By Stanley Crouch
New York Daily News
The corruption at the center of the 21 indictments against 35-year-old black pop star R. Kelly for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old girl is far more profound than many might realize.
The videotape of the man the Chicago police say is Kelly has been for sale on the streets for the last few years and is available on the Internet. At the same time, Kelly has sold more than 20 million recordings. He has written both inspirational songs and the kinds of sexually explicit material that would have raised a much bigger ruckus if we, as a nation, weren't such suckers when someone reaches for the word "culture."
While the overall thrust of pop entertainment is abysmal, a bizarre separatist vision has emerged in which the most vile material produced by black people can hide behind the word "culture," and anyone critical of it can be dismissed as racist or a black person "caught up in white values." But what you hear and see are still what you get.
At least for the time being, it seems that Kelly has the problem of proving that the man in the video isn't him.
Meantime, Kelly's other problem is that of calming his female fans who have seen the videotape and believe he is the man having sex with the adolescent girl and urinating in her face. They find it and him disgusting. Some were so outraged that his collaboration with Jay-Z of "Big Pimpin'" fame did not do well. It was reported that women were calling stations saying they would never listen again if Kelly was played.
While the extremes of black pop material have been celebrated for being real, nothing will change the nature of the product faster than young people refusing to buy it. If Kelly is found guilty, very serious questions might arise. Corruption as it relates to black pop material might be seriously examined.
As New York City community leader Conrad Muhammad said to me, "This 14-year-old girl in that videotape should force us to ask a heavy question. Are all these adolescent girls who are being sexually exploited the children of the vulgarity of the pop industry? Is she a product of that product? Was she encouraged to participate in her own degradation by this degrading material? And when is our leadership going to stand up to an industry that encourages young women to allow themselves to be treated like whores and young men to become women-hating thugs?"
