Whitney Houston
(August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012 )
By theGrio
8:07 PM on 02/11/2012
The Associated Press is reporting that iconic and troubled singer, Whitney Houston is dead. The pop icon was in the midst of planning a career comeback. She recently completed work on a big screen remake of the 70s-cult film Sparkle, alongside ex-American Idol Jordin Sparks and Voice judge Cee-Lo Green. But there have also been recent reports of serious financial trouble and a deadly case of emphysema.
She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.
Video capture of Whitney Houston performing My Love is Your Love.
At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen. Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like “The Bodyguard” and “Waiting to Exhale.”
She had the perfect voice and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise. She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.
Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston perform during the finale of the VH1 DIVAS LIVE '99
But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.
“The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy,” Houston told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side. It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.
In her article on TheGrio.com, Rhonda Racha Penrice called her the voice of the post-Civil Rights generation saying “represented the promise of a new day.”
The news of Whitney Houston’s passing has shocked us all. Please share your thoughts on the tragic death of the R&B superstar, who has died at the age of 48.
