Beyonce's wack ass debut first single completely flopped "Work It Out" summer 2002
She had to push her first album back a whole year while Ashanti(Commercially) and Amerie(Creatively) ran 2002 R&B
Aaliyah was already gone and she was still struggling until she jacked Amerie's producer/sound and put out "Crazy In Love"
got with Jay(Aaliyah old bf) and came out with a remade 2pac song "03 Boniie & Clyde"
like Ashanti/Nas/Murda INC already did a year before ("The Pledge")
Aaliyah was gonna star the Matrix sequels her next album would have done dumb numbers she would have been ruling
While some of this is true, Beyonce didn't jack Amerie's sound. Rich Harrison had already produced Kelly Rowland's "Can't Nobody" around the time Amerie debuted. He was already producing for that camp.