Every year, this date arrives, and the ache never dulls. Twenty-four years since Aaliyah left us, and yet she feels closer than ever—her music humming through Bluetooth speakers at cookouts, her image reborn in TikTok edits, her style stitched into the DNA of modern R&B. We call her the Princess of R&B not just out of nostalgia, but because her reign still stands, untouched, unshaken.

Aaliyah wasn’t just a voice—though that whispery, feather-light vocal floated like smoke over Timbaland’s basslines and Missy Elliott’s beats. She wasn’t just a face—though the side-swept bang, the leather pants, the crop tops, and those iconic sunglasses carved an entire aesthetic that girls in the ’90s and 2000s copied to the letter. She was a presence. A vibration. The kind of artist who didn’t have to de

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