To borrow (and mangle) a phrase from Kool Moe Dee:

She would've been better, forget about bigger.

Bishop31 said:

I agree!

She would've just been blown off the music charts like Ashanti the second Beyonce came out shaking her goods to "Crazy in Love".

she wouldve been swept under the rug just like her peers brandy and monica. brandy hasnt had a hit record in years and her new cd is expected to do only 70k-80k...that wont even be top 10. thats such a far cry from her 90s career and she had the biggest career of the 3 girls too. i dont see things being any different for aaliyah. at her death, her single flopped and her cd was falling down the charts. but its like when the plane fell, she suddenly was such a superstar and a music genius. thats not how i remember it. plus beyonce & aaliyah have 2 different styles that have nothin to do with each other. aaliyah and ciara were more similar.

lets be honest

Aaliyah was much better than Beyonce could ever be.

her last album was a work of art, and static (RIP) did some great work on that album.

None of Beyonce's work touches One in a Million or Aaliyah's self titled last album.

Absolutely none.

Beyonce is a wannabe actress, who is not only dreadful at acting, she has some of the most dreadful songs you could ever hear.

if you really want to see how bad Beyonce is at acting, just download the dvd quality rip on torrent and watch it, then laugh at her!

Spare a thought for those people who spent their hard earned money to go watch her latest movie on the theatres.

Good job that someone uploaded a dvd quality version onto torrents.
I hope that movie bombs.

I'll listen to some quality Jennifer Hudson music instead of any bland Beyonce stuff.

dirtyman2005 said:

Wow.

scriptgirl said:

Aaliyah would still had the crossover pop culture success that she needed. But Beyonce would have still been a bigger diva than her.

1. Beyonce's cut-throat manager/father Matthew doing most of the dirty work in seeing his little princess as a bigger star.

2. Beyonce's husband (Freemason-driven I must add.....) Jay-Z would still give his wife an advantage of the social network within the music industry.

dirtyman2005 said:

dirtyman2005 said:

Co-sign.

People can dog Aaliyah's voice all they want, but the bottom line for me is that Beyoncé has never sounded as good as Aaliyah did covering "At Your Best (You Are Love)." The performance is note-for-note perfect IMO.

you guys KNOW aaliyah would never be bigger than beyonce.

That is the sad thing, her music was music better than beyonce solo work apart from DC.

Aaliyah was SO GORGEOUS, i mean so pretty she didn't have to try so hard like beyonce who always seem to look off and washed out.

Beyonce can "perform" better IMO. I think what makes beyonce a star is the whole package. She is clever. She has the costumes, dances, ego, that captures audiences.

Aaliyah's music is clearly better but i don't think it would be enough. There are plenty other female celebs who have better music than beyonce and they don't get as much attention.

Graycap23 said:

Correct. She showed HUGE promise on the acting front. I am sure she would have grown into that and just dabble a bit in the music biz, which was too limiting for her anyways. I would have loved to see her branch out.

TotalAlisa said:

Not only that, but Aaliyah was around long before Beyonce. She had time to make it BIG, but never did.

Frankly, I think Beyonce has her Destiny Child drama to thank for her success. Had the two original girls not left--OR left quietly without trying to dog the group out, they would've been another group of cute little girls who ended up in the land of Jade, Brownstone, 207 (was that the name of the group), and all the others I used to see on BET back in the day, though you'd never hear them on the radio.

Still, I think B still would've wiped her off the map. Talent isn't everything. B destroyed the careers of a lot of talented people.

Karen71 said:

NOPE NOT TRUE, the MEDIA. Sorry to say this but they only allow a few successful black artist at the top. I just realized that. You will never see 4 or 5 hugely successful black female celebs at the top of the charts. Its only one or two at a time. That is how that goes.

Beyonce was the choosen one to be at the top. Now the two black female artist at the top are rihanna and beyonce.

Beyonce really is overrated. But the media promotes her so much. Would they have given aaliyah that attention she would have been as big. But that would not have happened.

she was too much a Timbaland-protege, unfortunately.

No, she didn't have the kind of label support (money) and ruthless managing

LiquidGold said:

true, Timbaland would have fucked her career up!

TonyVanDam said:

It is not what you know, but who you know. If the tables were reverse, saying if Aaliyah was alive today, she would be the bigger star. I still say that she's a trendsetter, and even in her death, she has black female artists copying her style and dance.

angel345 said:

They weren't copying her when she was alive

abierman said:

Actually, they were a good team. They were like Jackson/Harris/Lewis
[Edited 12/13/08 20:26pm]

She showed more potential in the 7 years of her career than Beyonce has in her entire career

LiquidGold said:

sure, they made some good tracks together but I can´t help but think that Timba is a one trick pony. Aaliyah was one of his first, just think of all of those that came after her.....Timbaland´s production makes the artist sound like.....Timbaland! Even more than Prince did with his proteges.....

abierman said:

That's no different than any other popular songwriter/producer work. He wasn't an artist first, so to say they sound like him well it's really he sounds like them. He and Missy created a sound together that was distinct like the Minneapolis sound and many attempted to duplicate it also. I know a Rodney Jerkins song when I heard. I know a Shake'spear song when I hear it. I know a Dr. Dre song when I hear it


They only thing I didn't like about Aaliyah music was the repetitiveness

Maybe Beyonce only became big because there was no other female threat by then?

Beyonce was always going to hit it big but it seems her star is fading already, to me, Aaliyah would've continued to rise.

Most of you are forgetting how well Try Again did.

purplesweat said:

If you look at Beyonce's style, she took a little here and there from other female artists and made it her own excessively. For example: Shakira, Ciara, Amerie, JLo, Tina Turner, and few others. Also, what if her people paid off her competition, especially with songs.

purplesweat said:

Do I sense some snark?

angel345 said:

Also to add, most of you remember when JLo was the biggest thing since slice bread.

bboy87 said:

...?

I do honestly believe Aaliyah could've at least levelled Beyonce's success. Look at Rihanna? She doesn't have the voice and people like her a lot more than Beyonce now. Why not Aaliyah? I don't think it's fair to say her style of music from the 90s would've been what she was still doing today. As others said, she was already trying to branch out with new sounds and just imagine if she had been here when Timbaland hit the big time, too.

Add to that, the superior acting skills and I really fail to see how people think she would've faded away. She hasn't in death, how could she have alive?

Graycap23 said:

Agreed. No way would she have been as big or bigger than Beyonce. As much as I loved her, it's kinda like saying Ashanti could be as big as Beyonce. It's never gonna happen.

I could definitely see Aaliyah playing Deena instead of Beyonce

Why the Ashanti comparisons? Because they have similar voices? Ashanti was always going to fade, anyone could tell that.

Aaliyah, I'll say it again, was just starting to break mainstream with Try Again.

She's still very popular amongst people my age, every time I have a signature of her on this music forum I visit, at least 5 people ask who she is or comment on how much they miss her. They all appreciate her music, too and most of them are bubblegum pop fans.

I think she would've been huge.

Good question! Makes you wanna go hmmmmm.