MUSIC GIANTS STICK TO SOUNDS OF SILENCE
The music industry is singing the same old song in the wake of R. Kelly’s guilty verdict. Silence.
In the 24 hours after the fallen R&B star was found guilty of nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking in a New York court on Tuesday, there was no public expression of support for his victims or commitment to clean up an industry dogged by allegations of sexual assault, harassment and discrimination.
There was no response from those in power at labels or publishing companies, nor social media statements from any of the superstar artists whose names are next to his on hit records over the past 30 years including Jay-Z, Nas, Lady Gaga and Celine Dion.
And four years after the #MuteRKelly online campaign kicked off, his music remains easily accessible on Spotify and Apple Music; his artist biography was yet to be updated with the fact he is a convicted criminal awaiting a possible sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
“Robert Sylvester Kelly used his fame, his popularity and the network of people at his disposal to target, groom, and exploit girls, boys and young women for his sexual gratification,” Assistant US Attorney Elizabeth Geddes told the jury of seven men and four women in her closing argument last week.
“He used lies, manipulation, threats, and physical abuse to dominate his victims.
“He used his money and his public persona to hide his crimes in plain sight.”
Kelly is the highest profile music artist to be brought to account in the #MeToo era, after decades of abusing underage black girls and young women The heavy lifting to make sure R. Kelly doesn’t get paid while he is paying for decades of sex
crimes has been left to the women behind the #MuteRKelly campaign and those who have campaigned for him to be brought for justice. American activists Kenyette Barnes and Oronike Odeleye began the #MuteRKelly movement in mid 2017 to pressure companies to financially divest themselves from the singer and focus attention on the multiple sexual abuse allegations against the singer.
“Our next strategy definitely is going after the streaming platforms again and the urban radio stations, because they hold culpability as well. There were urban radio stations playing R. Kelly’s music after that verdict. What the hell is wrong with you
all?” Barnes wrote in
Rolling Stone. The MuteRKelly campaign initially trained the spotlight on the companies who had profited from the singer’s music, including his record label RCA – Sony Music in Australia – and publisher Universal.
Both companies “quietly” dropped the singer from their rosters without public statement, with the Sony imprint RCA only acting in early 2019, two days after a #MuteRKelly protest outside their New York headquarters.
The industry and fans turned a blind eye to the constant allegations about Kelly’s sexual abuse from as far back as 1994, when he married 15-year-old R&B singer Aaliyah – he bribed a government official to falsify documents to claim she was 18 – when he was 27 and they were both global pop stars.
The #MuteRKelly campaign, including protests outside venues where he was due to perform, was effective in cancelling gigs including a Pre-Mother’s Day Love Jam at a Chicago university in 2018.
And women who had released music with him including Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and the Pussycat Dolls finally broke their silence about the allegations after the airing of the damning Surviving R. Kelly series in early 2019, which ultimately led to his prosecution.
Gaga, herself a victim of sexual assault, apologised for not supporting victims sooner and vowed to have the song Do What You Want removed it from streaming services. A new version featuring Christina Aguilera is now on Spotify.
Dion also endeavoured to remove the song I’m Your Angel from her artist platform from streaming but it remains accessible via Kelly’s own page, along with all his songs, which have generated more than a billion streams.
You could still buy Kelly’s music on iTunes this week, where his Grammy winning 1995 hit I Believe I Can Fly, at $2.19 per download, re-entered the Australian top 200 after the verdict.
The day after he was found guilty,
his Spotify artist page had 4,867,552 monthly listeners, a decline of roughly 330,000 from the 5.2 million monthly Spotify listeners he had in mid August when the trial began. It was back up over 4.9 million by Thursday.
“We still have a campaign against the streaming platforms because every time someone streams a R. Kelly song, that is money going into his pocket and we have to stop that. And it’s not censorship. It’s not ‘bringing down a black man’,” Barnes said.
“This is accountability and sometimes accountability is ugly. This is what has to happen to ensure that not only will he no longer harm and malign; his enterprise will no longer harm and malign, and that it sends a message that behaviour is no longer acceptable. And if it happens, then you too can face the music just like he did.”
The censorship argument opens a can of worms for the global music industry and its partners, who have faced similar campaigns from fans and activists in the #MeToo era against artists accused of harassment, grooming or assault.
While Spotify removed Kelly from their curated playlists and two years ago introduced a “don’t play this artist” button so fans could block his music from their account, the streaming giant
copped a backlash from fans and anticensorship advocates who argued the industry would also have to wipe the music of problematic artists from murderer Phil Spector to Michael Jackson, Chris Brown to late rapper XXXTentacion (accused of strangling his pregnant partner).
The ethical dilemma remains that good music can be made by bad people, and ultimately cancelling those artists is up to those who consume or make money from it and how comfortable they are supporting a sexual predator.
At the very least, just as radio stations have to issue a language warning before airing songs with offensive language, record labels and streaming services should slap a banner on the artist pages alerting people to the artist’s conviction for sex crimes.