Disturbing look at R. Kelly

SOULLESS – THE CASE AGAINST R. KELLY Jim DeRogatis Loot.co.za (R259) ABRAMS PRESS

STARTING on a positive note, the music of

R&B superstar R. Kelly has sold more than 75 million records worldwide and he was the 1990s most successful R&B artist. But, earlier this year, he was sentenced in New York to “30 years in prison for using his celebrity status to sexually abuse children and women”. He is still to face further sex abuse charges in Illinois and Minnesota.

In Soulless – the Case Against R. Kelly, DeRogatis has delivered a disturbing and powerful indictment of the music industry, R. Kelly and the politics of Chicago.

DeRogatis was pop music critic for the “Chicago Sun-Times for 15 years.

For more than 20 years, from 2000 when DeRogatis received an anonymous fax that “R. Kelly had a problem with young girls” he stayed with the story.

He spoke with the victims, people working in the R. Kelly “bubble”, experts and in the book also tells the story of R. Kelly’s career.

The breadth and depth of Jim DeRogatis’s superbly crafted “Soulless” makes for a powerful, harrowing, eye-opening and worthwhile read.