“The photo on her next studio album, 1996's One in a Million, saw her defiantly staring down the camera, dressed in a power jacket and silver-rimmed glasses that once again hid her eyes from ours. The look is pissed-off and unbreakable, not unlike the aggrieved spouse of a politician caught in a sex scandal. She was 17. Aaliyah always had the gift of presenting as a woman even when she was a teenager. The curse was that she did so in a world that doesn’t know how to separate womanhood from sexuality.” (more…)