Watching R Kelly's behaviour with his fans at a Tampa concert, I'm reminded how easy people find it to dismiss black women's allegations

It’s been almost a year and a half since the decades-long allegations of sexual abuse against R Kelly resurfaced in the form of a BuzzFeed expose, poised to be (but not quite) the last nail in the coffin of the R&B singer’s career, as other revelations had done for similarly accused stars. But with each passing month, the singer seems to have grown more emboldened by widespread condemnation.

Rather than sticking to the usual script – denial, a meticulously crafted, but clearly insincere PR statement, professing his regret without directly implicating himself, and eventually disappearing before embarking on a premature forgiveness tour – he has chosen, brazenly, to stick steadfastly to the denial narrative.

So too, have his undying fans. During a concert at the Yuengling Centre in Tampa, Florida a couple of days ago, R Kelly was joined by some 2,300 of them, many apparently unfazed by the growing chorus of women alleging chilling abuse in the form of a sex “cult”, deliberate sexual battery, as well as the numerous cases brought against him by young, teenage girls who found themselves in his presence over the years.

A fan video of the performance shows R Kelly stooped in front of these fans – a mob of women screaming, waving, cheering him on, wiping his sweat as instructed through R Kelly’s breathy warbling – and then, his tongue. I couldn’t watch the video much longer than that out of violent repulsion to seeing a man with such serious charges levelled against him brush it them all off with innuendo, high on his enduring power. But according to reports, he then leans back, exposing his crotch, inviting these women to touch him there, too.

To these people, the allegations were silly rumours, nothing more – his “bad boy” status bolstered by each one.

“If there’s anybody in here that feels they are going to be offended tonight, they need to leave,” he’s reported as saying to the audience during the concert, “because it’s about to get freakier than a mother”.

Many of these fans, like myself or older, would’ve grown up with R Kelly’s music. More moved by a throng of bops than the prospect of supporting a potential abuser, who has had charges of making child pornography brought against him (of which Kelly was found not guilty on all counts), and who, in 1994 married 15-year-old singer Aaliyah just three years shy of turning 30 years old, they seemed more than willing to go down with the ship than abandon it in support of women who look like them.

“I feel like a lot of the times, we cast our own judgement.

“We don’t stand by that ‘Everybody’s innocent until guilty’. You’re guilty until proven innocent in the court of public opinion,” said one concert-goer. “I don’t agree with what he does outside of his music, but I like his music,” admitted another.

As I see it, these fans were silently agreeing that the wellbeing of the mostly African American women who have been brave enough to come forward, didn’t, and wouldn’t ever matter. Not when the legacy of the self-proclaimed “pied piper” was at stake.

It’s the same reason this story, and stories like it – I’m looking at you, Russell Simmons – has taken so long to gain any real traction. As so many people have pointed out over the years, black women tend to be subjected to much higher levels of scrutiny when it comes to being taken seriously over allegations of assault or abuse. The level of empathy we’re afforded too, seems permanently stunted. And I think, R Kelly knows it.

Similar to the white women who stood behind Brett Kavanaugh in the run-up to his Supreme Court confirmation, it’s beyond upsetting that internalised misogyny, in this case, racism too, are the most powerful forces propelling what should be a waning career, forward.

And like those who still, perplexingly, view Bill Cosby solely as the victim of a machine that will stop at nothing to bring a successful black man down, R Kelly’s fans, so many of them black women themselves, will probably continue to stick by him, especially if the pressure against him dies down once again.

My hope is that when Surviving R Kelly – the three-part docuseries featuring interviews from his ex-wife Andrea Kelly, his brothers, John Legend, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke and former R Kelly affiliate and R&B singer Sparkle, to name a few, comes out in the new year, the mound of rumours so many have already ignored will become impossible to sweep under the rug. Until then, I find it likely that R Kelly’s disturbing tour of arrogance will push on, unchallenged.