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Music station bans R Kelly
07/06/2002 12:56 - (SA)
Chicago - One of Chicago's top music stations pulled R&B megastar R Kelly from its playlist on Thursday after his arrest on child pornography charges. An opinion poll showed wide support for more such action.
Kelly's home-town station WBBM-FM said it had a responsibility to uphold community standards following accusations that the singer had appeared in a pornographic videotape with an underage girl.
The Chicago Sun-Times, which was sent a copy of the tape in February that it turned over to police, published a poll of 500 people who were asked if radio stations should continue to air his music. Fifty-six percent said no, 36 percent said his music should still be played and eight percent were undecided.
WGCI-FM, a Chicago radio station with a large black audience, said it planned to continue playing Kelly's music, even though one black community activist called for advertisers to boycott the station until it took his music off the air.
A record and video chain in Chicago said it had removed, from its shelves, a $14.95 adult video, R Kelly Bump&Grind - You Be the Judge, which purported to show Kelly in a sexual romp with two women.
The store said the women on the tape were adults and neither was the underage girl on the videotape that triggered Wednesday's 21-count indictment against the 35-year-old singer.
Kelly was released on bail $750 000 bail on Thursday afternoon. He has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyer said he planned to enter a not guilty plea.
Kelly, whose lyrics range from the religious to "bump-and-grind" love songs, wrote the 1996 hit single I Believe I Can Fly for the movie Space Jam.
He has sold millions of records, topping the charts in 2000 with TP-2.Com, and performed at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
But his recent release with the rapper Jay-Z, The Best of Both Worlds, has not been popular and Jay-Z has refused to promote it because of the allegations against Kelly.
The 26-minute tape Kelly allegedly made with the underage girl has been circulating for months. Bootleg copies were hot sellers on the streets.
- Reuters
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South Africa
