Jay-Z Remembers Aaliyah

Jay-Z abruptly stopped his concert at Detroit's DTE Energy Music Theater shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday during "Hard Knock Life" to honor the one-year anniversary of the death of R&B singer Aaliyah.

Performing as part of the Sprite Liquid Mix Tour, the rapper asked that the production staff turn down the lights, and fans sparked their lighters as Aaliyah's "Try Again" played softly over the speakers.

Jay-Z and the rest of his Roc-a-Fella family -- including co-CEO Damon Dash, who was engaged to Aaliyah at the time of her death -- turned their backs to the audience and walked to the rear of the stage for the thirty-second memorial.

"We love you," Jay-Z said as the lights went up. "We miss y'all."

Aaliyah, who was raised in the Detroit area, was killed on August 25, 2001, when a plane in which she was a passenger crashed in the Bahamas, where the twenty-two-year old singer/actress was filming a music video. In mid-July 2002, it was reported that the pilot, Luis Antonio Morales Blanes, had cocaine and alcohol in his body at the time of the crash.

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Song Stories

“Let My Love Open the Door”

Pete Townshend | 1980

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."

More Song Stories entries »

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