A Chicago kid who became a world star with hits in the 1990s, R. Kelly dominated the R&B scene for years despite a long string of assault and sex crime charges.
Fallen, apparently ruined, he was found guilty in September 2021 of having piloted for years a “system” of sexual exploitation of young people, including adolescent girls, and sentenced on Wednesday to 30 years in prison by a court Federal in New York.
He was portrayed by the justice system as “criminal, predatory” and “manipulative, in control and coercion”.
With his gospel-influenced vocals and lyrics filled with sexual innuendo, R. Kelly has sold 75 million records worldwide, making him one of R&B’s biggest commercial successes.
The singer won three Grammy Awards in 1998 with the hit I Believe I Can Fly.
But his success has always been tarnished by rumors and suspicions of sexual violence, which he stifled with financial agreements including confidentiality clauses.
Before the #MeToo era, which began in 2017, he could act with impunity, according to the prosecution.
“I like women”, but “do I like sleeping with underage girls? Absolutely not. Are people trying to destroy my career? Absolutely,” he said to defend himself in an interview with QG in 2016.
Acquitted
Born on January 8, 1967 in Chicago, R. Kelly was raised by his mother, within a family of four children. In a 2012 autobiography, he confided that he witnessed his first sexual scenes from the age of eight, saying that he was ordered to photograph them. He also says he was the victim of a rape at the same age, committed by a woman, then other assaults and sexual crimes before adolescence.
R. Kelly, who didn’t go to high school and is considered illiterate, has released 14 albums to his name.
A singer on the subway, his life changed when he was spotted at a barbecue in south Chicago by an executive from Jive Records, who signed him in 1991.
His first solo album, 12 Plays (1993), with very sexual titles Bump n’ Grind and I Like the Crotch on Youremains at the top of the R&B chart for nine weeks.
His tumultuous personal life, in particular because of the annulment of his marriage with his 15-year-old protege, the singer Aaliyah, did not prevent his celebrity from exploding.
But in the early 2000s, a journalist from Chicago Sun-TimesJim DeRogatis, receives in an anonymous mail two videotapes showing the singer having sex with young girls, one of which will lead to his indictment for child pornography.
After years of proceedings, during which R. Kelly continued his tours, he was acquitted.
“Mute R. Kelly”
From 2005 to 2012, Kelly wrote, produced, directed and performed a “hip hopera”, Trapped in the Closet, 33 chapters of a strange story where sex still reigns. The work disconcerts, but nevertheless seduces the critics.
In July 2017, several months before the case of film producer Harvey Weinstein raised awareness about sex crimes committed by powerful men, the site BuzzFeed published an investigation by Jim DeRogatis who accused R. Kelly of directing a kind of sex cult and to confine six women against their will, between Chicago and Atlanta.
At the same time, in Atlanta, Kenyette Barnes and Oronike Odeleye founded the “Mute R. Kelly” movement (“Silencing R. Kelly”), which advocated the boycott of his songs and mobilized activists against his concerts.
In January 2019, a documentary series broadcast on Lifetime, Surviving R. Kelly, drive the point home. Several victims describe the singer as manipulative, violent and obsessed with very young girls. This time, his record company let him go, and artists, including Lady Gaga, apologized for working with him.
After Wednesday’s sentencing, R. Kelly is scheduled to appear in August for a retrial in Chicago.