Watch R. Kelly Address Music, Fame: ‘I’m Handcuffed By My Destiny’
A recent Facebook video shows R. Kelly telling a laudatory, packed room that “it’s too late” for his musical influence to be curtailed. The clip was initially uploaded May 17th before Spin reposted it on May 22nd.
“I’ma tell you something,” Kelly said in the brief clip. “I’ma take this musical shit, and I’ma inject these motherfuckers … I’m handcuffed by my destiny. It’s too late. They shoulda did this shit 30 years ago. It’s too late. The music has been injected into the world.”
The embattled R&B singer is seen smoking a cigar and holding a drink in a room full of men. He toasts to them: “To all the strong motherfuckers in here right now. Motherfuckers like you is why I still continue to do what I do, because I have a basketball mentality,” Kelly said. “As long as I’ve got the ball, the world is on defense.”
In the last year, numerous women made various allegations against Kelly, including for physical abuse and sexual misconduct. On Monday, days after the video emerged, Faith Rodgers filed a lawsuit against the singer in New York accusing him of “a sexual assault incident resulting in serious bodily injury.”
In April, the organization Time’s Up launched the #MuteRKelly campaign to discourage people from consuming Kelly’s music as a result of the allegations against him, and asked Kelly’s label, RCA, Ticketmaster, Spotify and Apple Music to sever ties with the singer. Spotify removed Kelly’s music off its popular playlists on May 10th. The following day, Apple Music and Pandora announced that they took similar steps.
Kelly did not address these developments in the video.
“I’ve got a million motherfuckers hating me,” he said in the clip. “And 40 billion motherfuckers loving me.”
So, remember that I told you about that random Antoine Walker FB Live video with R. Kelly last night? Well, here is partially slurring Kels proposing a toast declaring “it’s too late” to #MuteRKelly pic.twitter.com/a45z7EDis2
— Exavier Pope (@exavierpope) May 18, 2018