This is what the Africana A-List had to say about R. Kelly on March 7, 2003:

1. R. Kelly's on top of the charts (and your daughters)

In its ongoing effort to remain true to the hallowed mandate to be your Gateway to Black World, Africana.com has over the last year-and-a-half seen fit to throw quite a few pixels at the various scandals occasioned by the alleged pervy predilections of singer R. Kelly. This coverage has run the expected gamut--pro-R, anti-R, sad-and-confused-about-R--but, surprisingly, the numerous articles produced a mini-flood of email, not attacking Kelly, but professing staunch support for the R. Our reaction to these letters was, as you'd imagine, negative. Constant exposure to everything from amateur psychologists suggesting Kelly was emulating a child-marrying Elvis, to Cochran-like cautions "not to rush to judgment," to poorly-written screeds instructing us to "be real and stop fronting" because sex between young girls and rich and famous R&B stars must be, by definition, consensual as "all those girls watching him on BET are dreaming of getting with him sexually anyway," to the literally dozens of maddening, rote and ultimately inane one-line missives opining that "I guess age really ain't nothing but a number after all!" --well, you'll understand if those letters had the A-List just a little convinced that black folks must really be the most screwed-up, self-hating, in-denial population in all god's creation. After all, here was a vaguely unattractive singer with a so-so vocal range and a lazy eye, a songwriter whose great professional innovation has been the idiot savant-like ability to reduce the complicated realties of black intimacy to chintzy, lyrical prime-numbers along the lines of "you remind me of my jeep" or "let's go half on a baby," a grown man who definitely married (and presumably had sex with) at least one underage girl and allegedly videotaped himself having sex with and urinating on another, and yet, not only was there no universal outcry against him, but dozens of morons were writing in to Africana every day demanding that we stop defaming their favorite (alleged) child molester. Shameful and sad was the only way to describe it.

After receding into blissful remission for almost a year with the ebb of R. Kelly-related headlines, our depression came back full bore when we learned that his latest loveman oeuvre, The Chocolate Factory had debuted at number one on the album charts last week. The A-List isn't in the demographics business, but we've got a strong, sad feeling that most of the over 500K consumers who ran to stores last week to buy were likely grown black women (who at some point or another were girls) or the genuine article itself: black girls exactly like the ones for which Kelly is accused of having an unhealthy yen. This means that, perversely enough, the same population that has been at greatest risk from Kelly is in large part helping pay for his still forthcoming legal defense, a defense that could quite likely leave him free to, as he so eloquently puts it in his latest hit "Ignition," "stick my key in" more underage girls. Kelly has denied any wrong doing (on The Chocolate Factory he croons ''It's all because I'm famous, you know what I'm sayin' I mean, if I wasn't famous, then all this wouldn't be happening'') and only with a few notable exceptions, the success of his latest album has been greeted with a kind of shrugging "go figure" cynicism by a groggy celebrity/music press still suffering from Michael Jackson insulin shock. What's clear to the A-List, though, is that the non-reaction to Kelly's alleged transgressions is par for the course in a culture that de-values black girls as completely as does ours. Had Kelly been accused of molesting boys a la Michael Jackson he'd be under hot lights crying for Barbara Walters faster than you can say "20/20." And if there was a video circulating with images that may or may not be Kelly having sex with a girl that looked like one of the Olson Twins, you'd better believe he'd be in a CO's office begging not to be put back in general population faster than you can say "protective custody."

But hey, what do we know, right? We don't have children the age of Kelly's alleged victims and except for the cuts featuring Ronald Isley, we don't really like his music. That's why the A-List wants to hear from you. Are you the African American parent of a girl aged 13-16 who went out and bought The Chocolate Factory with your own money in the first week of its release? If so, we'd like you to write and send us a short essay (<500 words) explaining "Why I can look my daughter in the eye." The best essay will be published on Africana.com, and the winner will receive a copy of Sapphire's Push appropriately inscribed with a personal message from the A-List.

Needless to say, we had no takers.

This story originally appeared in the Village Voice in 1997, issue 41
UNTITLED.

How To Be a Player Directed by Lionel C. Martin

This story originally appeared in the Village Voice in 1996, issue 41.

ASHES AND EMBERS

JOHN SINGLETON GOES TO THE SOUTH TO REBUILD--AND TORCH--A LOST BLACK TOWN

This article appeared in the Village Voice in 1997

Money Talks
Directed by Brett ratner
Written by Joel Cohen and Alex Sokolow
A New Line Release
Event Horizon
Directed by Paul Anderson
Written by Phillip Eisner
A Paramount Release

reviewed by Gary Dauphin

Don't lie, you google yourself, too. During a recent extended session with my results I discovered that some completely random Russian archive has the bulk of my Village Voice writing career stored on their database. (Anyone speak Rooskie who can tell what it is?) Anyway, it includes articles that don't show up on the Village Voice site and which aren't in Nexis, and in the interest of owning my digital footprint I'll be uploading to ebog.com periodically. Don't pay them any mind.