During Monday’s Pulitzer Prize award ceremony, Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, and Ronan Farrow were recognized for exposing the powerful and wealthy sexual predators of Hollywood, namely Harvey Weinstein. On the other hand, the Coachella music festival gave us a sobering reminder that that there are still individuals out there who avoided exposure.
In an interview with Complex Magazine’s Nadeska Alexis, rapper Vince Staples went off on R&B singer R. Kelly over the sexual misconduct allegations that continue to follow him after a discussion following his live performance at the music festival centered around his probation status and how he won’t go to prison for simply being a black entertainer.
“R. Kelly never went to jail, and he’s a fucking child molester,” Staples said. “He’s a child molester. But I’m just saying, he’s a child molester, and he pees on people, and he can’t read and write, and he didn’t go to jail. I’m a good person. R. Kelly’s a piece of fucking shit. So, piece of fucking shit R. Kelly didn’t go to jail for being a child molester and peeing on people and having a human trafficking ring in Atlanta, then I’ll be all right.”
Alexis tried to get Staples off the topic focusing on how she could be fired by Coachella for the conversation going down the route that it did, but Staples seemed to dismiss her worries.
“They should’ve booked R. Kelly if they like R. Kelly so much,” Staples responded. “He would’ve pissed on somebody in the crowd because he pees on children.”
R. Kelly’s behavior has been the subject of wide public scrutiny as well as parody after the R&B singer was indicted on 21 counts of child pornography in 2002, but was found not guilty in 2008. Some will remember Dave Chappelle’s old comedy sketch from 2003 on R. Kelly, which seems to suggest that his sordid behavior was well-documented through his songs.
The adult cartoon show “The Boondocks” even addressed the issue of R. Kelly head-on in one of their episodes.
While R. Kelly managed to dodge prison in the 2000s, he was accused last July of running a “sex cult” and, just this week, coercing a woman to join it and even infecting her with a sexually transmitted disease.
R. Kelly has been seemingly immune to any allegations of sexual misconduct recently, as the accusations following him haven’t materialized into anything close to wide public condemnation or even prosecutorial territory. When BuzzFeed broke the story that the R&B singer was running a “sex cult,” they followed up by reaching out to 43 of his collaborators for comment. All of them either didn’t respond or refused to comment.
While Staples didn’t collaborate with Kelly, his comments are a pretty big deal. If anything, his tirade represents a crack in whatever united front that currently exists, which prevented other hip-hop artists from speaking out against R. Kelly and his alleged sexual misconduct. It’s certainly possible that Staples’ comments don’t move the needle in any direction, but you can’t argue he isn’t saying what everyone is already thinking about R. Kelly.
Now, if only the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements will catch up to him.
