While “Rock the Boat” was certainly not a video worth dying for, it bears noting that Aaliyah still did, technically, expire for her art. And that, if we must look to something positive to come out of that horrific plane crash, then let it at least be this. Maybe she was even the last artist of this century (so early on within it) to be able to lay claim to such a statement by being, well, laid to rest. At just twenty-two years old, she also kept the long ago antiquated tradition going of proving that those artists who burn brightest tend to flame out early on (see: Rimbaud, who stopped writing at twenty and died at age thirty-seven). Which she very literally did in that Cessna 402 aircraft piloted by the illegally licensed Luis Morales III (later found to have cocaine and alcohol traces in his system).
Filming for “Rock the Boat” took place from August 22nd to August 25th, though it was scheduled to go through the 26th, when Aaliyah’s original flight had been planned to depart for Opa-locka Airport in Florida. Having wrapped up early (perhaps because of Hype Williams’ efficiency), Aaliyah and her entourage were quick to make the decision to return stateside instead of enjoying one more night in paradise while awaiting the flight scheduled with a Cessna 404, which they had originally arrived on and was more equipped to handle the number of people involved (the Cessna 402 was instead overloaded by seven hundred pounds, and, what’s more, bearing one more passenger that it was certified for). It was an additional twenty-four hours that surely might have spared their lives. But no, the American work ethic took hold and perhaps Aaliyah felt the self-imposed pressure of returning to continue her various projects, “Rock the Boat” post-production included.
The now eerie scenes from “Rock the Boat,” however, seemed to have presaged some amount of doom. The opening of it begins with Aaliyah walking alone on a beach–the kind you might see in church brochures about walking with Jesus. It does, indeed, appear as though she’s entered Heaven amid a blue sky backdrop with fluffy clouds. Then there are those jarring images of her swimming underwater in a corpse-like fashion (something LDR might have ripped off subconsciously for the “Music to Watch Boys To” video) that also offer a retrospective sense of portentousness. This is compounded when comparing the requiem-like tone and rhythm of “Rock the Boat” to the more upbeat singles she had released earlier that year, “We Need A Resolution” and “More Than A Woman.”
Despite the slowed down tempo, Aaliyah still finds a way to make it danceable. When she isn’t on a boat seamlessly executing her choreography with her backup dancers, she’s usually doing another series of moves against an ocean wave green screen, leading one to wonder why it was necessary at all to go to the Bahamas for a video that didn’t capitalize nearly as much as it could have on location. For all any of the viewers would know, it could have just as well been shot in Miami or even one of the beaches in Southern California. But perhaps Aaliyah was looking for an excuse to travel, a reason to get out of the U.S. for a few days before her brainwashed mind made her believe she ought to return expediently.
It was possible that because she was rising more prominently into the mainstream, she didn’t want to feel as though she was missing any opportunity while being away, no matter how short the duration. She had reached a point in her career, with her self-titled third album, during which one could easily say she had hit her stride, found her voice. It made the tragedy of her death all the more profound when considering what she might have gone on to achieve with this new aura of self-assurance.
The very mood that’s written all over her face in every frame of the video, which would become an unwitting elegy to her radiance. She was, indeed, in the process of dying for what she was happiest doing. Not everyone–in fact, almost no one–can really say that before their demise. In this way, we try to ignore that a false sense of urgency about needing to get back to the U.S. wasn’t a key factor in conjuring the satyr that would lure her to the other side. But rather, we can look at her life and the circumstances of her death and say that it truly was devoted to her artistic evolution and improvement.
