“Earl Simmons was a wonderful, caring father, and a sensitive, thoughtful man. Unfortunately, Dark Man X took over and ran amok, tormented and struggling to find the light. … DMX gave me the inspiration to keep going at Def Jam when rap became soft and silly,” Lyor Cohen, a former executive at Def Jam, said in a statement.
On Saturday, August 25th, pop princess Aaliyah boarded a ten-seat twin-engine Cessna 402B in Nassau Bahamas bound for Opa-Locka, Florida, with the pilot, Luis Morales III. She boarded with seven members of her crew: video-production director Douglas Kratz, 28; bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41; hairstylists Anthony Dodd, 34, and Eric Forman, 29; Blackground Records executive Gina Smith, 30; makeup artist Christopher Maldonado, 32; and friend Keeth Wallace, 49. A few minutes after take off, the plane crashed just a few hundred feet from the runway. Aaliyah was among six passengers dead at the scene; three others passed away hours later.
This Week In Black History (January 11 – January 17)