On August 18, opening statements began at Kelly’s trial on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking. Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, is at the center of the other big Aaliyah milestone of this month. Kelly, the album’s producer and Aaliyah’s alleged abuser. She still is: A 2021 MTV News article declared that listening to her 2001 self-titled album “still sounds like the future.” Yet until this month, the only Aaliyah album available to stream was her 1994 debut, Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number - which meant that listening to any Aaliyah song on streaming meant automatically sending royalties to R. In her lifetime, Aaliyah was celebrated as one of pop’s most forward-looking and futuristic artists. Alongside that anniversary comes a notable milestone: On August 20, Aaliyah’s music catalog began making its way to streaming for the first time. The R&B singer, born Aaliyah Dana Haughton and nicknamed Baby Girl but best known by her first name, died in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, at 22 years old. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Aaliyah. In the Purity Chronicles, Vox looks back at the sexual and gendered mores of the late ’90s and 2000s, one pop culture phenomenon at a time.
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