When the Mute R.Kelly movement started, many people including on-air personalities didn’t understand why his personal life and choices should get in the way of his source of livelihood; and for others who have worked with him whether as studio and sound engineer, instrumentalists, tour managers, public relations and the entire eco-system of music production. For those who have followed the history of R.Kelly’s bold-faced sexual abuse of minors, it may be easy to understand. His former record label, RCA Records dropped him in 2019.
Flashback to 1996, R.Kelly escaped a sexual abuse trial when he settled out of court. That triggered some curiosity and some journalists began to investigate. Jim Derogatis and Abdon M. Pallasch published a story on several allegations of sexual abuse of minors against R.Kelly in 2000 but when the police began to investigate, the victims didn’t co-operate. The following year, someone sent a sex tape in VHS format to the journalists who turned it over to Chicago police. The news went viral and eventually, it was copied and even sold on the streets by 2002. After these, more allegations of R.Kelly’s sexual crimes came to the fore and most were settled out of court, with victims forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.
One of the most prominent of his victims was the late singer, Aaliyah. It was reported that R.Kelly, her supposed music mentor, began having sexual relations with her at age 14. To cover up what would have been a scandal of the decade, he married her whilst parading a marriage certificate that documented the singer as 18 when in truth, she was only 15.
Fast-forward to 2017, Buzzfeed publishes an exclusive report of R.Kelly, alleging that he ran a sex cult, estranged young girls from their families. Oronike Odeleye then started a campaign Mute R.Kelly to stop radio station in Atlanta from playing his songs. Rolling Stone also published another story based on the singer’s sexual crimes. In 2019, the nerve-racking docu-series, Surviving R.Kelly was premiered. It provoked global outrage and renewed calls for investigation.
For music fans, it was a season of reckoning. Some of R.Kelly’s lyrics were suggestive of him relishing the impunity, holding dark memories and retraumatising his victims when they are played. “Age Ain’t Nothing but A Number” was a duet he did with Aaliyah and the title of her debut album. While R.Kelly persists in denial of the truth, it becomes ever clearer that he sees “Nothing Wrong with A Little Bump N Grind”, so he keeps making soulful spiritual hits like “I believe I can Fly”, “The Storm is Over” and “Gotham City” every time he got slapped with a lawsuit. His life as well as music is like a roller-coaster of image laundering. As a charismatic criminal, he continues to “stick his key into the ignition.’’
His sexualised lyrics are sometimes accounts of his unsaid confessions, not just fantasies. For instance, one of his victims was a former hairstylist who could never recover from the singer’s sexual advances that he later articulated in the song “Hair braider”.
To appreciate his artistry, first, you must understand that R.Kelly doesn’t read and write. Still, he created a 33-chapter series called Trapped in the Closet. The spell-binding sung movie that the genius artist composed dramatises a story of a one-night stand which sets off a chain of events, gradually revealing a greater web of lies, sex and deceit. How much closer can the truth in R.Kelly’s life get to the characters and persona he builds through his narrative songs? It is a matter of personal choice and conscience whether to listen or play his music. But can one’s personal music preference cause emotional pains for others? Defenders of R.Kelly would insist that he is what a typical music artist is: sex-craving with loads of hush money.
However, the graphic accounts of his sexual escapades with minors, and his annoying God complex exceed what could be called mere sexual preference. R.Kelly asked some of victims to smear their own faeces on their faces and lick them as punishment for failing to abide by his rules- add to this his taste for ‘golden showers’ that is pouring his urine on his sex partners.
The criminal justice system in the US understands sex addiction and would send an addict into therapy. Some celebrities have come out as sex addicts including ASAP Rocky, Tiger Woods, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber. They had struggled with depression and made ‘comebacks’ or at least some improvement in their careers. But for a person like R.Kelly who believes he is training young girls to sexually please him, while luring them with the impression that he could help to start their music careers, which he never did, and deliberately infecting young girls with incurable sexually transmitted disease-that is criminal.
As long as R.Kelly claims innocence, there would be fans-millions of them-who will keep believing that he has been wrongfully convicted, and that is scary. Even his former crisis manager, Darell Johnson had to quit at some point. His former wife, staff, former collaborators, over 50 women had failed to convince these die-hard fans of R.Kelly. Such is the power and influence of his music.
Certainly, the storm is not over for R.Kelly. He would be sentenced next year by May 4 having been found guilty of all counts in the New York trial. He faces a pending case in the city’s federal courthouse for charges on child pornography and obstruction of justice. As well as four separate indictments alleging sexual abuse that are unresolved at Chicago’s Leighton Criminal Court Building in Cook County, and a child prostitution charge in Minnesota. R. Kelly faces up to life imprisonment.
