Celeb goss 16th January 2019 by Cara Croke
Artists Are Following In Lady Gaga’s Footsteps And Pulling Their Collaborations With R. Kelly
Celine Dion is one of the artists taking a stand against the singer.
Lady Gaga made headlines last week when she had her song ‘Do What U Want’ with R. Kelly removed from streaming sites following sexual assault allegations of the singer resurfacing in a Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly.
It took approximately 12 hours between Gaga’s announcement that she intended to remove the song from streaming services for the song to be actually removed. Since then, there has been reports that more artists who have collaborated with R. Kelly are working on having their songs removed from the sites.
TMZ reported that collaborations with Celine Dion (‘I’m Your Angel’, 1998) and Chance the Rapper (‘Somewhere in Paradise‘, 2015) are in the process of being removed from sites. According to Variety, ‘I’m Your Angel’ had been removed from YouTube but not streaming services, and ‘Somewhere in Paradise’ is gone from streaming services but not YouTube.
In Surviving R. Kelly, Chance the Rapper told reporter Jamilah Lemiux that “making a song with R. Kelly was a mistake. At the time, it wasn’t even present in my mind that people could feel any type of way about his presence on a track of mine. I think for a long time I was only able to understand R. Kelly’s situation and presence in the world when it comes down to his trial and his accusations and his accusers as a victim. I don’t know if that’s because I’m from Chicago or because he made great music or because he is a black man.”
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) January 6, 2019
A rep for Ciara told TMZ she’s taking steps with Sony to have her collab with R. Kelly, ‘Promise (Go and Get Your Tickets Mix)’, taken down from streaming services and iTunes.
R. Kelly has collaborated with a huge number of major recording artists — among them Jay-Z, Justin Bieber, Diddy, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Chris Brown, Mariah Carey as well as many others.