More than 20 years after his alleged crimes began, R. Kelly was finally charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. But the R&B artist still has millions of fans.
A grand jury indicted R. Kelly Friday for abusing four victims, three underage, from 1998 to 2010, and a Cook County judge issued a warrant for his arrest. Because the singer-songwriter has long been suspected of abuse, the indictment is just one step forward in the eyes of music lovers who’ve been tracking his bewildering success for years.
As early as 2000, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that R. Kelly had sexually abused underage girls. Yet despite years-old reports of underage sexual abuse and child pornography, from which he was acquitted in 2008, R. Kelly has continued to produce music.
Public disgust picked up a couple of years ago. The viral #MuteRKelly movement began in 2017 when Oronike Odeleye and Kenyette Barnes, legislative and policy director at the Georgia Alliance for Social Justice, created the hashtag to keep R. Kelly from performing in their hometown of Atlanta. He showed up anyway, but the movement gained traction over the past couple of years. And 10 other cities have chosen to pull him from their concert lineups.
Even a docuseries on the artist’s alleged victims, “Surviving R. Kelly,” aired last month. Ironically, R. Kelly’s music saw a 16 percent increase in streams on Spotify in the days afterward.
The artist’s trajectory has been one of baffling success despite awareness of his apparent criminal activities. With songs such as “Crazy Sex” and “Every Position,” R. Kelly, at least, stayed on brand.
But there is good news: His following is slowly declining. At the beginning of January, R. Kelly had more than 5.5 million monthly streams on Spotify; now he has less than 5 million. Because Spotify pays artists for streams, it’s our job to keep our clicks from turning into money in the creep’s pocket. Plus, who needs “Bump n’ Grind” anyway?
We’ve heard the stories for years, and finally the legal system agrees. It’s time to mute R. Kelly, but that won’t happen until we all stop paying him with our streams.
