** Aaliyah on the cover of November 2001 / Photography by Eric Johnson **
The History of AALIYAH & VIBE Magazine
VIBE magazine is based in New York and was founded by producers David Salzman and Quincy Jones in September ’93 with their content primarily featuring R&B and hip hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. A year later, they would shock the urban community with disturbing underage marriage details between her and her Jive Records label mate that would change young Aaliyah’s life and still be talked about even after her death.
At the age of 15, young Aaliyah would be pushed to handle the difficult interviews of media outlets only wanting to know “what happened” and slyly try to crack her to break her NDA permitting her from speaking on the marriage scandal. Aaliyah would avoid the questions by either saying “move on” or “it never happened” in hopes the interviewer would just move on from it (and in some case that wasn’t enough). But who sent the anonymous tip to VIBE to begin with? Does the NDA prevent you from speaking with a therapist? On top of being blackballed from the music industry, that’s a heavy weight for a 15-year-old to have to carry internally by herself.
Luckily, she crosses paths with Missy and Tim and the rest is history! Carving her own lane and opening her own doors, Aaliyah gets right back up and shows the world she is a phoenix! VIBE would write up a COME BACK article for their Dec-Jan ’97 issue.
Later, VIBE would feature her (along with Bijou Phillips, Kidada Jones, & Natane) in their September 2000 article titled “Hot Girls” (photography by Hype Williams; this would be Hype’s very first photography shoot); the article was about having beauty and brains while being confident in yourself.
August 2001: The first non-photograph cover of VIBE was an illustration of Aaliyah by well-known artist/illustrator Alvaro; this was Aaliyah's first appearance on VIBEs cover. Her last being released November 2001 and would go to be one of the most iconic VIBE magazine covers.
