I’m a firm believer that when a legal process is underway, you keep your mouth shut. You don’t say anything. No matter how shocking or horrific the evidence coming out in court is, you allow the process to play out. There’ll be plenty of time to have your say once proceedings are over.
And the proceedings certainly are over for R Kelly, who now faces a very long spell in prison after he was found guilty of eight counts of sex trafficking and one count of racketeering. The details coming out in court each day have been shocking – Robert Sylvester Kelly has been well and truly exposed as an evil, manipulate and dangerous man.
As far as I’m concerned, he can go to hell. But are there others in the music business who have, shall we say, questions to answer over their own behaviour. The very plain-speaking Rebecca Ferguson thinks so…
If the public knew you would never watch certain shows! So they cover it up! #RKelly is one of many and you want to ask yourselves why it took so long for him to be called out? Why were people in the biz still working with him when everybody knew what he was doing? #RKellyTrial
— Rebecca Ferguson (@RebeccaFMusic) September 27, 2021
The tweet is somewhat vague and that’s entirely intentional. You never know when a solicitor – especially someone claiming to represent a person who portrays themselves as pure as driven snow – might be watching. So when she speaks of “you would never watch certain shows”, she could be referring to TV, theatre, live shows, other things or even all of them.
I get the feeling some could be facing some queries about their pasts soon. In the shorter term, Drake certainly has one or two questions to answer. Such as why on earth did he think it was remotely appropriate to release a song with R Kelly credited on it in the middle of his trial? And why did no one at Republic Records – part of the Universal behemoth – put their foot down and refuse to release it?
A lot of people in the music industry – and believe me, dance music is far from immune to this – will be hoping the fuss about R Kelly dies down soon. Because they know he’s not an isolated case. Inappropriate behaviour of all hues permeates music from top to bottom – why do you think the industry never does anything to stop these people?
The only question is who’s next? Only time will tell…
