morales's body at
25:07
Speaker 2: the time of the accident. Now, Louis Morales wasn't the
25:11
Speaker 2: only one involved in this tragedy who had a record.
25:14
Speaker 2: Blackhawk International Airways, the charter company in charge of the flight,
25:18
Speaker 2: had been fined by the FAA four times in the
25:20
Speaker 2: last three years for violating safety standards, for failing to
25:24
Speaker 2: comply with maintenance standards, and for failing to test its
25:27
Speaker 2: employees for illegal drug use. Even more, Blackhawk's owner, Gilbert Chacone,
25:32
Speaker 2: had his own criminal record for fraud, and not some
25:35
Speaker 2: rinky dink con job either. The guy was part of
25:38
Speaker 2: a huge four hundred million dollar insurance scam. His home
25:41
Speaker 2: address was listed as the address of another company called Skystreet,
25:45
Speaker 2: which was the owner of the cessna. Four to two b.
25:48
Speaker 2: As all these facts were revealed to the public in
25:51
Speaker 2: the weeks following the crash, the FAA employee who had
25:54
Speaker 2: cleared the flight took his own life.
25:57
Speaker 1: It gets even more complicated from here.
26:00
Speaker 2: It turns out that Blackhawk wasn't originally hired to chart
26:03
Speaker 2: in the flight. That was supposed to have been the
26:06
Speaker 2: responsibility of another company called sky Limo, partnering with a
26:09
Speaker 2: shipment company called Profrate Cargo Service. Profrate had actually determined
26:14
Speaker 2: that the luggage was heavy enough to require multiple planes
26:17
Speaker 2: to get everyone and everything back to the mainland safely.
26:20
Speaker 2: But when the original flight time had to be rescheduled,
26:23
Speaker 2: someone used that blip in the plan to hastily replace
26:27
Speaker 2: sky Limo with Blackhawk, someone who we still don't know
26:32
Speaker 2: and why. Was likely because Blackhawk was cheaper and cut
26:36
Speaker 2: more corners. Of course, there are other narratives out there
26:40
Speaker 2: about why Blackhawk, a cheap o company with a bad rep,
26:43
Speaker 2: was chosen last minute to bring a Leah home.
26:46
Speaker 1: The R and B singer Mary J.
26:47
Speaker 2: Blige, for one, not a close friend of Alia's, but
26:50
Speaker 2: a known acquaintance, speaking on the vee T show one
26:52
Speaker 2: O six in Park, claimed that Alah's death was not
26:55
Speaker 2: a simple accident, but rather quote a murder, a spiritual
26:59
Speaker 2: murder unquote. She went on to say, quote I could
27:03
Speaker 2: go a lot deeper for a lot of people, I
27:05
Speaker 2: would have to bring proof unquote. More recently, there's Jaguar Wright,
27:10
Speaker 2: a singer songwriter who is working with the roots in
27:13
Speaker 2: jay Z around the same time that aliahs Starr was
27:15
Speaker 2: on the rise. In the wake of the recent allegations
27:18
Speaker 2: against Sean Ditty Combs, Jaguar Wright has gone on the
27:21
Speaker 2: offensive publicly. In a series of impassioned interviews that have
27:25
Speaker 2: been circulating on social media, she lays out a conspiracy
27:28
Speaker 2: surrounding Aleah's death that lays the blame not on Ditty
27:31
Speaker 2: but instead on jay Z, the one time business partner
27:35
Speaker 2: of Damon Dash, the Rockefeller executive whom Aaliah was dating
27:39
Speaker 2: at the time. And look, I'm not even going to
27:41
Speaker 2: touch that one right now. You can go look it
27:43
Speaker 2: up for yourself and see what she has to say.
27:45
Speaker 2: It's wild. And then there's Damon Dash, who in two
27:49
Speaker 2: thousand and one was the love of Alia's life and
27:52
Speaker 2: the major motivation for her to return back home on
27:54
Speaker 2: the day that she did. In an interview on Entertainment Tonight,
27:57
Speaker 2: Dame alleged that Lenny Kravitz off to send a private
28:00
Speaker 2: jet to the Bahamas to pick up a Leah, but
28:02
Speaker 2: instead Hype Williams took that jet, leaving Aliah stuck with
28:06
Speaker 2: the whole Blackhawk debacle. When asked if he'd ever confronted
28:10
Speaker 2: Hype Williams about this, Dame replied, fuck yeah. But when
28:13
Speaker 2: pressed to divulge the details of that confrontation, Dame only
28:16
Speaker 2: said ask him and just earlier this year, twenty twenty four,
28:22
Speaker 2: Dame Dash was talking again about his relationship with Leah
28:25
Speaker 2: and how that immeasurable loss affected both his life and
28:28
Speaker 2: the music world. This time he was speaking on the
28:31
Speaker 2: PbD podcast. This time, Dames said quote, I know what happened,
28:35
Speaker 2: but I'm not going to tell you what the truth
28:36
Speaker 2: is at this moment we're in public. Maybe that truth
28:43
Speaker 2: will come out in time, if there really is a
28:45
Speaker 2: hidden truth behind this great tragedy. Until then, we do
28:48
Speaker 2: know this. In two thousand and two, one year after
28:52
Speaker 2: the accident, Aliah's family filed a lawsuit for wrongful death
28:55
Speaker 2: and Negligenceit named, among others, Blackhawk, its owner of Gilbert Chacone, Suystream,
29:00
Speaker 2: Hype Williams, and Virgin Records. In addition to being accused
29:03
Speaker 2: by one attorney of quote putting profits over people unquote,
29:07
Speaker 2: Virgin also failed to honor a verbal promise to pay
29:10
Speaker 2: a Nassau mortuary to prepare the bodies of Aliyah.
29:13
Speaker 1: And other passengers.
29:14
Speaker 2: Ultimately, the R and B singer Maxwell stepped up to
29:17
Speaker 2: foot the bill for Aliah's funeral, But that's another story itself.
29:23
Speaker 2: One year after the lawsuit was filed, the family settled
29:26
Speaker 2: with Blackhawks, Gystream and Chokhone for an undisclosed sum. The
29:31
Speaker 2: details of that settlement are confidential. But the incredible talent,
29:35
Speaker 2: the fire that burned deep in the heart and soul
29:37
Speaker 2: of Aliyah, that's in the public record. The fact that
29:42
Speaker 2: that public record only lasted until two thousand and one,
29:45
Speaker 2: now more than twenty years in the past, when Aliah
29:47
Speaker 2: Houghton was just getting started, that's a disgrace. I'm Jake
29:53
Speaker 2: Brennan in this his disgrace.
29:56
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30:18
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30:21
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30:26
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30:29
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30:32
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31:01
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