R Kelly

I need to read his new memoir:

"As the film credits started to roll, I couldn't move. I burst into tears. People walking past me patted me on the back, trying to console me. 'The Notebook' was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together.

But I was also crying because I remembered a Valentine's Day -- when a helicopter dropped a rainfall of roses -- that had come and gone ... My marriage had died. And there was nothing I could do to bring it back."

A rainfall of roses!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ONxUdkyOL._SS500_.jpg

oh shit that's out already? sign me up

ASS SOUL: THE DIARY OF ME

really nice, thoughtful piece at the nyer on this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/08/r-kellys-revealing-auto-hagiography.html

i've never read all that much about him, so didn't know even some of the sadder, biographical details. i can't remember if the book's out, is anyone reading?

was going to post something in the comments, but it looks like the first guy already called him out:

Correction: Bidget's husband isn't a midget. She cheats on her husband with a midget.

book came out last month. dunno why I haven't ordered it yet.

new song is good : https://soundcloud.com/r-kellyofficial/r-kelly-genius

Its v nice

http://instagram.com/p/e-ps0kIkRg/

Everyone itt should vote in this:
HAPPY PEOPLE COME AND POLL IN THE NAME OF LOVE — R. Kelly artist poll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sysrLIWoDpE

http://www.gq.com/story/r-kelly-confessions

Given that a lot of people believe that the video shows you, some of the behaviors on the video have become associated with you, particularly urination as part of sex. Pissing on people. You must have seen that Dave Chappelle skit.
“No, I haven't.”

He did several clips on his show.
“David Chappelle? [as though trying to place the name] David Chappelle? I don't…”

Chappelle's Show. Very famous.
“Okay…comedian?”

Really famous comedian.
“Okay, a comedian. Okay…go on.”

And acting as you, he did a parody of “Ignition (Remix)” called “Piss on You.”
“Mmmm.”

Likewise Macklemore mentioned it in his first big hit. [“Thrift Shop” includes the lyric Probably shoulda washed this, smells like R. Kelly's sheets…pissssss.] This has become part of popular culture.
“Whole lot of things become popular culture.”

But this is your name.
“Especially when it comes to a comedian, man. First of all, I have no respect for a comedian when it comes to being serious. If you get that. That's a joke.”

But this is your name and your reputation—pull up any YouTube video of yours and read the comments underneath, and pretty quickly there'll be a comment relating to this.
“Mmmm. Okay. Of course it is.”

Well, to ask the embarrassing question—to give you a chance to clarify something—and this wouldn't be illegal, but is that something you like as part of sex?
“Absolutely not.”

“Well, my opinion on that is, I don't know what happened. I'm a fan of Bill Cosby's from the Bill Cosby show, of course—who's not?—and for me to give my opinion on something that I have no idea if it's true or not, all I can say is that it was a long time ago. And when I look on TV and I see the 70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, or 19, there's something strange about it. That's my opinion. It's just strange.”

Although if—
“[interrupts] It's strange. Strange is strange. I can't explain strange. That's why strange is strange. Because it's something we can't explain.”

But don't you think that if they're telling the truth, it doesn't matter how long ago it was?
“If God showed me that they were telling the truth, I would say that's wrong. I don't care if it was a zillion years ago. But God would have to do that, because God is the only one can show me that. No man can tell me that. No woman can tell me that. And when you wait 70 years, 50 years, 40 years, to say something that simple, it's strange. You know why I say that is because it happened to me, and it wasn't true.”

70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, or 19, there's something strange about it.

Yeah, R. Kelly wishes a whole lot of people can't remember what happened to them when they were 17. Or 16. Or 15.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimderogatis/parents-told-police-r-kelly-is-keeping-women-in-a-cult

More revelations from DeRo.

I hope all of the "separate the art from the artist" people are enjoying their R. Kelly music.

“In the back of our minds, we were thinking (my daughter) could be around him if I was with her,” J. said. “It didn’t really hit home. Even with the Aaliyah situation, now that I think about it, ‘Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number’ ... but you don’t think about that. You grew up with the song, and you like the song.”

unreal

How is this unreal? This is the least-surprising revelation about this dude that I can think of.

get those meet & greet tour tix now folks!

xpost

oh no yeah this is not surprising, horrifying but not suprirsing

i meant the logic in that quote josh posted

also i think ilx as a whole really needs to do a mea culpa for how much we used to clown on dero, like okay is he a corny critic, sure, but stuff like this he's doing is real reportage and real journalism and worth more than a boatload of record review, he's really stuck to this story when no one else would and the industry obviously would prefer to forget these children.

Seriously. Hopper, for all her work, got far more credit than she deserved for that VV piece, which really in the end just amplified DeRo's voice/reporting. Jim's always done real reporting, though, and done a good job with it, but he's also done and said a lot of silly stuff, which can get in the way.

I admire Dan's civic dedication in ensuring every R Kelly thread is updated with this.

I'm imagining him using the office label maker to print stickers and going to the record stores on lunch break to appropriately label every R Kelly related product

And I'll say I know that man, he is a friend of mine.

I did not realize Buzzfeed did real journalism, admirable

horrible story, and even if the sexual misconduct allegations are nothing new I hadn't heard about the manipulative/cultish side of it

just to get the morals clear tho, is the general suggestion that we boycot R Kelly?

sterling's initial reaction on the teenie pron thread is still one of the most O_O things i've seen on ilx

also i think ilx as a whole really needs to do a mea culpa for how much we used to clown on dero

He can stand by his aesthetic takes and I can happily rubbish them, not that he would need to bother or care what anyone else thinks to start with. I will also gladly distinguish between opinions over said musical aesthetics and, per your note, actual reporting. On that front he has clearly done the work.

ILX in general should do more of a mea culpa for championing and celebrating the works of R. Kelly, IMO.

insofar as they were always terrible (Trapped in the Closet is at best a campy trainwreck), yes

his also being a terrible person is indisputable at this point

Here's a charming Drew Millard piece from 2013.

wow that piece is amazingly terrible

matt otm about dero

kelly's music unfortunately is great. i defintely have been a lot less invested in him and his work after these stories started to become more and more numerous tho. seems like a monster

Never liked a note this guy made. To think even early on people were comparing him to Prince...

That Millard piece is a gigantic pile of horseshit.

I belieeeeeve he should diiiie

ugh what a psycho. I've loved his music since I was a youngster but I'm fine putting it aside. pretty hard to separate the art from the artist at this point.

Separating the art from the man becomes virtually impossible given how much of it is about sex.

yea

for sure. it would be difficult to separate this sort of thing for any artist but R. comes off as an insane freak on nearly everything he does which makes it downright impossible.

Separating the art from the man becomes virtually impossible given how much of it is about sex.

yeah he is kind of unusual in this respect, usually artists are more circumspect or obfuscatory (or, dare I say it, artistic) but he doesn't seem to bother

like Spector's got some abusive material in his catalog, but he doesn't have songs that are literally about shooting women (see also James Brown, Michael Jackson, etc.)

well he has one that is about hitting women but yeah

right

sterling's initial reaction on the teenie pron thread is still one of the most O_O things i've seen on ilx

― nomar, Monday, 17 July 2017 15:27 (four hours ago) Permalink

Dude!!

well this is certainly a take

So... R. Kelly is in a polyamorous, dom/sub relationship with multiple consenting adult women. This is alarming why? https://t.co/V0HNSIIRzs

— ElizabethNolanBrown (@ENBrown) July 17, 2017

no one needed that

ah yes, the "naive people should be taken advantage of" school of libertarian commentator