{"id":791843,"date":"2019-01-08T15:16:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T22:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=776460"},"modified":"2019-01-08T15:16:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T22:16:58","slug":"as-calls-for-r-kelly-reckoning-intensify-rca-records-stays-silent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/as-calls-for-r-kelly-reckoning-intensify-rca-records-stays-silent\/","title":{"rendered":"As Calls for R. Kelly Reckoning Intensify, RCA Records Stays Silent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Less than a week after Lifetime aired the first episode of its cutting docuseries, Surviving<\/em><\/a> R. Kelly<\/a>, calls for the R&B singer\u2019s comeuppance have reached fever pitch. John Legend, Meek Mill and Jada Pinkett Smith, among others, have decried the performer\u2019s alleged sexual predation and misconduct, and singer Omarion has vowed to retire songs Kelly had written for him in the past. The greater music industry, though, has been surprisingly silent. Despite campaigns like #MuteRKelly<\/a> and a petition with more than 80,000 signatures<\/a> calling for his label RCA to drop him, the record label has yet to comment on the controversy.<\/p>\n

RCA did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the status of R. Kelly\u2019s contract with the label for this story. Kelly joined RCA\u2019s roster in October 2011 after his previous label, Jive, was restructured into RCA. Since then, it has issued four albums on RCA, the video album Trapped in the Closet: Chapters 23 \u2013 33<\/em> and the compilation The Essential R. Kelly<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems a little defiant to me,\u201d Kenyette Barnes-Harper, a co-founder of the #MuteRKelly campaign, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. She and Oronike Odeleye founded the campaign in the summer of 2017. \u201cRight now, our petition has over 75,000 signatures and each one of those signatures are hitting the inboxes of executives at Sony and RCA, and yet they have not completely divested. That, to me, is just shocking, especially when I\u2019m sure R. Kelly is not one of their largest-selling artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want them to take a stand and say that we won\u2019t continue to accept this behavior from artists just because they\u2019re making us money,\u201d Odeleye adds. \u201cWe want them to say, \u2018No, we will not accept this.\u2019 Because the record companies are very complicit in all of the crimes that R. Kelly has committed over the past 25 years, and we want them to say they will no longer be complicit in that type of behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization Time\u2019s Up has been lending its support to the #MuteRKelly effort, as well. \u201cIn the spring of 2018, we joined the fight to #MuteRKelly,\u201d organizers say in a statement to Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cWe cannot condone\u00a0profiting\u00a0off the trauma of black girls and women. Time\u2019s Up calls on any organization still in business with R. Kelly to cut ties immediately. All allies in the fight against sexual violence must take a stand on this issue, and stand together in defense of women of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need morality clauses in a lot of these contracts,\u201d Barnes-Harper says. \u201cBy no means is this about censorship or taking away someone\u2019s artistic licenses; it\u2019s saying when you have problematic performers, we can\u2019t be giving them a revenue stream to lure vulnerable girls and then buy themselves out of accountability. Record companies have culpability here. They need to divest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since its premiere, Surviving R. Kelly<\/em> \u2014 which features more than 50 interviews with Kelly\u2019s ex-girlfriends and family members alongside John Legend, Wendy Williams and #MeToo activist Tarana Burke \u2014 has struck a chord in a major way. The network announced Tuesday that the show reached 18.8 million viewers total and was the \u201cNumber One\u00a0most socialed primetime program across broadcast and cable for three consecutive nights.\u201d<\/p>\n

After it aired, Ne-Yo posted a message to Instagram<\/a>: \u201cThere is NO excuse. Music is important. It really is. But it\u2019s not more important than protecting our children, protecting our little girls. PERIOD.\u201d Meek Mill echoed Ne-Yo\u2019s sentiments on Twitter, writing<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019m not feeling R after watching that. \u2026 It don\u2019t take a rocket scientist to see what was going on. What I\u2019m tryna figure out why did they let it go on soooooo long!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jada Pinkett Smith questioned why there was supposedly a surge in R. Kelly\u2019s music sales since the docuseries premiered, in a tweet<\/a>: \u201cHow is it that R Kelly\u2019s music sales have spiked (substantially) since the release of the docuseries Surviving R. Kelly<\/em>? I need some help in understanding. What am I missing???\u201d She went on to ask for a discussion on her Facebook live about what she\u2019s missing. \u201cI really don\u2019t want to believe it\u2019s because black girls don\u2019t matter enough, or is that the reason?\u201d she asked in a video that accompanied the tweet.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want [RCA] to take a stand and say that we won\u2019t continue to accept this behavior from artists just because they\u2019re making us money\u201d \u2013 #MuteRKelly founder Oronike Odeleye<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Color of Change<\/a>, an organization that supports justice campaigns for black communities, has also been vocal in its calls for RCA and Sony to act. (It has built campaigns and pressured RCA to drop R. Kelly since 2017.) \u201cMany artists in the music industry have publicly shamed R. Kelly and spoken out against his horrific history of sexual abuse,\u201d Color of Change\u2019s senior campaign director, Brandi Collins-Dexter, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cIt only seems like a natural next step for his record label, Sony\u2019s RCA, to drop him immediately. Despite Kelly\u2019s decades-long documented coercion and sexual manipulation of young black women, including countless civil suits and a trial for 14 counts of child pornography, he continues to be signed by the label.<\/p>\n

\u201cRCA is complicit in the failure to hold R. Kelly accountable,\u201d she continues. \u201cIn fact, the label has relished in the publicity and intentionally popularized an image of\u00a0R. Kelly\u00a0as a palatable sex symbol, rather than the sexual predator he is. As momentum grows to hold R. Kelly accountable, both in the public and in the music industry, RCA must prioritize justice over profit: drop R. Kelly immediately or continue enabling the abuse\u00a0of black women and girls for the sake of profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite RCA\u2019s deafening silence, Odeleye and Barnes-Harper have found the reaction to Surviving R. Kelly<\/em> heartening, saying that it has brought new awareness to people. \u201cI received a message on our Instagram account from a woman who had posted on her account apologizing to young black girls [and] to the community, saying she had been a fan for years,\u201d Odeleye says of one reaction since Surviving R. Kelly<\/em> premiered. \u201cShe had been going to all the concerts and buying all the music \u2026 Now she understands why she has to divest from him and that was very powerful me, because it\u2019s important for us. Everyday folks are supporting him and keeping him afloat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it speaks to how we view sexual violence in the black community, full-stop,\u201d Barnes-Harper says. \u201cThis is larger than R. Kelly. We have found ways to victim-blame and shame victims and survivors into silence and to protect the predators. \u2026 When you look at the black community and oppressive behaviors, racism and white supremacy tend to be the original sin of black people. And there\u2019s so many in the community who believe above all else that we have to protect our community and we\u2019ll work it out amongst ourselves and, as you see, we haven\u2019t actually done that well. We\u2019ve instead enabled predators to abuse with impunity. I think we need to change the narrative and realize that people are responsible for their own behaviors and then hold the behaviors accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odeleye says now that the allegations against Kelly have reached a wider audience, she\u2019d like the music industry to react accordingly. \u201cWe want his concerts canceled,\u201d she says. \u201cWe want promoters not to book him. We want venues not to host his concerts. We want him removed from streaming services. We want his music not to be played at parties and clubs by DJs. We want a complete and total mute of R. Kelly, so that we can remove all of the revenue streams that are allowing him to insulate himself against the consequences of his crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Less than a week after Lifetime aired the first episode of its cutting docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly, calls for the R&B singer\u2019s comeuppance have reached fever pitch. John Legend, Meek Mill and Jada Pinkett Smith, among others, have decried the performer\u2019s alleged sexual predation and misconduct, and singer Omarion has vowed to retire songs Kelly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-791843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 04:37:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}