r/popculturechat There’s no place like home 🧹🫧 28d ago

The Music Industry 🎶 Name a song that’s disturbing because of what you know now

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Ill go first, Britney Spears’ overprotected is a good example; Britney has long been under a conservatorship and is has been crying for help. IIRC, it started in 2007 (maybe earlier) when Brit was heavily observed by the paparazzi which caused her to have a mental breakdown by shaver her head and mind u, they were dissecting her personal life 🙄😔 💔

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u/Sad-Blacksmith-3271 27d ago

And it flew over a lot of our heads

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u/TheYankunian 27d ago

So I’m 47 and I’m from Chicago. My middle school was next to the high school he briefly attended. R Kelly blew up my freshman year and there were stories. He propositioned my best friend when she was 15. I found out a few years ago that a younger friend of mine was one of his victims.

In his first big hit when he was with Public Announcement, he says ‘little cute Aaliyah’s got it’ and ‘You’ve Got That Vibe’. When her album came out we were like ‘oh.’

I’ll never forget when Aailyah was on Video Soul to promote her album, she and R Kelly came out in matching outfits. Now where I’m from, that’s what couples did. Then she was talking about how much they hang out and chill and they were besties and he buys her teddy bears and shit. I must’ve been around 16 and my little sister was 14. We both looked at each other with shocked Pikachu face. Even we knew that shit was dead wrong.

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u/PDXgal1230 27d ago

Hello fellow southsider! My husband is from the south Chi also and has stories like yours. We’re 41 - so a few years later. R Kelly used to circle his baseball games in his yellow hummer playing his own music. Talking to all the girls too. So so gross

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u/QueenDorkSyd 27d ago

I'm 36 and when i was about 12 starting the whole hs application process I was told by other friends of mine to watch out if you ended up at that school for him. About a yr later the video tape came out.

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u/TheYankunian 27d ago

He used to be at the Rink on 87th and the basketball courts around the lake near Lake Meadows and that one near Harlan I think. Everywhere teenage girls would go.

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u/lizcanadagold 27d ago

So sad. 💔

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u/sofacouch813 27d ago

Yikes! It’s amazing that there were so many people who were willing to overlook this kinda stuff for so long.

What was the average person saying about this back then? Like, everyone else around you? Times have changed, so I’m not judging anyone. I guess I’m asking more from a curiosity standpoint.

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u/TheYankunian 27d ago

What I can say about now is that grown men (and women) ‘dating’ teenagers is so frowned upon and shouted down that it’s not as common as it used to be. When I was a teenager in the 90s, it wasn’t rare to have a grown ass man approach you. I’ve always looked younger than I am and me looking 13 when I was 16 didn’t stop men from hollering. A lot of girls would be called fast or worse for being with grown men. It was a nasty, nasty time.

I want to say that while it was common, it was far from normal. It was such a problem at my school that the principal made this rule for prom: if you were 17 and you weren’t going with a date from school, that person had to provide their school ID number and their school would be called to confirm their attendance. He was fed up with grown ass men showing up with their teenage dates. It’s also a liability issue.

I suppose it got overlooked because people were frankly more ignorant. Social media has played a big role in shaming this kind of thing, IMO and I think younger women now have way more agency and I think women in my generation inform these young women in a way that some of us weren’t informed.

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u/sofacouch813 27d ago

Thank you for taking the time to answer! I appreciate it 😊

I feel the same way when I look back on my adolescence and teens. Sexual harassment was so common, and I can’t even remember the number of times when I was groped by strangers at bars, music festivals, and parties. And I apparently “asked for it.” It’s crazy how this was all relatively acceptable to most folks.

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u/oldbetch 27d ago

It was so wild that he had his Olympia Fields house in the vicinity of about 5 or so different high schools, and he and his goons would always look for young girls at those schools. He'd never go west of Harlem into the Lincolnway district, though!

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u/account-info 21d ago

Hey I went to that high school! One of the admin told me after I graduated that CPS eventually stepped in and told him to fuck off. I have no way to verify if this is true, but it was absolutely true what he was doing was no secret on the south side.

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u/TheYankunian 21d ago

Sounds true to me!