It was not until 2019 that the world heard and learned about who R Kelly really is. The spark that lights up the wick is the ‘Surviving R Kelly’ documentary.
It is almost funny and amazing how sometimes things can hide right in front of our eyes and we are unable to spot them. Such a thing is the abusive and aggressive nature of the famous rapper.
Why Did It Take 30 Years To Convict R Kelly When Everybody Knew The Accusations?
Throughout his career, R Kelly had filled whole arenas, made huge hits, and collaborated with sounding names in the R&B and Hip Hop world. However, nobody thought, or nobody noticed that he hides dark intentions shallow in himself.
The first known thing that comes to light now is his marriage to a minor back in 1994, the 15-year-old Aaliyah. He managed to falsify the documents and obtain a fake ID for her – all in order for the wedding ceremony to go ahead. Everybody knew this from the very beginning. It was more of a public secret if you will.
After that, just several years after his illegal ‘wedding’, R Kelly was accused of making indecent images of children. He was charged with 21 counts on this topic, but in the end, he didn’t face any fine for it. The consecutive delays of the trial lead to his release.
Over the years to come, we witnessed many claims and allegations reporting on his violent and criminal nature. However, he kept the money flowing in the music industry. The powerful music business owners make it easy for these accusations and claims to simply disappear. R Kelly’s fans did not believe that someone this famous could do the things he was accused of doing, so this made it easy for them to be ignored.
However, a team of investigative journalists kept working on the case for quite some time. They kept digging and digging until they gathered enough material to accuse the singer, and until they made it possible for his fans to put their finger on their heads and reconsider their opinion of him.
After the release of the documentary Surviving R Kelly, the police started an official investigation and came to the same accusations as in the documentary. This led to a court case opening against the singer. It led to a conviction on nine charges. One charge for racketeering and eight counts of violating a law for prostitution. After the short trial, the judge and jury found him guilty of all of the charges and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
“I always felt like I was late to the story when my partner at the Sun-Times, Abdon Pallasch, and I did the first investigative report.” – Jim DeRogatis tells Sky News. “It had been going on already for nine years. We never thought when that paper came out… that this would still be ongoing in 2021.”
Jim DeRogatis is a journalist and a music critic who wrote his first report on R Kelly back in 2000. In the report, he claims that the singer had been doing these crimes since 1991.
After his first piece on R Kelly, DeRogatis received a VHS tape over mail.
“There was a manila envelope with a VHS cassette.” – DeRogatis says. “No markings on either. Twenty-six minutes and 39 seconds showed Kelly very clearly having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl, urinating in her mouth at one point.”
This is proof enough for him to be convicted, taken to trial, and sentenced. However, none of this happened. The tape lead to a court case opening against him. However, the trial is delayed until 2008 when he was acquitted once more. He continues his crimes and thinks of himself as an invincible man.
“He thought he was untouchable.” – DeRogatis says. “There was a hubris, an ego there… He was silencing victims with money. During that time, he’s selling 100 million albums – of his own, and [records and songs] he produced for everyone from Whitney Houston and Celine Dion to Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. This was a cash machine for the music industry that was well aware of his behavior and never actually acted to stop it.”
DeRogatis may be the most determined person to prove that R Kelly is a criminal. He never stops reposting and telling the stories of the accusers over the period of 20 years.
“There were police officers who valiantly tried to stop his predatory behavior. But, you know, until Surviving R Kelly brought these women into people’s living rooms in America. And they saw woman after woman after woman; 12 different women appeared on camera, telling their stories. They cannot all be liars.”
The documentary, however, is not the only thing that helped bring down the serial abuser down. There is a movement, started by Kanyette Tisha Barnes in 2017 called #MuteRKelly. She calls to boycott the rapper’s music and to “hold accountable those who allowed this behavior to go on for so long.”
“I was a big R Kelly fan many years ago, in the ’90s. But I remember the stories. I started to hear about Aaliyah and the other young ladies, and they were always young black girls.” – Kanyette says. “I was a black girl, I’m a black woman in this country. And I’ve watched the way the entertainment industry, our whole community, maligned these young women for years. And enough was just enough.”
R Kelly is fortunately in prison now. And at the moment he is about to be out for 30 years. Additional to this he is facing one more trial that will just add more years to this. It is safe to say that he will not be out of prison soon, or maybe ever.
The reason why he is not in jail until now lies in all of us. In the music business elite, in the people whose statements can be altered and bought with money, in the people working for him and not reporting anything, in society.
