Kelly’s explicit lyrics, ventriloquized through a teenaged chanteuse, can undoubtedly sound disturbing.Īt the same time, listeners might find this R&B jam enthralling, with Aaliyah’s sultry and multilayered vocals pulsing just shy of a downtempo 85 BPM, and the chorus’s catchy, singable melody (tightly constrained within the first five notes of a minor scale) swaying like a snake within the confines of a small basket. Kelly secretly wed in the summer of that year.) For anyone who has experienced abuse - not least at the hands of an older or physically dominant person - R. Kelly for Aaliyah, who began recording the song at age 14. I would certainly grant permission to any students who ask to duck out of the classroom because they’re upset by, say, “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,” the 1994 ballad written by R. My job is to teach them how to think critically about the consequences of consumption, the nature of aesthetic enchantment, the tangled networks of music-industrial forces, and the rhetorical strategies displayed by people on multiple sides of a given issue. To be clear, it’s not my job to tell students what music they should love or consume. (Instead of streaming these songs and generating clicks, I play them in class using CDs from the school’s music library whenever possible.) For courses emphasizing European classical music, I conduct similar exercises with Richard Wagner’s music dramas, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (an opera condemned by some writers as a misogynist rape fantasy). But when I play “Black or White” and “We Are the World,” I also want these influential recordings to remind students firsthand of our collective susceptibility to seduction, musical and otherwise. I continue to play Michael Jackson in popular music classes today because, in part, I feel obligated to deal with questions of historical context and stylistic lineage. Believing you can’t quit someone or something that’s become an indelible part of who you are. Yet in our relationships with music and with people, there are shared dimensions of coercion, turmoil, and psychic unraveling. Our vulnerability to charismatic music offers a key to understanding our vulnerability to charismatic people, institutions, and ideologies more broadly. To feel uncomfortable and trapped in a relationship with lovable music made by problematic musicians is not so different from feeling uncomfortable and trapped in a relationship with a problematic partner. The emotions are too messy.īut that last reason is exactly why I do choose to play such songs - now more than ever - for the college students in my music classes. My threefold reasons aren’t especially new: First, I don’t wish to contribute to the streaming revenue for these artists or their estates second, there’s so much other music in the world to discover and finally, I feel strange nowadays - unsettled, enticed, guilty, complicit - whenever I hear, say, “I Believe I Can Fly” or “Man in the Mirror” on the car radio or in a mall. Others argue that the monumental oeuvre of an icon such as Jackson is simply “ too big to cancel.”įor purposes of private enjoyment, I don’t seek out the music of R. Granted, as implied by Ansari’s jokes, some listeners continue to debate whether the quality and utility of music created by alleged abusers should bear on the permissibility of its consumption. Kelly and HBO’s Leaving Neverland - and with #MuteRKelly, #CancelMJ, and #MeToo seared into public consciousness - cancel culture is in full swing. Chris Keenan puts it, “is a 100-percent no-go at all gigs now.” In the wake of Lifetime’s docuseries Surviving R. Kelly and Michael Jackson from wedding playlists. Plenty of couples these days are actually banning R. I’ll take the hit on Kells, but Michael is a bridge I’m not willing to cross. “You guys are all collectively like, ‘Uh, I don’t know what to tell you, Aziz. “That was way less people!” Ansari exclaimed with widened eyes, drawing much abashed laughter. Only a smattering of claps, as sporadic and muffled as popcorn in a microwave. Minutes later, arriving at the subject of Michael Jackson, the comedian cast another line, this time with more dubious bait: “Clap if you’re done with Michael Jackson.” The large crowd applauded and cheered loudly. Kelly,” Aziz Ansari instructed the audience during his recent Netflix stand-up special, Right Now. “Just out of curiosity, you guys, clap if you’re done with R.
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