Listen Live
CLOSE

Text “ERICA” to 52140 to join the Get Up! Mornings w/ Erica Campbell mobile club for exclusive news. (Terms and conditions). 

The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!! - Media Center

Source: Steve Granitz / Getty

via Madamenoire:

After the six part airing of Lifetime’s documentary-series “Surviving R Kelly,” celebrities took to social media to both openly denounce and support the disgraced R&B star.

Sign Up For Our Newsletter!

Rapper Common, who is known for his activism and woke lyrics, spoke to TMZ about the guilt he feels about what has transpired against Black women under the hands of R. Kelly for the past few decades.

“I’m guilty of that too myself because I didn’t stop and be like, ‘Yo,’ and speak against this,” he told TMZ. “R. Kelly’s from my hometown. At the end of the day, he’s a human being. He has his issues and we see that, but I can’t condone that and I shouldn’t be allowing that to happen. We failed our community as black people.”

Common, who is a Chicago native himself, expressed the entire Black community is culpable for Kelly’s actions for turning a blind eye to the situation.

“We failed as a community because we knew these things were happening,” Common told the outlet. “And instead of trying to be like, ‘Yo. Let’s go and try to resolve this situation and free these young ladies and stop this thing that’s going on,’ we were just like, ‘Man, we rocking to the music.’”

SEE ALSO: 15 Things We Learned About R. Kelly From Lifetime’s Premiere of ‘Surviving R. Kelly’

Common’s comments come amid mumblings that prosecutors in Chicago and Georgia are looking to bring criminal charges up against Kelly.

Another Chicagoan, Chance The Rapper, received backlash for admitting in an interview featured in the doc that he didn’t react to the stories because the alleged victims were Black women.

“We’re programmed to really be hypersensitive to Black male oppression, but Black women are exponentially [a] higher oppressed and violated group of people just in comparison to the whole world,” explained Chance to Cassius. “Maybe I didn’t care because I didn’t value the accusers’ stories because they were Black women.”

ALSO TRENDING ON GETUPERICA.COM:

Common Speaks Out About R. Kelly: “We Failed Our Community As Black People”  was originally published on getuperica.com