Year 7, Day 244

Good Morning! Today's song is Ignition (remix) by R. Kelly.

 

I've had this song saved for a long time, and when the controversies popped up I really struggled on whether to use it or not. Most of the time I gloss over a lot of the crap in artist's personal lives to favor music first, but in this case I'm doing the opposite. I don't want to feature this song as a way to pull focus to his career, but instead to pull focus to the victims and their story. It started in 1994 with a marriage to 15 year old singer Aaliyah, then in 1996 Tiffany Hawkins sued him for emotional distress after their relationship, which started when she was 15. In 2001 he was sued again, this time by Tracey Sampson for coercing her into a sexual relationship when she was 17. In 2002 he was sued twice: first by Patrice Jones for impregnating her when she was underage, then by Montina Woods for filming them having sex without her consent or knowledge. The same year he was arrested for 21 counts of child pornography, all of which were filmed by him according to the Chicago Police. Unfortunately the court couldn't prove the girl was underage and the charges were dropped. In the next two years he was charged with more counts of child pornography, but it was thrown out of court because the police obtained it without just cause. In 2017 Buzzfeed released a big report that he had a sex cult, keeping six women captive, but they were of age and didn't corroborate the story. Then Jerhonda Pace came forward about their sexual relationship when she was underage, Kitti Jones accused him of abuse and sexual coercion, a BBC documentary (which your should watch) came out about it, and in 2018 the Mute Kelly movement started. It wasn't successful long term and he was pompous about it. An ex then sued him for intentionally given her an STD, then a Lifetime Documentary was released in 2019 (watch it) which led to him being dropped by his label, his concerts were cancelled, and video evidence of sex with a minor made its way to the police leading to him being charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal abuse. He tried to defend himself in an interview, and then 11 more charges of sexual assault and abuse were added. In 2019 he was indicted twice for sex trafficking, and is facing criminal cases in three separate States. With a history this long I feel like it's obvious that he is in the wrong. I also know that sharing this song is probably a bad idea and not the way to go about this, but I want to keep this case circulating so no one forgets the injustice. Muting has its place, but I'd rather embed these wrongdoing into all of his work and career so deeply that generations to come will never think of him without thinking of them. Anyway, sorry this was such a heavy one today, but I really do hope you guys watch those documentaries and learn more. The second documentary Surviving R Kelly is on Netflix as I'm writing this so start there. 

Peace.