The Music Critic Who Kept Blowing His Horn About R. Kelly

Jim DeRogatis is an associate professor at Columbia College in Chicago, where he is instructing the next generation of journalists. Photo courtesy of Columbia College.

A person’s nobility is based on their actions in life, not the title bestowed upon them by others. Chicago is home to some of the most talented investigative journalists, award-winning beat hounds and dedicated community-based reporters in the world. Yet it was a music critic, whose dogged journalism work surrounding now convicted sexual predator R. Kelly, who should be recognized with our industry’s highest awards.

I don’t know Jim DeRogatis personally. But when you grow up in the Chicago, you know all of big-time journalists’ names: Fahey Flynn, Rene Ferguson, Bill Kurtis, Cheryl Burton, Walter Jacobsen, John Drummond, Ron Magers, Carol Marin the list goes on and on. While those are TV reporters, print media names standout as well: John Kass, Mike Royko, Laura Washington, Mary Mitchell, Richard Roeper, Rick Telander, the bylines mean something when you read a story, even if the facial recognition isn’t always there.

But Jim DeRogatis? Unless you were really into reading the newspaper, the name would have never crossed your mind. But I read Jim a lot because I loved going to concerts or buying new music when it became available and his reviews were great. I was also learning how to become a journalist while a student at Chicago Sate University in the late 90’s. When they make you the features editor your junior year, you need to figure out quickly how to write a music review for those complimentary tickets you got and turned into a cheap date. I learned the proper journalism format for concert reviews by reading and copying Jim’s style.

So, it was shocking to me when in December of 2000 I read one of Jim’s articles and it was about R. Kelly abusing young girls. I thought it was a wild story and perhaps untrue because Jim seemed to be swimming out of his depth. I said to myself, “but this is the music critic, not an investigative reporter.” I gave the article little thought but then Jim was writing more and more about it, I said to myself, “He is still a journalist. He is still going to follow the rules before he prints something because he doesn’t want to be sued. I need to look into this.”

And for years after that first article, Jim became the guy I looked for when news about R. Kelly sexually abusing someone else came about. When the news broke that there was a video of Kelly having sex with a girl who appeared to be 14 or 15 years-old circulating around the city, I began looking for the video myself so I could write my own article about it in the Chicago Crusader Newspaper. It didn’t take long for me to acquire a bootleg copy of the video because they were everywhere in the area of Madison and Pulaski on the city’s West Side. The images I saw are ones I still can’t get out of my head, years after I wrote about them and burned the tape afterward.

I can only imagine the stuff Jim has seen and heard that he didn’t report while covering the story of one of the most destructive and disgusting child predators in my lifetime. I understand Jim’s frustration with trying to report the story and having so many people defend the indefensible. I understand his frustration with members of the music industry who were still collaborating with Kelly on projects well after the indictments were handed down against him in his first trial. I understood his dismay with the Black community in Chicago, where too many kept blinders over their eyes as Kelly was clearly attacking Black teen girls in his hometown and paying off their families to keep quiet. I understand it because I had to cut people from my community out of my own life because of their dumb conspiracy theories about Kelly and because they kept going to his concerts and buying his music.

Jim’s perseverance is what all journalists, should, but don’t have. He never allowed his title as a music critic, get in the way of doing the work of a hard-nosed reporter. He developed sources, gathered information, reported the facts. And he did this consistently for years, even when it seemed it was falling on deaf ears. Had the ears of many who were in power at the time been open, they could have acted on Jim’s warning siren that was blasting throughout Chicago, and perhaps Kelly would have been able to prey on fewer young girls and women. Well Jim, I heard you and a lot of others did too. While R. Kelly’s conviction was long overdue, so has been the credit due to you, Mary Mitchell and Abdon Pallasch for your fine work.

Music critic my ass. You are a REPORTER Jim, and you should be recognized as such by being given the highest awards bestowed amongst those in our business. Enjoy your flowers and take a bow Jim. You deserve it.