It's unlikely that Monday's moment of justice — when a federal jury in New York found the 54-year-old R&B R Kelly guilty of all nine counts in a sex trafficking trial — will mean much for his fans, given all the awful things they had learned already, some observers say.
"The lines have already been drawn," said Jem Aswad, deputy music editor for the trade publication Variety, who has been covering R. Kelly for 20 years. "The people that are going to listen to R. Kelly’s music are still listening to it. I don’t think a guilty verdict is going to change their minds."
Still, advocates hope the criminal conviction brings a moral reckoning, reports Fox Business.
Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, understands how irresistible the music of R. Kelly can be for people who grooved to songs like "Ignition," but said, "People should just have a second thought about the message that it sends."
Kelly had long managed to avoid professional consequences amid decades of reports of sexual abuse of young women and children, from his illegal marriage to R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994, when she was just 15, to a 2002 arrest in which he was accused of recording himself sexually abusing and urinating on a 14-year-old girl.
The Grammy winner, once called the King of R&B, has had a dozen albums reach platinum or multiple platinum status. His biggest hits include "I Believe I Can Fly" and "Bump N’ Grind." His songs ranged from explicit to romantic, popular both in the clubs and at weddings.
The people he has worked with are a who's who of popular music, among them Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Quincy Jones, Toni Braxton and Janet Jackson.
His popularity took a hit as allegations mounted in the past five years. His last three songs to chart on Billboard’s Hot 100 peaked in 2013, including a duet with Lady Gaga called "Do What U Want" and "PYD" with Justin Bieber. He hasn’t had a hit reach the Hot 100 since then, despite releasing two albums and several singles. He has had more success on other charts.
According to MRC Data, formerly Nielsen Music, a data provider that powers Billboard’s charts, Kelly’s airplay spins and audience dropped significantly between 2017 and 2021, and digital sales followed a similar pattern.
However, his streaming on-demand numbers have remained about the same, averaging more than 6 million per week for most of 2021.
Neither Spotify nor Apple Music responded to questions Tuesday about whether they would modify their use of R. Kelly’s music on their platforms.
Spotify has made such a move before but got pushback.
In 2018, amid the momentum of the #MeToo movement and a campaign to #MuteRKelly, the service removed his music from playlists after establishing a new policy on hate content and hateful conduct. His music was still available, but Spotify stopped promoting it.
Yet as many pointed out at the time, the history of pop, R&B and rock music is overloaded with artists who not only sexually abused underaged girls, but also celebrated it in their songs.
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