The Eve hit song that was made for Aaliyah
Aaliyah was one of the most revered R&B singers at the turn of the millennium. Known for her soft, silky vocals, she was set to be one of the biggest female acts in the US. With iconic club anthems such as ‘More Than A Woman’ and ‘Try Again’, she dominated the charts and birthed a new, exciting wave of R&B.
Aaliyah’s music was unique as she liked to work with producers who took risks with their production of R&B. She worked most extensively with her mentor and close friend Timbaland with whom she made musical magic. However, during the making of her third self-titled album, Aaliyah began to experiment a bit more and one beatmaker she was keen to work with was Swizz Beatz.
At the time, Swizz Beatz was heavily involved with production for Ruff Ryders and was behind many of DMX’s early hits. Still, he was a risky taker, and this attracted Aaliyah to him musically.
In 1999, two years before her untimely and tragic death in 2001, Aaliyah had requested a custom track from Swizz, and he saved one, especially for the One In A Million creator. However, her record label, Blackground Entertainment, didn’t seem to want the collaboration to go ahead.
Swizz Beatz had been brought on board in 1999 by the singer herself to work on what would become her third project. However, they never got to see the album through. Speaking to Complex in 2011, Swizz recalled the period, detailing, “I remember Timbaland being a part of it. We were really cool and she wanted to work with me super bad. So I was like, ‘Yo, I made this song. It’s called ‘Gotta Man,’ I’m trying to get it to you,’ but our schedules and labels didn’t permit it. We were going back and forth between price at that time.”
The track never made it into Aaliyah’s hands, but Ruff Ryders had their own female prodigy, Eve, and luckily for Swizz, the instrumental worked perfectly with her rap style. Furthermore, he has since admitted that it matched the sonics of Eve’s 1991 debut, Let There Be Eve.. and would have sounded out of place on Aaliyah.
Instead of letting the record go, he gave it to Eve and during his interview, he insisted he made the right decision, unveiling, “It fit the vibe of the Eve album I had started working on. I was trying to keep her as the ‘pit-bull in the skirt’ and still appeal to the young female audience,” He continued, “We were trying different things, and it became one of the biggest records ever. It’s up there with ‘What Y’all Want’ and ‘Love Is Blind.’”
Following the release of the track in 1999, Eve spoke with MTV about how she knew ‘Gotta Man’ was going to be an anthem. Reflecting on when she fist got the beat, Eve told the show, “I heard the chorus [and] I’m like, ‘Yo, that’s crazy. You can’t stop singing it after you hear it. Still singing it, you might not know what it’s saying.”
She concluded with her prediction, disclosing, “So I was like, ‘Yo, people are gonna be singing that song. Little kids and everything.’ I was like, ‘Yo, that’s hot. I gotta have that song. I gotta have that track.’ So [Swizz] was like, ‘Well, start writing to it.’ So I started writing to it. And it came out like that.”