With nowhere to run and the pressure mounting, R&B legend R. Kelly has his back against the wall. The fallout from “Surviving R. Kelly” keeps getting more serious, as now we’ve learned that his record company, RCA/Sony, is shutting down the singer’s operation.
TMZ is reporting the record company is no longer shelling out money for his projects, recordings, or music videos. That’s the kiss of death for any artist. They also acknowledged that the open criminal cases in Chicago and Atlanta against R. Kelly are the reason for the shut down. With the uncertainty about what might befall the label’s moneymaker and still, goldenboy, R. Kelly, in the future, they don’t want to be left holding the bag.
After the #metoo movement, how to proceed in situations like this have become much more murky. It used to be that companies would just plow forward with whatever their objectives were, and hope the bad situation would resolve itself and people would forget. These days though, that playbook is old and is not going to fly.
When R. Kelly was in trouble the first time back the mid 2000s, he benefited, mightily, from being able to have funding from a record label with a bottomless pit of money. R. Kelly was able to keep pushing out the hits, and it did work – people forgot. People forgot about those young girls, each of them somebody’s daughter, locked away in dark rooms, waiting for the next command from R. Kelly.
Because of these tactics by behemoth record labels, R. Kelly has never learned a lesson, and now there are fresh accusations of him doing the same old things to very young girls.
Why hasn’t RCA records simply dropped R. Kelly from the label? Let R. Kelly figure this thing out for himself. No one knows the particulars of his contract, or if there’s a morals clause at play, but if there isn’t, who’s fault is that?
Undoubtedly, there will be more to report here, and we’ll let you know the next time it drips, friends. Peace!
