I must have listened to “Ignition (Remix)” by R. Kelly many hundreds of times. It’s a great song: goofy, fun, a killer bass line. Just a stone-cold jam, of which Kelly has quite a few: “Sex in the Kitchen”, “I Wish”, “Shut Up”. If I ever threw any parties that’s all I’d play.
I knew about “the story”, of course. I knew that he had married Aaliyah when she was 15 and wrote “Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number” for her. I knew of a video tape of him and a girl who was 14 or 15 who he had sex with and then urinated on. I knew he was acquitted. I knew. And yet – ain’t nothing I can say for myself. Or maybe I didn’t *really* know, because I didn’t care.
It’s not like I was alone in that though. People listen to R. Kelly, because he’s fun to listen to. He can sing really well. His stuff is just ridiculous enough that you can take it seriously on some level. People are particularly enamoured with “Trapped In The Closet”, an epic “Hip-Hopera” (urgh). I don’t really care for that, but one thing is certain: R. Kelly music is great camp.
He has a new album out, called “Black Panties”. It’s his most sexually explicit record – there’s a song on it called “Marry the Pussy”. And it’s selling well, and getting good reviews. Pitchfork likes it, and R. Kelly was the headliner at their last festival.
But there’s been some controversy as well. Jim DeRogatis, a music writer from Chicago (where both R. Kelly and Pitchfork are from as well) critized the festival’s decision and claimed it was “cosigning what this man has done”. But what is “that” exactly? Jim DeRogatis knows.
He gave a long interview about it to Jessica Hopper, for the Village Voice. He’s the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, a more working-class paper. After a middling review of “TP-2.com” he got a fax on his desk saying that Kelly has been under investigation for sex crimes for two years. This was in 2000, so after the Aaliyah thing and years of rumors that Kelly “likes them young”. So he and court reporter Abdon Pallasch went out and did some research.
They found lawsuits. Lawsuits that alleged that Kelly had raped various girls or had “relationships with them”. Suicide attempts, coercion into abortion, video tapes. Some of those girls he had picked up through his connection to Kenwood Academy’s gospel choir.
The stories were detailed – “stomach-churning”. They were also accessible to the public. So the Sun-Times reported on them. More victims and observers stepped forward and told their stories to DeRogatis. He speaks of carrying these memories with him to this day.
And then there was a lawsuit because of a video tape that DeRogatis had been sent. It’s infamous now – it has become a joke, in fact. On it R. Kelly has sex with a girl and urinates in her mouth. There was a trial – various experts testified that the video was not gerrymandered, that it was legit. The verdict: not guilty. The jury was convinced that it was indeed Kelly on the tape but not so sure that the girl on the tape was indeed the girl the prosecution produced – whether the girl on the tape was actually underage.
If this incident is remembered at all today it’s because of Dave Chappelle. On his great show the comedian did a sketch where he showed R. Kelly singing “haters gonna hate/lovers gona love/I don’t even want/none of the above/I wanna piss on you” The sketch works, I think, because it keys into the incredible narcissism that R. Kelly displays whenever he’s confronted with these allegations: that it’s just haters out to get him, that he’s a lover man. Were he ever to do a real song on golden showers it would be like Chappelle’s parody, only better sung.
A year later Chappelle did some material on R. Kelly in his special “For What It’s Worth”. It’s particularly ill-advised because it seems to exculpate R. Kelly and trivialize what he did. Chappelle speaks of “R. Kelly and his girl” and also says that “piss will wash off after a 10 minute shower. Basically he says: bitch should have gotten out of the way, even if she was just 15. “How old is 15 really?”
He connects that to another particularly ill-advised segment on Elizabeth Smart who he calls “too dumb to escape her kidnappers” and then to a very valid point on how 15 year old boys shouldn’t be sentenced to life. The special was recorded not long before his public meltdown, so maybe he was losing touch with something essential, maybe he was alienated by fame something fierce. Maybe he was just an asshole. Maybe it’s good that he disappeared after that for 8 years.
The cartoon “The Boondocks” nailed it though. The show did a whole episode on the R. Kelly trial. A white lawyer defends him by claiming that a) R. Kelly is a victim of prejudice like, say, MLK and that b) he sings really well. And that’s indeed the argument that convinces the jury – especially after R. Kelly does an impromptu concert. The protagonist Huey meanwhile is shocked and once again loses his faith in both white and black America. (“The Boondocks” works particulary well if look at Huey and think of the show as “Boots Riley – The Early Years”, by the way.)
So like on “The Boondocks” R. Kelly got off clean. Even a disastrous tour with Jay Z couldn’t hurt him too bad. Of course that doesn’t stop him from claiming that every day is a fight because haters are out to get him. Like the girls – some of them women now – who alleged that he raped them.
Him and Jay-Z make a good couple. Both are immensely talented, both are psychopaths, both are full of shit. But whereas Jay-Z just claims that a hustler is the same as a freedom fighter R. Kelly calls himself the “Pied Piper”. DeRogatis believes that what R. Kelly has done actually appeals to some fans. He really is a weird guy who has a lot of sex and is into some kinky shit.
Of course R. Kelly isn’t the first musician who’s done horrible things. DeRogatis himself mentions Led Zeppelin and James Brown. But, his argument goes, you can’t find it in their art. Their music isn’t about raping underage groupies with fish (I know, I know) or beating your wife. R. Kelly however is all about forceful seduction. That and self-pity.
The other difference is of course that Led Zep aren’t around anymore and that James Brown is dead. But R. Kelly is here right now, being celebrated. You buy his songs, he gets your money. Money that he uses to pay off victim’s families? You be the judge. No, seriously, I mean it. Because I don’t know
I’m not entirely convinced by DeRogatis’ reasoning when it comes to avoiding art or excusing artists, though of course that’s the argument I will now go with. But yes, knowing these things makes a difference, and it should. As DeRogatis puts its: Listen to “Pussy, will you marry me?” and know that he said that to Aaliyah. DeRogatis makes his appeal to “everybody who cares”. I like to think of myself as somebody who cares. And yet I listened to to R. Kelly, for many years. Not uncritically – he hasn’t invaded my mind – but still. And I knew.
The problem is not that R. Kelly is both doing it and singing it. The problem is that he’s able to do it because he’s singing it. Prowling for girls, taking what he wants. Because he is rich, and nobody gives a shit about them. (Well, not nobody of course.) Maybe now it’s not a joke to people anymore. Maybe now they can ask themselves if they thought that video just came out of nowhere. R. Kelly ain’t nothing but a villain.
“But don’t you know, you gotta separate the art from the artist!” is what some now might interject. To which I say: Fuck you. What, are you 19 years old? Too old for R. Kelly in any event.