R. Kelly may finally be getting jettisoned from the paint. In the wake of Surviving R. Kelly, a pair of Dallas radio stations have revealed they will no longer be playing the R&B crooner’s music.
Billboard reports that Urban music stations KRNB and K104 have asserted that R. Kelly songs will no longer get spins on the stations.
“Smooth R&B 105.7 and K104 made the decision to drop R. Kelly’s music from our playlists due to the outpouring of concern from our listeners regarding Kelly’s alleged sexual assaults of underage girls,” said owner Service Broadcasting Corporation in a statement. “There are no immediate plans to drop music from any other artists.”
Claudia Jordan is a morning host on KRNB and laid out their rationale. “R. Kelly’s music is amazing [but] now up against the background of what we know…. Where there were girls that were actually locked up in rooms and urinating in buckets and held against their will, even if they were over 18, it just has a different meaning now,” she said (see the clip below). “I just feel like, in good conscience, we just can’t continue to support this guy. We just cannot. Sadly there’s a lot of people out there and what they do in their work, they are talented people, but they have demons. And I feel like as a woman that is an advocate for other women…we cannot support this man anymore. I’ve been a victim of abuse from a man, and it wasn’t as extreme as this. But I feel like reading all the comments, we have to at some point take a stance.”
Dope. Now who’s next?
Also worth noting, R’uh is under criminal investigation in Georgia, also thanks to Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly docuseries.