dream hampton insists on holding R. Kelly accountable for the alleged victimization of women over the years. The release of her documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, revived concerns about the singer's 2008 acquittal and appears to have played an essential part in the legal current efforts aimed to bring him to justice. The producer has since detailed her perception of one of the sex tapes featuring Kelly apparently engaging with a minor.
First, she acknowledges the "ecosystem" that has supported and enabled Kelly over the years. "There's a record industry that continued to do business with him in small and big ways," she said. hampton points out how his music actually benefitted from the documentary's release. "We've seen five million streams of his music happen directly after the docuseries aired, and we saw two of his songs re-chart." She hopes for the destruction of both kinds of support.
"It's really well-known in Chicago, for generations," dream said, referring to R. Kelly apparent fetish for young girls. "He would cruise McDonald's near high schools and have someone from his team go up to a girl, get her number and she didn't have to be anything. She didn't have to have long hair or short hair. [She could] be light skinned or dark skinned and have a great body or a bad one. All she had to be was young."
The images presented in one of the sex videos still surprised hampton. "I didn't watch it until I began making this docuseries. ... I avoided it because I thought it to be child porn just from the descriptions. But when I actually saw it, it had nothing to do with sex. It was all about barking commands at and humiliating and degrading this young, young girl," she explained.
"She appears to be prepubescent, but we later learned that she was Sparkle's niece, and there was a whole trial about that case," dream continued. "Sparkle was an R&B singer who lived in the studio. She was being mentored by R. Kelly. He was producing and writing her album. So, he met that victim because her aunt lived in the studio, as one does when one's recording an album, and her family, who were a family of musicians, would come by. He met her, Sparkle says, as early as 12."
Read her full account here.
