How R Kelly’s troubling lyrics about underage girls gave clues about his decades of secret sex abuse
AFTER R Kelly was found guilty at the end of an emotional trial spanning six weeks, disturbing clues to his abuse hidden in his lyrics have come to light.
born Robert Sylvester Kelly, was convicted last September of nine criminal counts, including violations of the Mann Act and racketeering.
Now as the disgraced singer has received 30 years in prison, the chilling testimonies of Kelly's victims call back into question his characteristically raunchy and shocking songs.
AGE GAP
The title for the singer's most disturbing song must go to the self-explanatory "Age Ain't Nothing But a Number" by Aaliyah, but produced by Kelly.
The hit track, released in 1994, launched 14-year-old Aaliyah into childhood stardom.
Kelly, then 27, also acted as a close mentor to the young singer, and it's easy to hear his stylistic influence on the track.
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But the lyrics of the song, coupled with the famously bizarre closeness of the two artists, are evidence of Kelly's dark side.
In the tune, Aaliyah pleads with an older lover to "let her in," singing, "Age ain't nothing but a number/Throwing down ain't nothing but a thing/This something I have for you it'll never change"
BAD VIBE
Perhaps even more disturbing is Kelly's own track, "She's Got That Vibe," written about Aaliyah two years before when the young starlet was just 12 years old.
In it, he sings the names of women who have "got it," including "little cute Aaliyah."
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Another lyric reads, "Girl you turn me on/And I wonder/If I could take you home/I must confess/The tight mini-skirt you wear/I just can't help it baby/I can't help but stare"
Kelly and Aaliyah were inseparable in the early days surrounding the album's production, appearing at press events and concerts together, and sometimes even dressing similarly.
It wasn't until the release of the documentary Surviving R Kelly, which shocked viewers with victims' accounts of Kelly's abuse, that it was revealed Kelly had bribed a welfare officer to falsify Aaliyah's identification to state she was 18 so that the pair could marry.
The marriage was annulled the next year, and Aaliyah tragically passed away in a plane crash in 2001 at just 22 years old.
DOWN LOW
Many of Kelly's songs hint at his personal patterns of abuse, like "Down Low (Nobody Has to Know)," which is all about keeping a love affair secret.
In the song, Kelly describes being "Secret lovers, undercover on the DL/ Getting busy in the back of his Mercedes every night."
Another chilling lyric read: "He's out the front, I'm in the back/I locks the front, he's in the back/And I'll be damned, that silly b***h is screaming 'rape'"
The song takes on a horrifying new meaning viewed in the new context of Kelly instructing his underage victims to keep their relationship secret or lie about being older.
One victim, Jerhonda Pace, testified that she met Kelly at one of his house parties when she was just 16.
The artist ordered her to undress the same night and said he wanted to sexually "train" her.
"He asked me to continue to tell everyone I was 19 and act like I was 21," she said.
Kelly later became violent when she broke his "rules," and at one point, "he slapped me and choked me until I passed out," .
"I Like The Crotch On You" also ranked highly in shock value among Kelly's tunes, and not just for its overt sexuality.
At one point in the song, Kelly sings, "And once you see the D's/Oh, you're gonna want to freak me, freak me/Only if you're old enough, baby/Eighteen and over or sixteen and under"
The track, which came out in 1993 as Kelly was first breaking onto the music scene, references accusations against Kelly for preying upon women "sixteen and under" just a few years after its release.
'VICTIM NUMBER ONE'
Just three years after, Tiffany Hawkins, a young aspiring singer, became "Victim Number one" when she sued Kelly for $10million, alleging he repeatedly raped her beginning in 1991 when she was only 15.
The suit stated that Kelly "engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with [Hawkins], including but not limited to engaging in group sexual intercourse with [her] and other minors," according to court records obtained by in 2000.
Hawkins also appeared in Surviving R. Kelly, where she tells of bringing her friends, all between 14 and 16, to his house for parties that quickly turned into orgies.
She says in the follow-up series Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning: “I hooked him up. I introduced him to six of my other friends who were 15 and they all had sex with Kelly before I ever slept with him.”
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Hawkins tells of how Kelly lured her into the role of recruiting other underage girls by promising to launch her singing career.
"I was the first girl and nobody believes me and after that it continued to happen, again and again and again.";
