On Tuesday night, Tarana Burke and Jamilah Lemieux joined Jim DeRogatis in conversation to launch his new book, Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly. The book charts the almost two decades DeRogatis spent breaking and following the numerous allegations of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse against the R&B superstar. In addition to building a damning case, DeRogatis’ definitive tome also takes on the complicity of individual players as well as the entertainment industry and society at large.
DeRogatis began the talk, hosted by The Greene Space in New York, summarizing his lengthy involvement in the R. Kelly case, explaining, “I thought it was going to be over for 19 years and it’s still not over.” Later on, he highlighted the fact that R. Kelly is allegedly still hurting women; specifically, Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary “are being held in a cult and brainwashed.” DeRogatis continued, “Those women are in trouble right now, this moment, they’re still there. No one is helping those women and their parents have been desperate to see them for more than three years.”
#MeToo founder Tarana Burke analyzed R. Kelly’s pattern of preying on young black women. “When you hear about the way that he posed questions to them,” Burke explained, “you know, is your daddy at home? He wants to know are they from single-parent homes, how much their mothers work. So it was the charm, but it was also vulnerability that he honed in on. Not just black girls, specific kinds of black girls who have deficits in their lives in particular kinds of ways.”
The conversation eventually turned to the importance of “muting” artists like R. Kelly, as well as the limitations. “This question is part of this larger question about what it’s going to take to end sexual violence, right?” Burke weighed in. “And in order to end sexual violence, we have to interrupt sexual violence wherever we see it... In order to interrupt sexual violence, we have to recognize what causes it. And one of the causes of it is rape culture: creating environments and culture where violence can happen. And so this is about our conscious decision that we want to end sexual violence. It’s not just difficult because their music is good. It’s difficult because we are steeped in it. Everywhere we look, every part of our lives, it is everywhere. We are surrounded by the culture that allows the violence, and the violence is deeply pervasive.”
“It’s a personal choice to say, ‘I will not participate,’” the activist continued. “Not even just so he can’t get the money, ’cause that’s the one thing, right? Making sure he doesn’t have the money to commit the crimes. But the other part of it is about us making a moral and conscious choice not to contribute to this culture.”
Burke acknowledged that “not everyone’s going to dedicate their lives” to the fight. “What I’m saying is that if you believe in what I’m doing… Let me give you the litany of ways that you can contribute to that, and one of the ways is turning off that music and being vocal about why, and make sure other people know that you’re vocal about why. ’Cause I’m trying to shut down this culture.”
Writer Jamilah Lemieux pointed out that R. Kelly likely “doesn’t get as much from streaming as the people who actually own his music would get,” and said that she tells friends, “If you absolutely just—if you can’t live without [R. Kelly’s music], you can listen to it in the privacy of your own home.”
“When you spend $50, $60, $100 to go see him,” she continued, “you are putting money in his pocket that he’s going to use to rent a room at the Residence Inn or the Ramada with these young girls that are being kept away from their families. And I think that’s the decision.”
As The Daily Beast previously noted, “Soulless’s case against complicity is perhaps its most damning, as DeRogatis’ detailed account of the allegations against R. Kelly contains moments where R. Kelly might have been held accountable. The singer’s second indictment, in February 2019, might be seen as a victory for DeRogatis, who spent so many years on a near-solitary journalistic crusade to shed light on Kelly’s crimes. Instead, the critic writes, ‘I felt only a profound sense of sadness. It was all too little, too late.’”
On Tuesday night, Burke highlighted “the systems of people who have to exist and be in place in order for [Kelly] to do what he’s done for the length of time he’s done it.”
Damon Dash was dating Aaliyah at the time of her death, and, as chronicled in Soulless, eventually broke with Jay-Z over the rapper’s decision to team up with R. Kelly for the Best of Both Worlds tour. Considering “how things shook out with him and Jay-Z eventually,” Lemieux wondered what would have happened “if [Dash] in that moment had put it on the line and said, either you’re doing this or we’re done… we’re not doing the Best of Both Worlds with that person, knowing what I know about him and Aaliyah. I just wonder... if R. Kelly had been cut off in 2002…”
Tarana Burke, Jamilah Lemieux and Jim DeRogatis discuss R. Kelly at The Greene Space in New York City
Janice Yi/The Greene Space at WNYCBurke added that there was a rumor that the tour, which was cut short, imploded when Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith, Jay-Z’s best friend, punched Kelly in the face. “The rumor for years has been that that fight was about R. Kelly trying to bring young girls backstage, and Ty was like, not today,” Burke revealed. “And then the concert was just over and you never hear anything else about it. But that secrecy though, this is the complicity. So many people are complicit.”
Speaking to that widespread complicity, Burke recalled having numerous “one-on-one conversations with black women in Hollywood and black women in music” in an attempt to find an influential person who would be willing to go on the record and talk about R. Kelly. “The only one who would do it was Ava DuVernay,” she told the audience. “The only one. I asked a singer who I didn’t even think could have a connection to him and she said, well, I don’t know because we share some writers. And another woman said, I would love to, but the backlash that I would get on Twitter, I’m just not ready for it.”
After Surviving R. Kelly, Burke noticed that “celebrities in particular felt more comfortable talking about it.” Still, she stressed that, more than holding celebrities accountable, “we have to hold each other accountable,” saying, “I think it’s a more important task for us to think about the ways that we are complicit.”
“I think it’s sad that some of these celebrities won’t come forward and talk about what they actually see in the industry,” she concluded. “But also, I just don’t know that I have the energy to exert to make them join this fight. They will join in their time, in due time, if they want to. And if they don’t, we still have to fight.”
