NEW YORK (AP) – Will a criminal conviction do to R. Kelly’s music what years of ugly allegations couldn’t?
It’s unlikely that Monday’s moment of justice – when a federal jury in New York found the 54-year-old R&B superstar 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.
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.”