By: Zach Fulwood
Something interesting is happening. Despite all of the rumors and alleged acts of sexual misconduct and predatory behavior, people are still listening to R.Kelly and I, for one find nothing wrong with it. While I personally can’t rationalize still listening to his music, I can see how other people are more in favor of separating the person from the art and continuing to support R.Kelly, the artist while also dismissing Robert Kelly, the person.
To be fair, I grew up loving R.Kelly’s music. Even at a young age, he provided a soundtrack for my childhood. Like it or not, he was my introduction to 90’s R&B and is a huge reason for my current love for that era of music. By all accounts, you’d be hard pressed to find another artist during his time that could hold the title of “King of R&B” the way he did. His music is amazing, timeless, and ultimately problematic and that’s where the dilemma lies.
The easiest thing you can do is dismiss someone who you have no personal connection with. It becomes a lot harder to do that when you have a positive history with an individual either directly or indirectly especially when it comes to the topic of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a hugely underrated player in all of this because as people, we love to look back at yesteryear and remember the good times of the past. In attempting to remove R.Kelly from your playlists, you’re asking people to remove positive memories from their past and that’s a tough sell.
Instead, people would rather choose to exercise some level of cognitive dissonance as it relates to his music because it allows them to solely focus on the music and how it makes them feel. Totally understandable but, as with anything, opinions are allowed to change when new facts are presented. Considering the majority of his records are sexually explicit, can you really justify enjoying those songs knowing what inspired the lyrics?
I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t still listen to R.Kelly’s music nor am I telling you that continuing to listen to his music means that you support his deplorable actions. I’m not your conscience so you’ll have to make that call on your own. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that partaking in his music is equal to condoning his actions. That just screams false equivalency and opens up a whole other conversation.
At the end of the day, two things can be true. R.Kelly can be a once in a lifetime musician and a horrible human being. If you’re able to separate the two, more power to you.
Categories: Lifestyle
Culturally Biased 
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