The Daily Swarm

Acquitted R&B superstar R. Kelly’s first post-child pornography trial album, 12 Play: Fourth Quarter, is due out soon on the singer’s longtime record label, Jive, but his management team has been seeking a new and more lucrative deal for future releases, and they’ve approached several other companies, including Interscope, home of U2 and Eminem.

Music industry analysts are divided about whether or not the trial and the verdict will impact sales of Kelly’s new music. The album’s first single, “Hairbraider,” released on the eve of the trial, peaked on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at #56. Another track, “Playas Get Lonely,” recently surfaced online but has yet to get an official release.

In the meantime, a group of 19 male professors, writers and activists in the African-American community – including roommate from the first season of MTV’s “The Real World” turned prolific author turned New York congressional candidate Kevin Powell – have launched a petition drive expressing outrage at the verdict.

Calling themselves “Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women,” the group’s statement urges people to “make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct in his private life and in his music.”

Primarily written by William Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history at Spelman College in Atlanta, and Powell, the petition was posted online on June 17. Since then, it has been endorsed by nearly 2,000 people, with many adding their own expressions of outrage beside their electronic signatures.

The petition begins by decrying the entertainment industry that rallied behind Kelly, the people who bought bootlegged copies of the alleged sex tape, those who continued to buy his albums and “worst of all” those who cheered his acquittal.

“Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly’s absurd defense and find ‘reasonable doubt,’” the petition states. “But there is no doubt about this: Some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.”

In other fallout from R. Kelly’s trial last month, the Chicago Sun Times reported this week that federal prosecutors are still considering a bribery or witness-tampering case against R. Kelly’s business manager Derrel McDavid, though they’re running into some serious complications:

The woman who accused Kelly aide Derrel McDavid of giving her $100,000 in three installments is the same witness whose testimony jurors discounted in Kelly’s case.

The woman, Lisa Van Allen, gave a detailed statement to prosecutors explaining how she flew to Chicago three times to meet with McDavid in the building where Kelly’s lawyers practice.

Van Allen said the payoffs were intended to keep her from testifying that Kelly videotaped her having three-way sex with him and the then-underage girl who was the focus of his child pornography trial—and to persuade Van Allen and her associate to turn over their copies of the videotape.

“The source of these allegations is a self-admitted liar, thief and extortionist whose testimony the R. Kelly jury correctly chose to reject” said Alan Mayer, spokesman for Kelly and McDavid.