While most of the time this column is used to vent and rant at Hollywood and the entertainment industry, this week I wanted to take time to honor and pay respect to a young talent, Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash over the Bahamas last weekend. At only 22 she was already a veteran of the entertainment industry. She was an established vocal talent who Rolling Stone had called,” an R&B seductress of the highest order(August 2, 2001),” and she was coming into her own as an actress (she had already been in Romeo must Die and had four other films in the can, ready to go). I will admit that I am not a fan of hip-hop, nor was I really a fan of Aaliyah. The reason I have chosen to take the time to reflect back on her short career is the lack of media attention her death has been given. On one hand it is nice to see that the popular media can contain itself, but in an age where any gun-totting-gangsta-thug is shot makes all of the major media cover stories (yeah I ‘m talkin’ about Biggie and Tupak), it is sad to see that such a strong role model is pushed to the second and third tier of news stories. Now do I think that the Wall Street Journal should make this a front-page story, no. What I am saying is that within hours of the deaths of other music personalities, MTV presented a documentary of their lives, and replayed any footage they had of the star. Last weekend the only thing that MTV could do was allow Kurt Loder to go on the air and give a brief 30 second news snippet while mispronouncing her name. She was a strong independent young woman of color. Someone who was a role-model to many and she was not paid the respect she deserved by the mediums which she was a part of… MTV has the power to help create musical icons and this is one time they dropped the ball, it is too bad, because at 22, Aaliyah had what it took to be a genuine diva.

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