What is 'Surviving R. Kelly' and why everybody should be watching it

Happy New Year to everybody and apologies for the lack of posts over the past few weeks - things have been hectic and I have some exciting projects coming up this year that I've been focusing on.

I wanted to talk about the documentary Surviving R Kelly today. SRK is a 6 part Lifetime documentary released in January 2019 that has become a viral sensation alongside the #MuteRKelly movement. If you're not familiar with the story, lets go through a summary of who R. Kelly is and what the documentary is about.

R. Kelly - The Truth

In short - R. Kelly was an R&B Legend (if you know the name but can't place him, he's the guy who did Bump N' Grind, Ignition & I Believe I Can Fly). In 1994, he took protegee Aaliyah under his wing and produced her debut album 'Age Aint Nothin' But A Number'. At this time, Aaliyah being 15 and Kelly 27, the two were married illegally and annulled 2 months later.

Fast forward a few years and Kelly had settled various cases involving sexual misconduct and sexual activity involving girls as young as 12-15 years old. In 2012, a video showing Kelly engaging in sexual activity with and urinating on a 14 year old minor became public. Despite video evidence, after less than a day of deliberations at trial, Kelly was found not guilty of 14/14 counts of child pornography and acquitted.

More recently in 2017, claims emerged that R Kelly had been keeping girls in a psychologically and physically abusive 'sex cult', with girls not being allowed to communicate with others or leave the premises; all the while being told when to sleep, eat, wash and how to dress. In the past few years, controversy surrounding R. Kelly has intensified and it seems that now the story has become more widespread, finally.

Surviving R Kelly - The Documentary

Now onto the docuseries, which features interviews with victims, Kelly's brothers, his ex-wife, producers, singers, psychiatrists and friends and is eye-opening on so many levels. For starters, the sheer amount of people involved and affected coming forward (almost 50 including friends, family etc) is mind blowing and these are just the people that agreed to be interviewed. Their stories feature similar details, like having to refer to Kelly as 'Daddy', his violent outbursts and being separated from the other girls so they could not converse.

The series doesn't focus on gossip or speculation; instead focusing on Kelly's previous court cases, the victim's stories, racial injustice, industry cover-up and the attempts to retrieve the girls remaining in the cult. Interviews with these girls' families are particularly devastating - with some parents not having seen their daughters for 2 or 3 years since meeting Kelly. One of the girls is rescued by her Mother on camera which is emotional (to say the least) and was the most moving part for me, as it really hit home that these girls were brainwashed and ripped away from their families. Kelly hasn't just physically abused these girls, he has exerted complete control over so many young girls' lives and even worse - he's gotten away with it.

Surviving R. Kelly also explores the music industry and how this many accusations in addition to this much proof could simply be swept under the rug. Various producers, people in the industry and even Kelly's previous assistant shed light on he lengths that Kelly's web of industry accomplices went to in order to keep the accusations at bay, keep Kelly in the spotlight and silence victim's stories. All the while, Kelly's explicit and sexual songs were achieving commercial and critical success - which begs the question, why did nobody do anything?

Kelly's lyrics and sheer volume of explicit songs and pedophilic lyrics didn't exactly do much to hide his tendencies, either. Even on the back of the underage videotape scandal, when asked in an interview 'Do you like teenage girls?', Kelly responded with 'What do you mean... teenage?' and still nothing was done. As Chicago Sun-Times writer Jim DeRogatis said in 2013, “the saddest fact I’ve learned is nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody.” and that is why this documentary is so important. These young women deserve a platform and a voice and shouldn't have to deal with their abuser's success everywhere they go.

#MuteRKelly

#MuteRKelly is a campaign that aims to remove R Kelly from radio stations, cancel his concerts and remove him from labels. The movement began in 2017 when stories of Kelly's Atlanta and Chicago home cults were made public and was started by activists. The #TimesUp movement is now involved in the campaign and the impact is growing by the day.

What has happened since Surviving R.Kelly / #MuteRKelly

Here is a brief summary of the impact of this documentary and the #MuteRKelly movement:

. In January 2018, after the docuseries aired and the Color of Change group protested at the label’s headquarters, R. Kelly was dropped from RCA Records.

. Stars such as Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and Ciara have removed their songs featuring Kelly, with Lady Gaga writing a long speech on Instagram filled with regret and apology.

. Protests at R. Kelly's concerts and online petitions.

. Spotify and Apple Music have removed Kelly's music from their editorial playlists

. R. Kelly released a strange 19 minute long track addressing the documentary, allegations and cult entitled 'I Admit' in July 2018 (in which he actually admits nothing, denies allegations and thanks his fans).

To sign the petition regarding Kelly's concerts, music streaming and music distribution and quarantine his activity in the industry, please visit:

https://www.thepetitionsite.com/270/975/290/sony-drop-r.-kelly-for-preying-on-teenage-girls/

For more information, please visit:

www.muterkelly.org

Also see: BBC documentary - 'Sex, Girls and STD's: The R Kelly Sex Scandal'

Thank you for reading and I hope that the documentary inspires everybody to get involved with the movement and support these victims in the way that they deserve. Please sign the petition and look into what we can all do to help, thank you!