Accountability in Music • Page 276

Fair enough, I retract my comment because that’s not helpful as you two have said. It’s my honest bad

 

There are definitely a ton of regular people who don’t know anything about this, but I refuse to believe that the industry people don’t. Not when half of them used that summer in 2015 to score woke points. Real Friends know, their friends know, their manager knows. They just don’t care.

 

Good

 

Thank fuck

 

Good, fuck him

 

Hedley's Jacob Hoggard appears in court for preliminary hearing on sexual assault charges | CBC News
god I hope he gets brought to justice

 

Parents of R. Kelly's Alleged Sex Slave Fear Suicide Pact

 

Blainer93 I know you may just be sharing the link for general interest and information, but in case someone doesn't take the time to read the story it's the parents of one of the two women's parents who think they "may" have a suicide pact, not the parents of both women. That isn't mentioned until far into the story, and if one doesn't look close at the headline it could be read to say "slaves" -- plural.

Easy to miss the lack of the plural letter "s" after the sensationalized word "slaves" huh?

"The Savage family lawyer, Gerald Griggs, tells TMZ, he believes Joycelyn and Azriel Clary are with R. Kelly's people at an undisclosed location in Chicago. (paragraph break) Griggs says the Savages are concerned the 2 women may see the handwriting on the wall for R. Kelly and have hatched a plan to kill themselves if it looks like he's not coming back."

The TMZ then says:

"We're told if the parents can't find Joycelyn they are considering getting police involved by filing a missing person's report."

Um, if the Savage family lawyer fear their client's child is about to commit suicide or has already done so I'd expect them to phrase their desire for action and response a lot more urgently than that. That's not meant to be criticism of the parents or even the attorney, just that that phrase sounds odd in context.

Next TMZ quotes the other parents who say they don't think the women have a suicide pact at all:

"Azriel's parents, however, say they know where the 2 girls are ... they're in the apartment in question that was raided in Trump Tower. They say R. Kelly had 1 unit in the building, which was in Azriel's name, and that the girls were temporarily kicked out during ... but have since returned. Azriel's parents do not believe the 2 women have a suicide pact."

It seems a LOT more likely that's the case, and the headline is more than a little clickbatey. If you do a Google search for "R Kelly suicide pact" there are mostly articles from sensational tabloids and content farm blogs. There are a lot of wholly legit black internet news outlets that are passing along this story as a quote from the "Savage family lawyer" but aside from them I don't see any relatively credible news outlets reporting on this now at all. There were vague stories earlier this year of a possible suicide pact at the same time there were other stories about fears the parents had about the women being held hostage but none of that seemed to hold up after investigation and the women talking to investigators, etc.

From Azriel's parents' perspective the women are likely just trying to find a place to stay, which makes lots of sense, where a suicide pact is obviously irrational. They likely are also trying to avoid the public spotlight, including contact with their parents which they may think will bring more attention to them. If they are in Trump Tower or some similar expensive, secure residence they'd be better able to avoid public attention (or so they might think), and if they aren't there they are likely just trying to hide somewhere else.

I think it's necessary especially at this point to be questioning press statements like this, beyond what one might question if all one can find references to a particular point are some of the less credible outlets on the web. It's worth taking time to point that out because it can really help advocates to better critique the press on possible hype like this.

I think R. Kelly's judgement day in court is coming up fast with all of the indictments for many reasons, but a big part of it is his dwindling ability to pay his attorneys. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets to the point soon where he's going to have to depend on a public defender for criminal defense. All of that is what's driving a lot of his former associates to plan how they are going to cooperate and if needed cut a deal with prosecutors (which has helped lead to more indictments against R Kelly), and these women may likely be planning to do the same thing.

 

The guy responsible for Fyre Festival’s false advertising is now an Emmy nominee

He's a nominee in four different categories.

On another subject, why is it so warm in here, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

 

Fuck off

 

Love too see Pitchfork report on this as if he's just taken time away from music for, say, health reasons and not because he's a predatory piece of shit.

Oh wait, that sounds familiar.

 

huh? it literally says "abuse allegations" in the headline and most of the article is about them lol

 

Admittedly I saw this at 8 in the morning but still, he can fuck off.

 

Here's a story from Vanity Fair on Ryan Adams' social media "comeback" that expresses well how mainstream media (not just music media) is covering this -- it's about half on his history of allegations and half on his social media posts. The sentences below we'll see repeated I'm sure elsewhere:Ryan Adams Breaks Silence After Sexual Misconduct Allegations: “Believe Women”

"It is unclear exactly how Adams intends to address the allegations, as the majority of surrounding Instagram posts he has released feature promotional snippets of his forthcoming album Big Colors—a project put on hold from its April release date in light of the scandal."

I think it’s clear how Adams intends to address the allegations, it’s through articles like this in Vanity Fair.

The article then elaborates on his soon-to-be signature "believe women" riff and adds:

'It also said, “I want to be a part of that healing. To go play have some great shows and put out these badass records.”'

Here's what I think has most likely happened, and will happen:

1) Ryan's representatives have at least begun a civil settlement with the accuser's representatives.

2) The FBI investigation has at least tentatively found no other accusers with allegations as serious or worse to investigate, which they may have known already back in February when news of the investigation broke, news that I'm sure many had known about but it was chosen to release at that time because it would have been more disruptive for everyone had the news broken after the release of Big Colors and especially if his tour was underway.

3) It will be nearly impossible to disentangle what might be best for the accuser or what she wants from what the prosecutor, the accuser's parents (though she's long become an adult), and her advocates want her to do or want to have done for her.

It needn’t be nearly impossible for anyone to say something unless there’s literally a signed nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that some specific parties can’t speak about some specific things. But even if there is an NDA you NEVER see EVERYONE who knows something blocked from talking about anything, it’ll be the choice of most who know something to not talk about it except -- in some cases -- through whisper networks played to their personal advantage.

4) The most authoritative information on any of this will come from Ryan (and his staff) who will tell us through his social media posts, his upcoming album, and eventual tour.

5) His tour will be called “Believe Women” and will kick off at The Rave in Milwaukee...

...livestreamed for an all-ages video chat in a companion app in partnership with the FEND Campaign, with production assistance from the Kevin Lyman Group.

OK, I was kidding in that last sentence.

Ryan is set to make a comeback to an audience that will have been waiting for him, a lot like Jake McElfresh did: Review: Front Porch Step - ‘I Never Loved Before I Found You’ If you can stand it, look at the lyrics to Front Porch Step’s “Drown” -- I’m not going to link to them but that’s a song that plays perfectly to this audience.

Like Front Porch Step, Ryan Adams' fans may view his behavior as dysfunctional, transgressive, and at times abusive but nothing worse because that's EXACTLY how essentially everyone close to him has ever talked about his behavior -- that’s how women in previous relationships of all kinds have described him, including his former wife Mandy Moore Mandy Moore Opens Up About Ryan Adams on Marc Maron's "WTF" Podcast: Listen | Pitchfork

If Ryan Adams is called out further on this, he'll just say he's doing what his fans what him to do. He's bringing them music they are willing to pay him to perform, congruent with issues the women in his life have wanted him to understand, confront, and grow from.

And at least that would be the truth, if he said that.

Like what we’ve heard from Jake McElfresh, Kevin Lyman, and a lot of other people, huh?

 

As always, Pitchfork is trash

 

???? i mean the pinegrove article is a different thing but I still don't see any problem with the article - not even its basically the equivalent of a news post on this site - about Adams.

 

Yeah I mean it contains literally no qualitive statements, the article is a factual account of where things stand with Ryan Adams. I guess the argument is that they shouldn't be posting news about his new music at all, but then the flipside is you're gonna get people asking "what ever happened with that Ryan Adams situation?".

 

What difference is the Pitchfork post from any of the posts made by countless other media outlets? A news post about Adams’ reemergence is so far removed from the profile advocating for Pinegrove.
Am I missing something??

 

Pitchfork is being criticized like Alternative Press for pretty much any coverage they give to musicians accused of abuse. It is often easier and less threatening to define yourself as something you're not or by something you oppose than as something you are or by something you support.

It's also easier to dismiss Ryan Adams' music and coverage of it as "trash" than to critique the industry and fans' motivations and possible personal issues in continuing to support his work with just enough of a break for his staff to come up with a new marketing plan.

I may not get a lot of likes for doing so but I tried to critiquing that in my last post above. :)

 

But Pitchfork hasn't posted any coverage directly related to his music since the story broke. It's all news relating to the abuse. If you want to talk about questionable coverage of other artists that's fine but it's a complete non sequitur from the post about Ryan Adams.

 

Who gives a shit about Ryan Adams “re-emerging”? Don’t post about it at all. He’s trash, it’s not news, ignore him.

 

I mean, I personally think it’s good to inform people of his re-emergence so they can warn others and tell others not to listen, as well as take any action necessary to prevent him from having the authority, power, influence, or status that he previously had.

Also, if you want to call out Pitchfork for posting about this, you have to call out every other publication doing the same. Pitchfork shouldn’t be the only one here and solely blaming them is wrong.

 

Literally this. This is literally the issue talking about this kind of stuff on this website. Aggravating.

 

It's gross that anyone is reporting on this at all considering the dude has done nothing but double down on his shit since the story broke. I know it's news and everything but, wow, people really give a fuck about an abusive predator under FBI investigation returning to music? Wild.