Award-winning poet, spoken-word artist and author Tara Betts didn’t think Chicago would ever call out singer R. Kelly about claims of abuse and sexual coercion of young women and girls after years of consistent hits had made him largely untouchable in his hometown.
“I never thought Chicago would get here,” Betts said of the local reaction to the singer, which led to the cancellation of a UIC Pavilion show where he was scheduled to perform. The author, who has also studied and written about hip-hop, knows how badly people want to show support for hometown stars, particularly black men who hit the heights of their professions. But she believes enough is enough.
Betts, who has worked as a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, clearly remembers first hearing Kelly’s music as a high school student in Kankakee, when he made schoolgirls swoon performing with a local group called Public Announcement. Since those early days, Kelly, a homegrown talent and multiplatinum artist, has amassed a number of hits that have touched many facets of the black experience, from raunchy hits to gospel-tinged, inspirational songs.
Kelly has come under renewed scrutiny recently amid new allegations of abuse. Tuesday brought reports of the latest lawsuit against the performer, brought by a woman who accused him of sexual assault and infecting her with herpes. The allegations echo those included in a BuzzFeed story earlier this month that included reporting from Chicago-based veteran music writer and radio show host Jim DeRogatis, claiming that R. Kelly had a “sex cult” wherein women were kept in various apartments and prevented from contacting their families.
The Buzzfeed story led to a publicity campaign by female activists that led to, among other things, the May 5 concert cancellation.
Many of his local fans, Betts and others believe, have turned a blind eye toward the allegations or placed blame on the victims while Kelly has escaped questions and criminal prosecution unscathed. But they are sensing a change that could mean the end of Kelly’s career since the #MeToo, #MuteRKelly and #TimesUp movements have gained steam and put pressure on entertainment providers to take action against bad behavior by male stars.
“I did not (think Chicago would call Kelly out) because Chicago really loves its people that come up and it’s a beautiful thing. However, it’s not so beautiful when the person hurts other people and you have lots of examples of people he did do that to. I think it’s important to remember that,” said Betts, who says she supports the Chicago-led #MuteRKelly campaign despite being an early fan of his music.
Longtime music writer Kyra Kyles also remembers the heyday of Kelly’s fandom when she, as a music writer for RedEye, witnessed young women staging protests proclaiming the singer’s innocence ahead of his 2008 child pornography trial.
But the social media movements that have brought down Bill Cosby and power broker Harvey Weinstein have also helped women shift their focus toward accountability against abusers, while helping black women in powerful positions make it OK to speak out as the trail behind the self-proclaimed “Pied Piper of R&B” is thinning out.
With each passing day, it seems that Kelly’s once-impervious music career, which has weathered sexual abuse allegations, national ridicule and criminal indictment, may finally be showing fissures in the face of the new allegations and the surging #MeToo movement.
Apple Music recently joined Spotify in deciding to stop promoting the singer’s music on its streaming service, potentially depriving him of millions of listeners and their revenue. Fans still can hear his music on the platforms, but the companies will not be promoting his catalog. Pandora, another popular streaming service, also said it would not promote “artists with certain demonstrable behavioral, ethical or criminal issues.” In the face of all that, a story this week by The Associated Press found that Kelly’s Spotify numbers have shown a slight increase.
But as an activist-led campaign that led to the May 5 UIC concert cancellation suggests, Kelly — native superstar and standard-bearer for Chicago’s dense, proud R&B and soul traditions — may finally be losing support at home. If we’re indeed witnessing the collapse of Kelly’s empire, the raid is being led largely by black women, pulling away brick by brick. This development is crucial because black women, often wary of attacks on successful black men, continued to buy his music and attend his concerts even during the darkest times of his controversies.
For those not old enough to remember, Kelly’s name was everywhere by the early 2000s, a top singer in a twilighting genre of soul singers whose catalog includes a wide range of hits: obvious, adolescent freak songs and slow jams (“Bump N’ Grind,” “Your Body’s Callin’”), inspirational anthems (“I Believe I Can Fly”), family reunion jams (“Ignition”) and stepper’s cuts for the older crowd (“Step in the Name of Love,” “Touched A Dream”).
But it was the sex tape controversy that caused an outrage in the pre-social media celebrity world and made him a punchline, thanks in part to comedian Dave Chapelle’s infamous skit on “Chapelle’s Show” and “The Boondocks” character Huey Freeman’s epic takedown in 2005’s “The Trial of R. Kelly” episode.
Still, in his hometown Kelly was in a protective dome, continuing to sell music and fill concert venues while listeners gossiped and snickered in office break rooms and over lunch. At the time I remember many women, young and old, who proudly professed they would continue to listen to his music.
But that was all before #MeToo. The movement, along with the #MuteRKelly and #TimesUP grass-roots movements, have gained real-life voices of support decrying Kelly, including celebrities, such as Chicago native actress and producer Lena Waithe and filmmaker Ava DuVernay.
Moreover, social media is rife with black women calling out Kelly for old allegations, as well as recent ones, first reported by DeRogatis, about claims of a “sex cult” holding young women from their families.
That movement appears to have had an effect even in the stubborn, opinionated fortress of Chicago, where Kelly’s concert was canceled. An R. Kelly concert being canceled in Chicago is on par with a Jay-Z concert being canceled in New York.
Kelly is as big a star as Chicago has produced recently. His 1993 album “12 Play” was inescapable. It should go without saying that a top song by a Chicago artist was playing on every radio that summer.
Kelly’s music is for many listeners part of the memories of high school life in 1990s Chicago. But even in those years, there were stories and rumors about Kelly. A Chicago writer who graduated from Kelly’s old high school, Kenwood Academy, confirmed a story she first told me as a teenager: In her choral class, upperclassmen warned her and younger students not to ever get into a car with Kelly, who frequently parked outside the school after his career took off.
Despite that and years of questions about his purported marriage to Aaliyah, about civil court settlements involving young women claiming abuse and coercion, people here turned a blind eye in those long-ago days before we became “woke.”
“The culture has changed, and seemingly the narrative around R. Kelly and his reported sexual proclivities have not,” said Kyles, a former editor at Ebony who co-founded the content development agency Myth Lab Entertainment. “In 2018, in the wake of #BlackGirlMagic and powerful African-American women getting bigger and bigger platforms, that kind of devaluing cannot stand.” Kyles added: “It’s also peak call-out culture time.”
For his part, Kelly has continued to proclaim innocence, recently saying, according to The Associated Press, that the accusations “perpetuated by the media” are an “attempt to distort my character and to destroy my legacy that I have worked so hard to build.”
Nope.
My unscientific poll of about 10 women revealed two general types: women angered by the Kelly allegations and clearly ready to move on past him and his music, and others who are also upset by the allegations but who might bounce to “Ignition” — his top song on Spotify — if it comes on the radio.
But all of the women made it clear they couldn’t stomach the lack of consequences for a man accused of sexual coercion and abuse at a time when women all over, from waitresses to Hollywood actresses and singers, are complaining of harassment.
Kyles was correct when she said it’s call-out time. And at a time when women from all over are saying enough is enough, Kelly’s old tactics can’t stand.
Betts also believes, Chicago specificity aside, that this movement is occurring because women won’t shield a man who has taken advantage of their protection.
“We (as black women) have this hesitation to want to report on people in (a negative) way and a lot of time we want to protect black men and I understand that impulse,” she said. “But I also know (when) somebody does something wrong to another person — you can be any color — you need to be held accountable.”
wlee@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @MidNoirCowboy
