‘Surviving R. Kelly’ should change how we listen to music

What is the most disturbing thing about the R. Kelly saga:

How young the girls he seduced were? That all of them were black? How many they were? How long he has run a lewd enterprise in which he menacingly rents and isolates women from their families? The debased nature of the degrading sexual, mental and physical abuse that he heaps on them? That he filmed these acts? That he did understand how his own childhood abuse played a role in his appalling treatment of others but didn’t change?

The non-disclosure agreements that those who sued him before the 2002 sex tape scandal were forced to sign as part of their settlement? The fact that, in a first-world country, his trial for 21 counts of child pornography involving a 14-year-old was somehow delayed for six years? That within an hour, the jury acquitted him despite the graphic evidence? That both the underage girl in question and her parents declined to testify?

That his predatory ways went on even after this trial? That for decades on end fellow musicians, and the industry as a whole, have chosen not to comment on these affairs? The obscene amount of complicity that money can buy? That in the wake of a damning documentary detailing his brutality, there are still people in this world who are downloading his music? Or that there are still people who don’t believe that he did any of this?

It doesn’t matter which one of these inequities is more shocking than the other and it is unlikely they can be individually measured for their revolting capacity and subsequently ranked in shock value. What matters is that collectively, they point to a culture that perpetuates the abuse of people of colour and the violation of women, in particular. In other words, ‘misogynoir’.

SEX SLAVES

If the R. Kelly saga teaches us anything it is that the combination of celebrity culture, race, and class is an insidious, combustible gas. Here, these three elements intertwined to produce a self-perpetuating attack on the lives of the most vulnerable — artistically talented, economically marginalised, black girls and women.

Many such women showed up on the singer’s doorstep, some of them accompanied by their go-getter parents, in the desperate hope that he would turn them into overnight stars.

Instead, he turned them into sex slaves. The desire for money and fame is the magnet that drew them into R. Kelly’s web of deceit and violation. Having money and fame shielded R. Kelly from censure; allowed him to run an empire of cloak, daggers and whispers. The fear of losing money and fame kept the music industry from acting on these whispers. And in the days before social media, whispers were easy to mute.

In 1994, it emerged that R. Kelly had married a 15-year-old child prodigy — Aaliyah. There was no deafening backlash from either the justice system or the court of public opinion. The marriage was annulled, and Aaliyah left Jive records, the label that produced R. Kelly. Why wasn’t he dropped? Why wasn’t there more public outrage? Maybe it is because, as radio personality Tom Joyner says, “radio has just always concentrated on the music and not the background … and that was our fault”.

The Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly unearths the secrets of a lifetime, literally. It comes on the back of #MuteR.Kelly, a campaign to get his music off radio and cancel his concerts, and the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment.

Presented as a six-part series, the documentary features more than 50 interviews from survivors of R. Kelly’s treachery — including his ex-wife Andrea Kelly neè Lee; music journalists; cultural critics; civil rights activists and clinical psychologists. They thread the connections between R. Kelly’s childhood, the things he sings about, the way he performs on stage and his decades-long abusive treatment of young girls and grown women.

The fundamental question that the layered approach of this documentary answers is: How and why did he get away with all of this? Each episode carries a memorable title, some with clear allusions to recent political or popular culture moments e.g. Black Lives Matter. The use of montage photographs is rather worn but that is because an unauthorised documentary like this one has very little access to historical footage. Fortunately, the interviews are shot against a plain green-screen background to ensure viewers are not distracted from what the subjects are saying, their body language and the emotions that race across their faces.

MANIPULATIVE

What is more, stunning their portraits of the psychology of a manipulative man (and that of an abused woman), or the fact that, as the Culture Critic Nelson George explains, “throughout his music he’s been remarkably frank about his predilections … about his levels of control, even. They’re in there … it’s not like he’s hidden. But we have been afraid to look.”

The “Bump n Grind” music video was pornographic, the lyrics were your typical R & B affirmation of the validity of love and sexuality. Perhaps, it’s because we all loved the music or because we are all wired to personalise art that we appropriated its message for our own lives and did not limit its application to the singer’s twisted personal life.

How could we all have hummed along as the 15-year-old Aaliyah sang “Age Ain’t Nothin but a Number”? Why didn’t we acknowledge that her lyrics were perpetuating the culture of mature men sexualising, seducing and “deflowering” teenage girls and yet this is what was going on between her and R. Kelly?

Worldwide, men seducing underage girls is something to sing about freely, without fear of reprisals. Arguably, the best-known popular song where a mature woman seduces a teenage boy was written by a man — Bobby Goldsbro.

That song, “Summer (the First Time)”, only gained commercial and critical success when the soulful cover version by Millie Jackson reversed the gender roles to reflect the more commonplace occurrence — “you were 31, I was 17; I knew nothing about love; you knew everything …” This is very telling of how we are socialised as a people. We are taught to accept and even embrace the idea of an older man pursuing a much younger woman, but we don’t entertain the idea when the roles are reversed. The disregard for ethical conduct and the legal age of consent is disturbing despite the double standard.

In the documentary, Ann Powers, a music journalist, underlines these realities: “You have this whole history of adult male musicians who hang out with young girls.

Musicians who mentored young girls … who married young girl fans and I think while it was disturbing to people, it’s very easy to rationalise things when you are in the industry and you see this flourishing career of … Kelly and of Aaliyah.”

It is clear then why musicians who have collaborated with him over the years — like Jay Z who married another child prodigy, Beyoncé — have found it difficult to speak out against R. Kelly.

ASSAULT

While he was on trial for the sex tapes, he released two of his greatest hits — “Ignition Remix” and “Step in the Name of Love”, a feel-good song that became the centrepiece of many black family celebrations.

Enriched, the industry remained steadfastly with him, aware that when R. Kelly was not being lewd and profane, he had the genius to write spiritual gems like “I Believe I Can Fly” and “The Storm is Over Now” which tug at the religious ethos of the black community and rake in the millions. But at some point, R. Kelly was no longer releasing hits. Why did his record label RCA keep him?

Media personality Charlamagne says: “If you want to get away with murder, kill a black rapper … if you want to get away with assault, assault a young black girl”.

The way the black community has remained polarised over R. Kelly seems to confirm that even for women, protecting the black man is a more important ideal than protecting the black woman.

Considering that these laws remained in place until 1965, one can see why the national consciousness is still bent towards protecting white women against the stereotype of the “black brute”. By assaulting white women, Bill Cosby, a comedian and actor who rose to great national fame, crossed a well-entrenched line and ultimately faced justice. But even before the courts found him guilty on three charges of sexual assault, his statue at the Disney resort in Florida was pulled down — a clear message that he was no longer considered a role model.

Does the battle against racism supersede the battle against patriarchy? All of R Kelly’s victims are all black women. And despite the fact that many are children, the black community has remained polarised over his guilt. This seems to confirm that even for black women, protecting the black man — something that the community has done since the years of open lynching on plantations — is a more important ideal than protecting the black woman. It is as if the community is wired to instinctively protect itself against racism but not against gendered abuse.

LESSONS

Not surprisingly then, black women have been at the forefront of defending R Kelly. And in a growing culture of the “super fan”, a person who develops an obsessive attachment to a high achiever and seeks validation from him or her, many women have turned up at R. Kelly’s shows ready to be taken hostage by him, undeterred by press reports of his violent sex cult.

When things came to a head for R. Kelly, he didn’t borrow a leaf from Akon and sing a song to apologise unconditionally (“Blame it on Me”). Instead, R. Kelly read from the OJ Simpson handbook of denial. Like OJ’s “If I Did It”, a twisted pseudo-fictionalised account of the murder of his wife Nicole, R. Kelly’s 19-minute song, “I Admit” is a long-winded pity-party.

As his ex-wife Andrea says in the documentary, “I Admit” is “the dumbest damn 19 minutes in the universe. He doesn’t admit anything; he just proves that he’s a narcissist … he’s proving he’s never going to take responsibility for his actions. There is evidence of what he’s done, we know he did it, he knows he did it, so why release music that barely counts as an admission and is also poorly constructed? Is that really his best attempt at gaining redemption? Who is his target audience?”

If more and more of us are listening to R. Kelly’s music now, let it be for its lessons on how not to treat women. If there are actual sales rather than free downloads being made, let the profits go to victims of sexual and physical abuse.

As lovers and critics of music we can no longer separate the art from the artist. Surviving R. Kelly should teach us to pay more attention and keep an eye on rich, powerful, men.

Social media makes it easier to hold people accountable and there are already pieces online explaining why we need to be watchful of singer Drake’s behaviour towards underage girls. The power of music as a language in which emotions are candidly expressed, fears are ventilated, confessions are made, and dreams are born makes it imperative that we question it when it falls short of doing public good.

We need to hold the institutions that support artistes and the people behind them accountable, as much as we need to hold artistes accountable. It is also time to pass some laws to protect child prodigies and safeguard the conditions in which they work and grow into adults.   

Dr Nyairo is a cultural analyst; [email protected]

Wanda Nyairo is a media artist; [email protected]