He collaborated with stars like Jay-Z, Whitney Houston, Lady Gaga and Chance the Rapper, and headlined major festivals into the 2010s.īy then, Kelly’s influence was waning - he had not scored a Top 40 hit in a decade - and the campaign against him coincided with the momentum of #MeToo. But Kelly thrived before, during and after the controversy, releasing 12 platinum albums in all. In 2002, Kelly was indicted on child pornography charges after a video surfaced that authorities said showed the singer urinating on and having sex with an underage girl. Throughout the 1990s, he settled lawsuits accusing him of having sex with underage girls in 1994, at 27, Kelly married Aaliyah, his then-15-year-old protégée, allegedly using forged documents. “He’s not just muted or turned down, he’s in jail,” Hampton said.Įven before 2000, when The Chicago Sun-Times published the first major investigation into allegations of abuse by Kelly, the singer had been followed by rumors and accusations of misconduct.

Hampton noted that the documentary itself was “not a call to boycott - no survivor said that in the project.” But “social death doesn’t happen without some sort of narrative” that helps consumers make up their minds, she added, tracing that path from the “righteous” activism that sought to cut off Kelly’s financial resources through the Lifetime series and the criminal charges that followed.

(Kelly has denied the allegations.) Yet even as his federal trial begins in Brooklyn this week - he faces charges of racketeering based on sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping and forced labor - Kelly’s musical legacy remains far from simple. “Everybody on the dance floor stopped and looked at me like, ‘What are you doing?’”įor some, a rejection of Kelly’s music has been long overdue, a belated reckoning for a star dogged by accusations of misconduct. “It was immediately a vibe killer,” Gintowt said. The one time that Gintowt has spun “Ignition” recently - at the request of a bride - the experience only reinforced his stance. Growing up, hits like “Ignition (Remix)” and “Step in the Name of Love” were ubiquitous local favorites by the homegrown R&B star, and when Gintowt started soundtracking wedding parties, “‘Bump n’ Grind’ used to crush it for me,” he recalled.īut in 2019, amid renewed furor over decades of allegations that Kelly had systematically abused young women, the D.J., now living in the Bay Area, stopped playing Kelly’s music altogether. from Chicago, Richard Gintowt has a lot of history with R.

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