{"id":792184,"date":"2019-01-18T15:31:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T22:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=781336"},"modified":"2019-01-18T15:31:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T22:31:53","slug":"rca-drops-r-kelly-muterkelly-activist-organizations-react","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/rca-drops-r-kelly-muterkelly-activist-organizations-react\/","title":{"rendered":"RCA Drops R. Kelly: #MuteRKelly, Activist Organizations React"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Now that RCA has dropped R&B singer R. Kelly<\/a>, who has faced decades of allegations of sexual misconduct, the activists who have petitioned the labels to drop him are calling it a victory.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2017, around the time that Buzzfeed News reported<\/a> that the R&B singer was supposedly holding women in his homes and other properties against their will, activists launched the #MuteRKelly campaign, seeking to quarantine him from the music industry at large. Online petitions and in-person protests have followed, all while the label stayed silent<\/a>. Earlier this month, Lifetime aired its docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly<\/a><\/em>, which added to the pressure on RCA to react.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel relieved and vindicated that justice will be soon be served,\u201d Asante McGee, one of the women who has accused Kelly of misconduct and appeared in the docuseries, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cI hope he gets the help he needs. I would like for Rob to let the girls contact and see their parents and let us all know they are safe and they want to be there with him. I want the girls to know we are worried about their safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, the founders of #MuteRKelly called the label\u2019s tacit state \u201cdefiant.\u201d Now they\u2019re saying it\u2019s about time, and despite no pending legal actions against Kelly regarding the allegations, they\u2019re not mincing words. \u201c#MuteRKelly is extremely grateful to RCA\/Sony for finally doing the right thing and dropping [alleged] child molester, R Kelly, from the label,\u201d the campaign said in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s high time corporations put people over profit and stop supporting artists who have a track record of abusing young women.\u201d<\/p>\n

They continued that they\u2019re not done yet. \u201cWhile we are excited about this news, this is not the end of the road for #MuteRKelly,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cWe are still fighting to get his music off radio, to have his songs removed from streaming services and to get his upcoming concerts canceled. We will not stop until the community at large has completely divested itself from R. Kelly, and he can no longer use his wealth to insulate himself from the consequences of his crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time\u2019s Up expressed gratitude to the label for its action in a tweet<\/a> but echoed #MuteRKelly\u2019s stance that it\u2019s own the first step toward its agenda. \u201cThank you Sony and RCA for your leadership in refusing to profit off the trauma of black girls and women,\u201d it wrote. \u201cSpotify, Tidal, Apple Music [and] Pandora should follow your lead and #MuteRKelly. All allies in the fight against sexual violence must take a stand on this toxic issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization Color of Change, which campaigns for social justice in black communities, offered a similar sentiment. \u201cAfter years of profiting from R. Kelly, despite their knowledge of his [alleged] sexual abuse of black girls, Sony\u2019s RCA is finally acting,\u201d the organization\u2019s managing director of campaigns, Arisha Hatch, said in a statement. \u201cThis move comes just two days after Color of Change and our partners brought our protest to the doorsteps of the label\u2019s headquarters.<\/em> This is a huge victory for the survivors who came forward, both in Surviving R. Kelly<\/em> and before, and all young black women, who are systematically undervalued in our society. This victory belongs to the survivors of his abuse \u2014 their brave testimonies played a critical role in pushing RCA to drop R. Kelly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2017, when our campaign to #DropRKelly began, over 80,000 Color of Change members raised their voices to hold R. Kelly and enablers like RCA, accountable,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe focused on RCA because for over three decades, the label promoted and profited from music by a man who [allegedly] engaged in decades of sexual, mental and physical abuse of black women and girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went on to echo #MuteRKelly\u2019s sentiments that even though RCA has cut its ties with the singer, there\u2019s still a long way to go. \u201cOur fight is unfinished: there are still so many institutions in the music industry who continue to enable his [alleged] abuse,\u201d she said. \u201cRCA can and should go one step further and retire R. Kelly\u2019s albums and songs. Streaming services, like Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, Pandora must stop streaming R. Kelly, as they provide R. Kelly an ongoing revenue stream to maintain his [alleged] sex trafficking operation. Artists who have worked with R. Kelly must step up and request their music be pulled as well. They must act now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Care2, a network that provides voices to humanitarian causes with petitions and campaigns, also showed its support of RCA\u2019s move to drop the singer. Its site has been hosting a petition, which has gained nearly 111,000 signatures, calling on the label to fire him. \u201cIt\u2019s long past time that Sony Music took a stand for black and brown girls and put a check on R. Kelly and his [alleged] horrific abuse of young girls, which went on for decades with impunity,\u201d reads a statement from the organization. \u201cBlack women have stood at the forefront of this fight, and for nearly two years, Care2 is proud to have worked with the #MuteRKelly founders, Oronike Odeleye and Kenyette Barnes, and countless others\u00a0to hold RCA accountable for its continued partnership with Kelly. We applaud the label for taking the right step in the face of public outcry over its ties to him, and implore other corporations and artists to do the same. R. Kelly is a [alleged] serial sexual predator and has no place in the music industry \u2014 or in any industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Now that RCA has dropped R&B singer R. Kelly, who has faced decades of allegations of sexual misconduct, the activists who have petitioned the labels to drop him are calling it a victory. In the summer of 2017, around the time that Buzzfeed News reported that the R&B singer was supposedly holding women in his […]<\/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-792184","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 16:13:02","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\/792184","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=792184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}