How many of you have held of the tale about the Pied-Piper of Hamelin? Personally, I only heard of him watching old cartoons. What I remember is that the Pied-Piper is some white dude in tights prancing around playing his flute. The flute had an attractive power of drawing mice in a trance to the musician. Again, I learned this watching old cartoons. So, I was partially educated and totally amused.
But there’s more to the tale, a darker side that cartoons never revealed probably due to standards and practices back then.
According to the tale, the piper was commissioned by the town of Hamelin to rid the town of its enormous rat problem. He managed to do just that but got stiffed out of the payment he was supposed to earn. The Piper swore revenge, and he did just that, by charming over a hundred of the town’s children into a cave where they were never seen again.
In the title, I compared the Pied-Piper to R. Kelly. The latter was once referred to as “the pied-piper of R&B’ after all, a title Kelly gave to himself. Given the gloom behind the former’s tale, it may sound a tad bit extreme. But given his history of sexual exploitation and pedophilia, and recent allegations that he’s running a multi-state cult of young black women being used as sexual concubines being held against their will, it’s becoming a disturbing reality we can no longer ignore.
Depressingly, Kelly’s fans will defend him. They will blame the victims, the parents of those victims and will drum up any and all excuses why they will continue to go half on a baby and step in the name of love. They will turn to the TMZ interview of 21 year-old Jocelyn Savage and will count that as proof that Kelz is doing nothing wrong.
At this point, news such as this is no longer surprising and no less horrific. It never really was ever since R. Kelly tied the knot with the then-15-year-old Aaliyah in 1994. Yeah, we were like, “That’s crazy,” but we still bought his music, because it was that damn good, even though it was made clear to him that age was nothing but a number. Like the Pied-Piper, we fell under his spell back then, and many folks are still entranced by his music enough to forsake the lives of black women.
Three of Kelly’s former associates, Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones, and Asante McGee, described the conditions within these cults:
“They said six women live in properties rented by Kelly in Chicago and the Atlanta suburbs, and he controls every aspect of their lives: dictating what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records.”
If that last part is true, those tapes should severely injure Kelly’s career. But if he was acquitted from the trial in which he taped himself peeing on a young girl, then I have doubts that even this story will convince people that this musician is sick as fuck. His music will still be played by DJ’s across the land, downloaded off the internet and paid for by his devoted fans.
Let’s be real, folks. If R. Kelly’s victims were white women, his career and legacy would be in a grave right beside Bill Cosby’s. Hell, if his victims were dogs, America would thirst for his blood. But since these are black women, it doesn’t seem like a huge fucking deal, right?
Que the excuses, usual victim blaming and drive to protect black men, even the most disturbed and destructive among us. But if we can’t save black women from the misogynoir men – including us black men – inflict upon them, then we can’t save the black community. Period. The code of silence will prevail while we continue to bump and grind into total fuckery.
So, what do you have to say about this latest disturbing revelation? Do you think it’s time – or past time – to finally stand against R. Kelly? If so, how? Is what he’s accused of common in the black community? And if so, what must be done to fix this problem?
Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.